I’m always of mixed opinion about organ donation. Yes, it seems straightforwardly beneficial, but it’s also at odds with surprising things. For example, I’m signed up for cryonics, and this means it’s very import I not be an organ donor both because my organs would be unusable after perfusion and because if I were an organ donor and was willing to accept a lower quality preservation by possibly not having my regularly circulatory system in place to help with cooling, it would still be a bad deal because doctors would hold on to my body for an unspecified amount of time in not necessarily ideal preservation conditions for my brain before maybe releasing me to the cryonics team hours or days later.
This would effectively mean pitting organ donation and life extension, at least in part, against each other within EA. Not necessarily a blocker if people think more organ donation among people who don’t sign up for cryonics is worth it in expectation over, say, getting more people signed up for cryonics, but it’s worth factoring into the calculation.
[I think there are strong arguments against cryonics as an altruistic intervention by Jeff Kaufman here.] But I thank you for pointing out the tension :-)
I’m always of mixed opinion about organ donation. Yes, it seems straightforwardly beneficial, but it’s also at odds with surprising things. For example, I’m signed up for cryonics, and this means it’s very import I not be an organ donor both because my organs would be unusable after perfusion and because if I were an organ donor and was willing to accept a lower quality preservation by possibly not having my regularly circulatory system in place to help with cooling, it would still be a bad deal because doctors would hold on to my body for an unspecified amount of time in not necessarily ideal preservation conditions for my brain before maybe releasing me to the cryonics team hours or days later.
This would effectively mean pitting organ donation and life extension, at least in part, against each other within EA. Not necessarily a blocker if people think more organ donation among people who don’t sign up for cryonics is worth it in expectation over, say, getting more people signed up for cryonics, but it’s worth factoring into the calculation.
[I think there are strong arguments against cryonics as an altruistic intervention by Jeff Kaufman here.] But I thank you for pointing out the tension :-)