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Self-Driving Cars Will Make Organ Shortages Even Worse (slate.com)
One of the many ways self-driving cars will impact the world is with organ shortages. It's a morbid thought, but the most reliable sources for healthy organs and tissues are the more than 35,000 people killed each year on American roads. According to the book "Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead," 1 in 5 organ donations comes from the victim of a vehicular accident. Since an estimated 94 percent of motor-vehicle accidents involve some kind of a driver error, it's easy to see how autonomous vehicles could make the streets and highways safer, while simultaneously making organ shortages even worse. Slate reports: As the number of vehicles with human operators falls, so too will the preventable fatalities. In June, Christopher A. Hart, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said, "Driverless cars could save many if not most of the 32,000 lives that are lost every year on our streets and highways." Even if self-driving cars only realize a fraction of their projected safety benefits, a decline in the number of available organs could begin as soon as the first wave of autonomous and semiautonomous vehicles hits the road -- threatening to compound our nation's already serious shortages. We're all for saving lives -- we aren't saying that we should stop self-driving cars so we can preserve a source of organ donation. But we also need to start thinking now about how to address this coming problem. The most straightforward fix would be to amend a federal law that prohibits the sale of most organs, which could allow for development of a limited organ market. Organ sales have been banned in the United States since 1984, when Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act after a spike in demand (thanks to the introduction of the immunosuppressant cyclosporine, which improved transplant survival rates from 20-30 percent to 60-70 percent) raised concerns that people's vital appendages might be "treated like fenders in an auto junkyard." Others feared an organ market would exploit minorities and those living in poverty. But the ban hasn't completely protected those populations, either. The current system hasn't stopped organ harvesting -- the illegal removal of organs from the recently deceased without the consent of the person or family -- either in the United States or abroad. It is estimated that, worldwide, as many as 10,000 black market medical operations are performed each year that involve illegally purchased organs. So what would an ethical fix to our organ transplant shortage look like? To start, while there's certainly a place for organ donation markets in the United States, implementation will be understandably slow. There are, however, small steps that can get us closer to a just system. For one, the country could consider introducing a "presumed consent" rule. This would change state organ donation registries from affirmative opt-in systems (checking that box at the DMV that yes, you do want to be an organ donor) to an affirmative opt-out system where, unless you state otherwise, you're presumed to consent to be on the list.
They can compensate by giving out free motorcycles. And keeping helmets expensive, of course.
we're closer and closer to organ cloning.
Think of all those people who are going to die because of all those other people who aren't going to die!
You mean healthy people will keep their healthy organs, instead of dying and giving them to unhealthy people?
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Just implement a car self-driving mode that, following an organ shortage, starts driving the car very fast, so that plenty of organs for transplant are promptly collected. The only question remaining to solve is to decide if it is better to collect the organs needed from the passengers or from nearby pedestrians.
It will probably be a long time before truck drivers are completely replaced - take a look at railroads, for example. It would be technically possible to automate railroads right now, but the rail companies haven't done so; having a person onboard is very useful for legal liability, security, and fixing all the minor, odd issues that come up, and so on. I guess that we will probably end up with "freight stewards" in trucks, where the computer does most of the driving, but the steward takes over for odd cases, and gets out and fixes minor issues to keep the truck on the road, provide physical security to the freight, and help with loading/unloading at the end points.
What percentage of the people who need organ transplants are in that condition because their organs were damaged in an automobile crash? Is it significant, or is it tiny?
#DeleteChrome
Until the leap-year bug hits, and we have a bunch of organ donors all at once, right?
Seriously though, we're closer to lab-grown organs than we are to self-driving cars. This is a problem that is (fortunately) well on the way to being solved.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That is the worst example of the broken window fallacy that I've ever heard.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If less people are dying on the road (resulting in organ shortage) those lives are already saved. Can't say I support people dying for the sake of their organs. Hopefully through, it will accelerate artificial organ (biological or chemicoelectrical) development.
This! REading some of these posts, it would seem that some folks here want to go out and kill others to harvest their internal organs.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It will probably be a long time before truck drivers are completely replaced - take a look at railroads, for example. It would be technically possible to automate railroads right now, but the rail companies haven't done so; having a person onboard is very useful for legal liability, security, and fixing all the minor, odd issues that come up, and so on. I guess that we will probably end up with "freight stewards" in trucks, where the computer does most of the driving, but the steward takes over for odd cases, and gets out and fixes minor issues to keep the truck on the road, provide physical security to the freight, and help with loading/unloading at the end points.
That sounds very inefficient. I'm thinking it will go in three directions:
1) Remote operation, we do it with drones so why not trucks? If each truck needs help maybe 1% of the time one operator can support a whole fleet.
2) Location-based staff that help trucks in their area, like a tow truck light that either work at a depot or loading/unloading area or are on call.
3) Use armored cars, stronger locks, dye packs if forced entry and have the car report in as often as possible. Miss a checkpoint, alarm goes.
Pretty sure the moment trucks drive themselves the whole "one truck, one man" concept will go out the window pretty quick. That said I think we're still some years away from commercially available self-driving cars.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There are lots of things wrong with our organ policy, but the way to fix it is NOT to continue (or increase) dangerously stupid activities in the hopes of getting donors.
Instead we can fix the "no compensantion laws" that are ridiculously tight, and do simple things like:
1) Have tax credits that cover things like a) travel and housing costs for donors, b) unemployment payments if you have to take more than 2 weeks off to donate,
2) Require all government ID's (except passports) to have a field for organ donation yes/no, on the front of the ID. You want to drink, drive, etc. you have to at least think about being a donor.
3) Fix the opt - in system - either 1) Legally enforce opt in for donations so if you sign permission for organ donation, your heirs can not over-ride it) and/or 2) allow states to use an opt-out system, so people have to consciously say no thanks to avoid being listed as an organ donor, rather than go out of their way to sign up.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Fewer organs for most of us, maybe. But for Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Travis Kalanick, and the other self-driving car company executives... well, when they need an organ, a perfectly matching donor will have the perfect crash.