Meni_Rosenfeld comments on The Least Convenient Possible World - Less Wrong

165 Post author: Yvain 14 March 2009 02:11AM

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Comment author: Meni_Rosenfeld 03 March 2015 04:25:04PM *  0 points [-]

The perverse incentive to become alcoholic or obese can be easily countered with a simple rule - a person chosen in the lottery is sacrificed no matter what, even if he doesn't actually have viable organs.

To be truly effective, the system needs to consider the fact that some people are exceptional and can contribute to saving lives much more effectively than by scrapping and harvesting for spare parts. Hence, there should actually be an offer to anyone who loses the lottery, either pay $X or be harvested.

A further optimization is a monetary compensation to (the inheritors of) people who are selected, proportional to the value of the harvested organs. This reduces the overall individual risk, and gives people a reason to stay healthy even more than normally.

All of this is in the LCPW, of course. In the real world, I'm not sure there is enough demand for organs that the system would be effective in scale. Also, note that a key piece of the original dilemma is that the traveler has no family - in this case, the cost of sacrifice is trivial compared to someone who has people that care about him.