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"Bodies" Exhibit Debate educational or high-profit unethical freakshow?

#31 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 27 November 2007 - 12:38 AM

Since I like talking about the side-issue, off-topic points, I don't think there's anything intrinsically atheistic about organ donation. I could imagine and in fact pen a very Christian treatise on the virtue of the thing. Shit, I could even imagine it as a sacrament. Bodily burial is luddite. In fact, don't we all thing that Jehovah's Witnesses are goofs for refusing blood donations? Pretty much everyone thinks that, Atheist and Christian and pagan and baby-eating Satanist. The collective assessment is that those guys are retards. Why can we all agree on that, but the idea of giving my kidney to a stranger after a car wreck left me in a permanent vegetative state is so freaky?*

Of course, I did mock anscestor worship. Maybe I shouldn't have. My anscestors burned people alive, possibly in ritual, possibly in punishment, and they were so damned weird eben the Romans were afraid to conquer them. That may be worthy of praise after all.

*Note to those afraid of organ donation: signing the card gives noone the power to do anything. A relative still has to speak for you. The card is legally meaningless, but often it reminds relatives of your wishes, and sometimes they decide to honour them.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#32 User is offline   Sarah Icon

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Posted 27 November 2007 - 08:22 AM

QUOTE (civilian_number_two @ Nov 27 2007, 12:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Since I like talking about the side-issue, off-topic points, I don't think there's anything intrinsically atheistic about organ donation. I could imagine and in fact pen a very Christian treatise on the virtue of the thing. Shit, I could even imagine it as a sacrament. Bodily burial is luddite. In fact, don't we all thing that Jehovah's Witnesses are goofs for refusing blood donations? Pretty much everyone thinks that, Atheist and Christian and pagan and baby-eating Satanist. The collective assessment is that those guys are retards. Why can we all agree on that, but the idea of giving my kidney to a stranger after a car wreck left me in a permanent vegetative state is so freaky?*

Of course, I did mock anscestor worship. Maybe I shouldn't have. My anscestors burned people alive, possibly in ritual, possibly in punishment, and they were so damned weird eben the Romans were afraid to conquer them. That may be worthy of praise after all.

*Note to those afraid of organ donation: signing the card gives noone the power to do anything. A relative still has to speak for you. The card is legally meaningless, but often it reminds relatives of your wishes, and sometimes they decide to honour them.


Civilian number 2

The collective assessment. Hmmm. Now that IS a scary way of making decisions. How is that assessment done exactly? By vote? Whoever screams the loudest? Number of posts in a debate forum?

And did you in the same post say that an individual's wishes should be honored after death? Sounds like you just contradicted yourself to me. Or, is it only wishes that YOU or the COLLECTIVE approve of? What if a person does NOT wish to be paraded around after death in an exhibit for other's profits? (afterall, I didn't think this debate was focused on organ donation.) What if they were carrying a card for that to remind their families (and governments) to 'honor' their wishes after death? Should it include other reminders, like not to be cannibalized?
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#33 User is offline   Despondent Icon

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Posted 27 November 2007 - 09:12 AM

Regarding Organ "donation", Maybe there ought to be a check-box that it's totally non-profit, or that it's ok as long as the relatives get the $50,000 (name your price) in cash, up front. It's not right that Doctors / health care professionals / insurance companies get to profit off of "my" would-be altruism.


Regarding sacrements, I've heard it expressed that Abortion is the sacrament of the Democrat party. I think that's rightfully humorous.
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#34 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 29 November 2007 - 03:48 AM

Sarah: No, I didn't say that an individual's wishes should be honoured after he dies. I said that they might not be.

As for the term "collective assessment," you're taking to much out of that. All I said was everything JW's are retards for refusing blood donations, and that everyone believes that. Socially, we have zero bugaboos about blood, but there are all sorts of spiritual concerns about organs. That's a disparity I was drawing attention to. If you would instead like to discuss the difficulties in making collective decisions, and individual rights, please join one of the many Ayn Rand threads already on this board. Or perhaps the "libertarian" thread that recently went idle. I was talking about the oddness of thinking blood is no big deal but organs are sacred. Which is a totally different topic.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#35 User is offline   Sailor Abbey Icon

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Posted 29 November 2007 - 08:09 AM

QUOTE (Spoon Poetic @ Nov 25 2007, 11:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
But... They're dead. What do they care what happens to their organs?


I care what happens to my organs. I don’t want my liver going to someone who spent their whole life drinking. I don’t want my heart going to someone who molests children. And I definitely don’t want my kidneys to go to a racist, a democrat, or a reality television star.

These are little pieces of me. If there going to live on after the rest of me dies, I would like to know who I’m going to be inside of. Therefore, I care what happens to my bits and pieces when I die. I believe that my spiritual essence and my physical body are linked, at least to some extent. Agree or disagree, this is America, and I have a right to my religious beliefs. Maybe one day, when we turn into the communist society were headed for, the government can collect and distribute our organs among the masses without having to worry about an individual's freedom.

