Thursday, November 25, 2004
This is a draft of a post i'm not to happy with - it should be shorter, less whining, more to the point. But i don't often do alot of revision of my posts, just go on to the next one, so here it is in current form.
Catalarchy, responding to an argument by some Will Baude, asks whether people should follow their own advice, or whether we should listen to people who don't, and gives the example of Peter Singer. The entry is called tu quoque, greek for 'so's yer mom.'
Singer urges people to give what they don't need to feed the hungry, but himself only gives 20% of his income to famine relief. They point to a Reason article that explores this. (oh! the article is from 4 years ago, i'd missed that.)
Now I'm a huge fan of Singer in general - he helped revitalize philosophy as something that mattered, was about what should we do next, instead of just yammering about the meaning of meaning. I think he has been widely misunderstood who know him only as someone who writes about animals or about abortion, etc. I've seen him as someone who asks, what do we believe is right? What are the consequences of that belief? What then, should we go do next; how is our behavior inconsistent with what we claim to believe?
Aside: At a time when he was known mostly for his work about animals, some found it funny that he doesn't like cats. Anyway, all this leads up to the following paragraph.
Reason: Both Japan and Britain have to import from the United States about half their blood plasma because they don't get enough from donations. The reason the United States is the world's largest exporter of human plasma is that we have commercial blood collection centers. So in a certain sense, if it's a good thing to do, to have these supplies, why not commercialize it?
Singer: There's at least an argument to say that the opportunity to give altruistically is something that fosters a sense of community, a sense of community ties. It is not entirely a coincidence that the United States has more commercial ways of doing these things. Maybe they do produce more plasma, but on most accounts the United States is also a society which has weaker social ties. Individuals tend to be isolated more easily and so on; perhaps this has some broader social costs as well.
At first this seems like a non-answer, a bait and switch. Because it is.
It's not in any way a justification for prohibiting plasma sales.
But it's a point worth discussing in its own right. What the US does well, or at least semi-well, is markets in everything (except blood, sex, drugs, etc etc.)
We have a society with high economic efficiency, high productivity, in which people are miserable, either in often-abusive nuclear families or living alone. I'm one of those. I live alone. There's a guy staying here, but just so we can split the rent.
I have a little contact with a couple family members and an ex, but otherwise I'm cut off from human contact except my online friends and market transactions - I go somewhere, I buy something. Without much disposable income, I end up with nowhere to go nothing to buy. And this is costly. I've been unhappy. Most of my unhappiness is because the government keeps fucking with me, but the loneliness is a big factor too.
I alsways assumed I'd be joining a commune when I grew up, and then the communes were gone, except that one in maryland where you have to be a flavor of christian that isn't quite my flavor. Maybe I just need to look harder, but the commune movement died out, and instead we tend to live alone in apart-ments, and they won't even let us get married, not that I see nuclear marriage as much of a plus.
If Singer is right that this dreadful loneliness is a consequence of markets in everything, that needs attention.
But now back to blood. There's two kinds of blood sales, plasma and whole blood.
Whole blood can be given (or in theory sold) about twice a year, plasma twice a week.
Plasma sellers are called "donors" which is a mislabel.
For ideological reasons driven by a flimflam artist named R.M.Titmuss, whole blood sales were banned in order to encourage altruism, with the result that there's been a constant blood shortage (except the week after 9-11) ever since.
The reason article tells me in Europe it goes further, banning even plasma sales, with the result that shortages occur, made up by the united states.
If this were a longer essay, I'd talk about my experiences as a plasma donor, and my observations about how the black community in town has less income but invests more in the kind of social networks Singer is pointing to. I no longer do it; it's icky and I prefer to do without the income than to go through it. $200/mo would make a huge difference in my standard of living. If I needed disposable income that badly, I could probably get a job.
So anyway back to my main point. When I was 19, in the 1970's, I wrote a paper for a class about "Rights and the Market in Blood" in which I pointed out the evils in banning blood sales. It got an A, I've lost my copy long ago; this was before the internet. I never looked into publishing it. And every year since then, there's been a blood shortage, and people die, and now and then I notice that and feel guilty that I haven't done more to fight to legalize blood sales. The altruistic thing to do is not to donate blood, but to refuse to until the sale of blood is legalized.
Now I think the quality of blood produced by sale is probably lower, and what with aids and such that's an important factor. There's probably been a lot of empirical research done on the topic, which I haven't followed, because I don't read medical journals. I don't even keep up with "Ethics" or the kind of journals where Singer publishes. Or their online equivalents. I spent the 80s being poor, the 90s becoming a lawyer, the 00's being crazy and depressed. The "become a lawyer" strategy was an attempt to get back into being an applied ethicist and policy wonk, but it was a failed strategy because of the crazy and depressed part.
This is ending up being alot of personal whining, when what I wanted to do was make a point about how Reason seems to get the point about banning blood sales to encourage altruism isn't altruistic at all; that the altrusitic thing to do is enable markets.
So if I still had the paper, which I don't, I could send it to them. Am i motivated enough to reconstruct the paper, or at least the argument? Probaby not.
Depression results in lack of motivation resulting in guilt resulting in more depression. I'm trying to learn to channel my limited motivation into less altruistic endeavors, like I should do my laundry and get a job, but not today, because it's a holiday.
(Depression-wise, I've recovered to the point where I feel fine most of the time,
as long as I don't try to do aything. Doing stuff, I get anxiety. Some day I'll get back to being able to balance that enough to do more. Not quite yet tho.)
