Ethically sourced "spare" human bodies could revolutionize medicine | Hacker News Reader

Ethically sourced "spare" human bodies could revolutionize medicine

technologyreview.com

29 pointsiancmceachern61 comments

Ethically sourced "spare" human bodies could revolutionize the market for unethically sourced "spare" human bodies ...

Have the feeling that cheaper unethically sourced bodies would be the majority of the market, if ever usage of "spare" bodies were to happen.

They already did this in conflict zones.

It's funny how people strech the definition of things. But hey, if it worked for HD it shall work for everything.

Many states in the US switched from opt-in to opt-out for organ donation. Usually we get upset about such tactics, but this change seems to have been widely supported even though it is a form of coercion and has informed consent issues.

Quite a tangent, but what if we apply this logic of informed consent to property? If a person without a will dies, should we leave their house abandoned until it decomposes? Automatic organ donation is like probate for bodies.

Kinda like prostitution where it has been legalized, in which the availability of ethically sourced human bodies (i.e., from licensed brothels) drives up the demand for unethically sourced bodies (sex trafficking).

Source for this claim?

Like Jevons' paradox?

Indeed this is one of the big considerations of adoption or organ donation. Both revolutionized their respective markets: trafficking and involuntary organ trade. To say nothing of abortion and gay marriage - two much desired things in the US which nonetheless revolutionized the market for unethical embryo termination and involuntary marriage.

How did gay marriage revolutionise the market for involuntary marriage?

> We do not know whether the embryo models recently created from stem cells could give rise to living people or, thus far, even to living mice.

So it doesn't even work in mice... how about we get that working first. Then maybe grow chickens/cows for meat. Then write "revolutionize medicine" headlines.

Someday an influencer will make a YouTube video about how he grew a guy from an embryo model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)

Which was a rip-off of: https://robincook.com/product/chromosome-6

If there's merit, it should be added to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)#Copyrig....

By early 2000's this idea isn't that novel honestly. When it comes to movies what is truly novel anyways?

Gotta say, when I saw “The Island” I thought “This reminds me a heck of a lot of Spares.” Only, you know, much less interesting and hard-hitting.

Good idea. I'm certainly not the first to draw the comparison.

Published in 1997? The idea had been around for several decades in literature at that point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts:_The_Clonus_Horror

Fun fact: I had a substitute teacher in school who spent the whole period arguing with the class about how it was inevitable whole people would be cloned for organ transplants.

Ever since I found out about Never Let Me Go, I've been wondering where he got the idea.

Not surprising. I just happened to have read the Robin Cook one.

And Never Let Me Go, which was also made into a movie I believe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel)

The movie adaptation was pretty good! Great cast, and the screenplay was written by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, 28 Days Later, Civil War, etc).

I've been thinking about this. If we can create human bodies that never achieve an intelligence level beyond that of a sea slug, then surely nobody rational would be against using them for science. But where is the line? If the human bodies are as intelligent as, say, a mouse, are they then entitled to human rights, and can't be grown for the sole purpose of harvesting their organs? It's a serious topic.

RealDoll’s CEO perks up.

On the contrary, as if you under any circumstances should lose your intelligence - I hope not - you would not be considerate a human being anymore. And if there's a market for such, the incentive to give you a - cartoon like - hammer on the head would be there, too.

I mean that's already true to a degree. Pulling the plug on someone in a coma is a fairly normal thing. Unlike what you imagine a coma isn't a binary thing, there's degrees. When does it become okay to pull the plug?

You do get the point, please be careful with the hammer now.

People in a coma are still considered real human beings. The reason why you'd pull the plug is because there is no prospect of survival, or that the resources necessary are too great. Which, as much as it sucks, is a normal thing that happens. People die.

Intentionally breeding people that have no intelligence is a very different thing and I don't even know why we're talking about it as if it's even remotely similar.

Of course they are very different things, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I'm just drawing peoples attention to the parallels that do exist.

> The reason why you'd pull the plug is because there is no prospect of survival

Same goes for a body bred to have no brain, surely. Of course that moves the dilemma to "is it ethical to create humans with no possibility of survival", which is a different question equally worth debating.

"The Line" has always been a question with any moral dilemma.

> a mouse, are they then entitled to human rights,

Well, you said it yourself, they are entitled to a mouse's worth of moral rights :).

Darwin barely mentioned the whole human species in his Origin of Species but it still inspired his cousin Francis Galton to develop Eugenics[1]: Whether you selectively bread humans to improve the species or dumb it down, who's to tell the difference? Darwin himself had less luck with his person contribution to the evolution of the species, his youngest being described as "backward in walking & talking, but intelligent and observant", which was surely due to him having married his cousin: "We are a wretched family & ought to be exterminated."[2]

The problem of a) people ruining their health and b) not having enough donor organs can be solved much easier by encouraging active transport over the personal 2t metal box, reducing sugar, salt and others in our processed foods and of course legislation to make organ donations possible even without the deceased having agreed before. The opt-out in countries like Austria and Spain raises the level of awareness but of course still needs excellent communication.

[1] https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/jan/19/charles-darw...

I’ve never seen ad hominem applied to Darwin before, that’s kind of funny.

