Comment by ElFitz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ElFitz | Hacker News Reader

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The least of the biases at play, here, is the change aversion bias.

Making things "opt-out", without even making it hard, dramatically increases the number of people who opt-in. It can be used for many reasons.

For example, the UK switched it’s organ donation laws from opt-in to opt-out.

Another example, my government has decided that them selling their citizen's personal information to garages, insurance companies, etc, when we buy cars, should also be opt-out.

So they freely sell the car make, acquisition date, buyer's name,… [1][2]

Unless it has changed with GDPR. I’ve never bought a car.

While we're on the topic of GDPR, that is exactly why it insists on making cookies, tracking, and the "sharing of information with partners" opt-in.

And that is without hiding what you’re doing, making it unclear or confusing, or requiring multiple actions to change it.

(Links in French, sorry)

[1]: https://mobile.interieur.gouv.fr/Repertoire-des-informations...

[2]: https://www.carte-grise.org/actus/2014/05-12-L-Etat-vends-le...

For example, the UK switched its organ donation laws from opt-in to opt-out.

We have, yet oddly, it's still called "organ donation".

don't be disingenuous - fairly obviously it is a donation because it is optional, voluntary and non-compensated.

Is it really voluntary if it is opt-out?

There’s a reason why they strongly encourage people to make their preference clearly known to family & friends.

Because most often, when there’s even the sliver of a doubt on the deceased one's wishes, the corpse will keep all it’s organs to the grave / incinerator.

voluntary (adjective) done, made, or given willingly, without being forced or paid to do it (Cambridge)

How is my will involved here?

Because you only have to express it for it to be respected.

Which is the bare minimum if you want others to be able to even consider respecting it.

The default choice being, in the absence of any information, the one that increases chances of survival of actually living humans doesn’t seem misguided to me.

——

If you want compulsory and overreaching (although not necessarily bad. Got no opinion on that aspect) rules, over here we:

- can’t disinherit a descendant. The state decides the minimum each one of your genetic or legal relatives can get from your assets

- have to financially support our adult children until an arbitrary time decided by the law

- have to support and assist our parents and grand-parents if they can’t provide for themselves

- basically can be legally compelled to financially assist any ascendant or descendant

- may end up having to pay up after a divorce, even if you had an iron-clad contract, to compensate for the loss of QoL of the spouse with a lesser income

Because you only have to express it for it to be respected.

... and if you do not know that an opt-out is required to not have your organs removed, then how can it be said that you have willingly contributed them. And if your organs are removed by default, without you actually willing that this be the case, then how can this practice be called "donation"?

So instead, shall we call it "organ retrieval", "organ harvesting" and so on? All rather ugly words. But when the words that accurately describe what you are doing appear ugly, instead of looking for words which inaccurately describe what you are doing, perhaps you should ask yourself if you should be doing what you are doing.

so, basically your only problem is that the possibility of opt-out may not be adequately communicated? and, i think everyone would agree that changing the law but not telling anyone would be bad and wrong. but, spoiler alert, that didn't happen. and if we found someone who could or did not understand, the default would be to not use their organs.

They're dead, so it's often a bit tricky to find out. What you could do is have some way of recording that people have been told about the opt-out, then they could carry a card around with them that says "I have been informed of the opt-out and choose not to, please take my organs". Only take the organs if they are carrying such a card.

And I'd be interested to know of the percentage of UK adults who are aware of the opt-out. I had a search around but couldn't find any surveys, are you aware of any?

good question. every household got a big blue envelope with large print writing in it saying something like 'important information about organ donation changes' (or similar, can't find my copy now) and a pamphlet inside. like i said, this was sent to every household, so it does miss the homeless, illiterate and non english speakers (although the pamphlet had instructions in other languages explaining how to access more information) and there were press, radio, tv, internet and outdoor adverts, as i recall. i mean, only covid-19 health information dissemination has been more extensive recently. but, you're right, would be interesting to know how effective the campaign was, and im sure they checked, since it cost a fair bit of public money, so the information should be available somewhere online...

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