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Comment by duchenne | Hacker News Reader

I am now reading "Red Star" a 1908 utopian novel by Alexander Bogdanov, where another advanced Humanity is living on Mars. In this Utopia, people frequently transfer blood one from another. The author presents blood donation as one of the greatest form of Fraternity.

Interestingly, Bogdanov founded one of the first blood transfer institute with only volunteering donors. At that time, most blood donations were paid. Later on, thanks to better conservation techniques, less blood was needed, and volunteering became generalized world-wide.

Bogdanov also believed that blood donation could rejuvenate people. His wife said that he looked 7-10 years younger after his experiments. But, in the end, he died, because he received malaria-infected blood.

That is interesting to know that some 2019 issues already existed more than a century ago: blood transfer, paying for blood, rejuvenation, etc..

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they are actual non-problems.

If you own your body, you own your blood. You should be able to sell or do whatever you please with it.

If some people think they can become younger by bathing in young blood, let them. It's their money and time, and blood too, as long as they buy the blood legitimately.

>If you own your body => you own your blood => you can do whatever the hell you want with it > If you own your body you own your hands => you can do whatever you want (murder) with them > That argument doesn't stand, I'm saying you can do anything you want with them that doesn't harm anyone else > Interesting, what's your definition of harming someone? If I control all the mechanisms of law and create a situation where every other person is effectively my slave (eg. I own all the land), then where in your libertarian philosophy do we fight that? Or do we just accept it?

I'm telling you with love in my heart, that taking a simplified libertarian view of everything is an intellectual trap and the world is way, way more complicated economically and philosophically than can be managed through libertarianism.

In the same way that gender politics gets disproportionate airtime because 1. it's very feel-good for groups of girls to feel united over and get a thrill of moral superiority from, it works socially 2. it's something for the elites/rich people to focus on that isn't redistribution or reform

Libertarianism gets press because: 1. People love having a single rule for things, because it makes them feel clever and right often without having to do any actual thinking. And it's clever on light inspection and dumb on deeper thinking 2. see gender politics 2.

Are there examples of something that you're allowed to do as a volunteer, but not allowed to get paid for it? Sex in some states I guess. What else?

Work

Be careful what you wish to turn into a commodity because in increasingly deregulated capitalism there is often no way back.

That would be yet another way to increase inequality.

Do you really want to force people to pay down loans with blood, skin and kidneys? Because that will inevitably happen if allowed.

I can see issues with the widely available market for blood donors, but I disagree about "paying down loans with blood, skin, and kidneys".

If you do physical work you already destroy some muscles, and if work is stressful you destroy your kidney trying to get relief by drinking yourself out. The skin on your hands also gets damaged from hard work. Or skin on your body after constant exposure to the sun.

We should strive for a society where we do not have to work ourselves out to pay off the loan, and not focus on preventing people from paying off loans destroying their bodies specifically, no matter if it is blood donation, or herniated disks, or destroyed lungs, or anything in between.

> We should strive for a society where we do not have to work ourselves out to pay off the loan

When we have such a society we can reevaluate. But right now we don't, and in the current environment creating more ways for inequality moves us away from such society.

I think it is a problem if people or companies are advertising a non-existent or unsubstantiated medical benefits of a procedure.

>I think it is a problem if people or companies are advertising a non-existent or unsubstantiated medical benefits of a procedure.

Ok, now this sentiment I don't understand at all.

Here in America (and other countries), we already have *entire "medical" fields" which consist of nothing but claims of unsubstantiated medical benefits. Chiropractic, Homeopathy, Acupuncture, TCM, etc. are all unscientific and make all kinds of claims with no evidence whatsoever, however the FDA allows them to operate with impunity, and even serious hospitals have these practitioners in them as "ACM".

But now they're going give a hard time to a company for doing something similar?

Seriously, I have a much easier time believing that maybe, just maybe there could be some health benefits from getting blood transfused into you from a really healthy person, than I would ever believe that 1) any ailment you have is caused by "subluxations" in your spinal column or that 2) someone can test if your body "needs" some "supplement" by pushing down on your outstretched arm while holding it in front of you or that 3) you can be cured of something by ingesting highly purified water.

Those things are are all regulated and get a hard time. They are not "medical" fields, and none of them operate under the license of "medical doctor". Dangerous ones are banned, and ineffective ones are required to carry a disclaimer.

They certainly are "medical fields", because that's how people treat them, and they promote themselves as viable alternatives to real doctors. Even worse, many hospitals actually have them there practicing; they call it "alternative and complementary medicine".

I don’t think I’m suggesting a double standard. I don’t know much about any of these fields but I think the standard should be the same.

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