On eugenics - isn’t consensual eugenics okay? I feel like the potentially bad parts of eugenics, like murder, are already considered immoral for other reasons. Feels like a baby:bathwater situation.

There are many problems that can be solved with extra organs, not just the one you mention. And the solution you offer to that one isn't as scalable.

Not sure what eugenics has to do with this, I feel like my post was misunderstood.

(i'm not addressing the parent post's author personally)

i start to consider this "human value == intelligence" line of thinking as hate speech, eugenetics-based racism, and endorsement of violence. no. human value is not based solely on intelligence level (whatever that would be - i doubt if scientists even broadly agree what intelligence is and how to measure it), but on being the member of the homo species. period. nothing else. a human is a human even he was born without an actual brain organ in his skull. stop killing the future of humanity.

The trouble with emotional arguments is they eventually give way to the overwhelming utility of science-based thinking. A lot of people are against genetic modification on an emotional level but our planet wouldn't even support 7 billion people if it hadn't been developed.

i not quite can connect the "not intentionally killing humans" topic with the "allow GM crops grow more food with less labour" topic which i think your reply is about but also not sure that it is.

History teaches us that coming up with categories of “not fully human” tends to very directly lead to awful behaviour.

Okay, what if we find a way to grow just a human arm. Is that sufficiently "not fully human", or would you cop out and say that doesn't count?

> If we can create human bodies that never achieve an intelligence level beyond that of a sea slug, then surely nobody rational would be against using them for science

Most of them would become presidents of the USA. And no, i'm not talking about Trump.

Hopefully these can be used in human transplants too so people don't have to resort to stealing and kidnappings.

There are even militaries that are actively (right now) stealing human organs and distributing them to the civilian sector during conflict:

https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/27/israel-stealing-organs-f...

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna34503294

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2009/12/21/israel-admits-to-o...

https://researchcentre.trtworld.com/featured/perspectives/de...

>Recently, researchers have used these stem cells to create structures that seem to mimic the early development of actual human embryos. At the same time, artificial uterus technology is rapidly advancing, and other pathways may be opening to allow for the development of fetuses outside of the body.

>Such technologies, together with established genetic techniques to inhibit brain development, make it possible to envision the creation of “bodyoids”—a potentially unlimited source of human bodies, developed entirely outside of a human body from stem cells, that lack sentience or the ability to feel pain.

Where have I seen this before? Isn't this a plotline taken directly from numerous dystopian science fiction books and movies I have experienced? Life imitates art. Was this outcome inevitable? Think Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World'.

and rick and morty :)

That sounds like wishful thinking. Body that doesn't move just wastes away. People are imagining perfect bodies peacefully lying down but it would be more like a something between neurology ward and hospice.

On the one hand, horrifying. On the other hand, it'd be great to have a whole spare body with your own (perhaps improved) genetics available for parts – or, better, grown on demand.

This sounds like the movie, The Island. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)

Several backward states have already outlawed sheet meat. They'll never stand for this.

I thought that was because the lab meat competes with farmers. I can’t think of any similarly situated rival to the lab bodies for organ transplants that would lobby against it.

Don't underestimate the vast imagination and pervasive insecurity of the corrupt.

You know getting working organs from pigs seems infinitely more ethical, and maybe easier since we are much better at growing pigs than "spare" bodies

I eat meat, but I don't think there is an actual consistent ethical standard that doesn't rely on religion that justifies the use of animals. The average pig is a lot smarter than the dumbest human, and experiences emotions like a human child does.

I much rather use non-sentient bodies wherever possible.

I agree - using a pig instrumentally like that seems less ethical than growing human organs from our own stem cells

in what sense does it relies on "religion" (and which religion) to "you may sustain your life by killing and eating animals, AND by killing and using their organs if you garbaged yours (which you should avoid anyways)" which is reasoned with nature's observed behaviur of each species seem to absolutely protect their own at the expense of other species? exception are just those, exceptions. but the overarching rule is to be "selfish". if there would be any religion which contradict this is Christianity which teaches that you are not only should sustain you and your family/tribe/species but also the whole Earth, animals, plants we are entrusted with; so preferencing our own species is not absolute.

Pigs are smart sentient beings capable of feeling emotions. There’s very little ethically defensible in how we currently “grow” them.

Meh. I'm assuming it'll be only available to the monied class and they don't care about ethics anyways. So might as well just take one of the organs from that new and upcoming El Salvadorian supplier.

Can we please not make out-of-touch, old, rich people live any longer than they should.

They will be the only ones capable of affording this service. Reminds me of meths from the altered carbon series.

I mean, if can mandate that "no out-of-touch, old, rich people" can "live longer than they should" to solve the problem, then we could ALSO solve the problem more directly and thoroughly by just mandating that "this is available to everyone". I don't make the rules, that's how this hypothetical works out if you think about it.

While I doubt it was the intent of the original poster's comment, there's no shortage of people who look forward to the death of old people they see as being in the way of change they desire.

Actually, I think you're wrong. That's a perspective you might get from watching certain news outlets, but if you get outside and touch some grass, meet your neighbors, you'll find that most people AREN'T cynical robots who have taken transhumanism to an eugenic extreme. Maybe just my experience, though.

Technology always starts out being available to a subset of people before it's available for everyone. This is the path that leads to making it available to everyone.

This is a terrible plan.

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