wedrifid comments on Rationality Quotes September 2011 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: dvasya 02 September 2011 07:38AM

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Comment author: Raw_Power 18 September 2011 12:54:02AM 1 point [-]

I have left it ambiguous on purpose. What this means specifically depends on the means available at any given time.

IDEALLY: Universal means everyone should have a right to as much health service as is necessary for their bodies and minds functioning as well as it can, if they ask for it. That would include education, coaching, and sports, among many others. And nobody should ever be allowed to die if they don't want to and there's any way of preventing it.

Between "leaving anyone to die because they don't have the money or assets to pay for their treatment"[your question puzzles me, what part of this scenario don't you understand] and "spending all our country's budget on progressively changing the organs of seventy-year-.olds", there's a lot of intermediate points. The touchy problem is deciding how much we want to pay for, and how, and who pays it for whom, No matter how you cut the cake, given our current state of development, at some point you have to say X person dies in spite of their will because either they can't afford to live or because *his can't". So, are you going to deny that seventy-year-old their new organs?

Comment author: wedrifid 18 September 2011 04:39:47AM 5 points [-]

So, are you going to deny that seventy-year-old their new organs?

Yes, unless there is nobody else that can use them. If my watching of House tells me anything it is standard practice to prioritize by this kind of criteria.

Comment author: Raw_Power 18 September 2011 03:49:08PM 0 points [-]

I like this answer, if only for emotional reasons :). I also think the vast majority of seventy-years-old would be compelled by this argument.