Catalarchy, responding to an argument by some Will Baude, asks whether people should follow their own advice, or whether we should listen to people who don't, and gives the example of Peter Singer. The entry is called tu quoque, greek for 'so's yer mom.'
Singer urges people to give what they don't need to feed the hungry, but himself only gives 20% of his income to famine relief. They point to a Reason article that explores this. (oh! the article is from 4 years ago, i'd missed that.)
Now I'm a huge fan of Singer in general - he helped revitalize philosophy as something that mattered, was about what should we do next, instead of just yammering about the meaning of meaning. I think he has been widely misunderstood who know him only as someone who writes about animals or about abortion, etc. I've seen him as someone who asks, what do we believe is right? What are the consequences of that belief? What then, should we go do next; how is our behavior inconsistent with what we claim to believe?
Aside: At a time when he was known mostly for his work about animals, some found it funny that he doesn't like cats. Anyway, all this leads up to the following paragraph.
Reason: Both Japan and Britain have to import from the United States about half their blood plasma because they don't get enough from donations. The reason the United States is the world's largest exporter of human plasma is that we have commercial blood collection centers. So in a certain sense, if it's a good thing to do, to have these supplies, why not commercialize it?
Singer: There's at least an argument to say that the opportunity to give altruistically is something that fosters a sense of community, a sense of community ties. It is not entirely a coincidence that the United States has more commercial ways of doing these things. Maybe they do produce more plasma, but on most accounts the United States is also a society which has weaker social ties. Individuals tend to be isolated more easily and so on; perhaps this has some broader social costs as well.
At first this seems like a non-answer, a bait and switch. Because it is.
It's not in any way a justification for prohibiting plasma sales.
But it's a point worth discussing in its own right. What the US does well, or at least semi-well, is markets in everything (except blood, sex, drugs, etc etc.)
We have a society with high economic efficiency, high productivity, in which people are miserable, either in often-abusive nuclear families or living alone. I'm one of those. I live alone. There's a guy staying here, but just so we can split the rent.
I have a little contact with a couple family members and an ex, but otherwise I'm cut off from human contact except my online friends and market transactions - I go somewhere, I buy something. Without much disposable income, I end up with nowhere to go nothing to buy. And this is costly. I've been unhappy. Most of my unhappiness is because the government keeps fucking with me, but the loneliness is a big factor too.
I alsways assumed I'd be joining a commune when I grew up, and then the communes were gone, except that one in maryland where you have to be a flavor of christian that isn't quite my flavor. Maybe I just need to look harder, but the commune movement died out, and instead we tend to live alone in apart-ments, and they won't even let us get married, not that I see nuclear marriage as much of a plus.
If Singer is right that this dreadful loneliness is a consequence of markets in everything, that needs attention.
But now back to blood. There's two kinds of blood sales, plasma and whole blood.
Whole blood can be given (or in theory sold) about twice a year, plasma twice a week.
Plasma sellers are called "donors" which is a mislabel.
For ideological reasons driven by a flimflam artist named R.M.Titmuss, whole blood sales were banned in order to encourage altruism, with the result that there's been a constant blood shortage (except the week after 9-11) ever since.
The reason article tells me in Europe it goes further, banning even plasma sales, with the result that shortages occur, made up by the united states.
If this were a longer essay, I'd talk about my experiences as a plasma donor, and my observations about how the black community in town has less income but invests more in the kind of social networks Singer is pointing to. I no longer do it; it's icky and I prefer to do without the income than to go through it. $200/mo would make a huge difference in my standard of living. If I needed disposable income that badly, I could probably get a job.
So anyway back to my main point. When I was 19, in the 1970's, I wrote a paper for a class about "Rights and the Market in Blood" in which I pointed out the evils in banning blood sales. It got an A, I've lost my copy long ago; this was before the internet. I never looked into publishing it. And every year since then, there's been a blood shortage, and people die, and now and then I notice that and feel guilty that I haven't done more to fight to legalize blood sales. The altruistic thing to do is not to donate blood, but to refuse to until the sale of blood is legalized.
Now I think the quality of blood produced by sale is probably lower, and what with aids and such that's an important factor. There's probably been a lot of empirical research done on the topic, which I haven't followed, because I don't read medical journals. I don't even keep up with "Ethics" or the kind of journals where Singer publishes. Or their online equivalents. I spent the 80s being poor, the 90s becoming a lawyer, the 00's being crazy and depressed. The "become a lawyer" strategy was an attempt to get back into being an applied ethicist and policy wonk, but it was a failed strategy because of the crazy and depressed part.
This is ending up being alot of personal whining, when what I wanted to do was make a point about how Reason seems to get the point about banning blood sales to encourage altruism isn't altruistic at all; that the altrusitic thing to do is enable markets.
So if I still had the paper, which I don't, I could send it to them. Am i motivated enough to reconstruct the paper, or at least the argument? Probaby not.
Depression results in lack of motivation resulting in guilt resulting in more depression. I'm trying to learn to channel my limited motivation into less altruistic endeavors, like I should do my laundry and get a job, but not today, because it's a holiday.
(Depression-wise, I've recovered to the point where I feel fine most of the time,
as long as I don't try to do aything. Doing stuff, I get anxiety. Some day I'll get back to being able to balance that enough to do more. Not quite yet tho.)
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