If people don’t want to donate their organs, they shouldn’t have to. Nature selects people to die from organ failure of whatever kind. If a person is supposed to have a healthy heart, then nature will provide them with one. If not, then nature obviously doesn’t want them passing on their genetic code, and producing more offspring with these sorts of deficiencies. Its sounds harsh, but this type of selection is what produced modern human beings. We certainly didnt get here by nature coddling us for however many thousands of years.
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#36 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 29 November 2007 - 09:25 AM

Good points, about the who the organ goes to. I can see that. But the spiritual link thing, where I respect your believing it, I don't - and that's where my attitude of the body just being left over junk after it's "empty" of a person. But I see where you're coming from.
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#37 User is offline   Sarah Icon

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Posted 29 November 2007 - 03:25 PM

Ok. Well, I thought this debate was about bodies exhibited for profit and whether it was educational and/or unethical. Personally I think it is educational and unethical, like Mengele's experiments. Very educational. That, for me (maybe its just me) is a completely different discussion than whether you want or consent to donating your organs to help someone medically. It does touch on individual consent. But I don't equate public titillation with the altruism of organ donation. Is anyone interested in talking about what Mireaux7 brought up as the original topic?
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#38 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 29 November 2007 - 04:13 PM

Woah there, calm down. It's the nature of forum threads, conversations, etc. to get a little off-topic from time to time, and it was still relevant to the original topic.

And I guess I'll just repeat my argument on how I find it to be very educational, as it helps people (e.g., me) learn about and visualize the internal workings of the body - stuff one doesn't usually learn about in such visual detail without going to medical school. And if it entertains at the same time, great! Because no one would learn everything if all learning had to be boring. Should we ban things like Sesame Street, making ice cream to learn about matter, or playing games during P.E. to learn how to stay in shape because it's entertaining as well as educational? Or because Sesame Street, the milk and sugar companies, and the company that made that basketball gets a profit from educating the little tykes? I think not. So, assuming that the bodies used in the exhibits were all donated legitimately, I think it's a grand idea. (Though I disagree with the assertion of some that it should also be considered "art.")
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#39 User is offline   reiner Icon

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 04:23 PM

The exhibit strikes me as shock entertainment and hype. In fact, if I wanted to see something educational about the human body, I'd rather use books, videos and other documents rather than walking around a 'plastic mummy'. At least that's just me. I guess I don't get it.

As far as the ressurection thing goes though, props to the Catholic church for their support of zombies.
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#40 User is offline   Emu Icon

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 01:25 AM

As for the original topic: if the thing about using bodies of executed political prisoners for the exhibit is true, then all debate about the afterlife / wishes of the deceased aside, I think it is morally objectionable for (1) the creators of the exhibit to be profiting off of this, and (2) the creators of the exhibit to financially support the torture and execution of political prisoners by buying their bodies.

as for the slightly-off-topic: I would donate my body, but definitely not for public exhibition. I would donate my organs to people who needed them or to scientific research. I think it's also kind of unfortunate that while this exhibit provides ample opportunity to publicize donating one's body for medical purposes, it instead has been publicizing donating one's body for similar exhibits.

as for the slightly-more-off-topic: I've donated blood a few times, and felt like a better human being for it, but now they have my phone number and keep calling me because they want my blood. it's a little creepy. it's also been deterring me from donating blood, because maybe they're calling when I'm out of town, or when it's the middle of finals week and I have no time, or when I haven't been eating well and I think it's a bad idea to lose any precious bodily fluids. so now when I might ordinarily donate blood of my own accord, I think of them as those annoying people who keep calling me to ask for my blood. they would really be better off not doing that. (end of rant)

This post has been edited by Emu: 16 December 2007 - 01:25 AM

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#41 User is offline   Snake Logan Icon

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 01:28 AM

I would only donate my organs if I personally knew the person, if I was dead and if I knew there weren't a cretin.

This post has been edited by Snake Logan: 16 December 2007 - 01:29 AM

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#42 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 12:41 PM

Cretins are low on the list of organ recipients. That's sorta the point of organ donation, that if you allow your organs to be used after you die, then maybe cretins will get them. So far only terminally ill stable and productive people are getting priority. Who's looking after the cretins?
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#43 User is offline   Snake Logan Icon

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 01:53 PM

QUOTE (civilian_number_two @ Dec 17 2007, 04:41 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Cretins are low on the list of organ recipients. That's sorta the point of organ donation, that if you allow your organs to be used after you die, then maybe cretins will get them. So far only terminally ill stable and productive people are getting priority. Who's looking after the cretins?


What does a persons personality have to do with whether they are productive or not?
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#44 User is offline   Otal Nimrodi Icon

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 02:19 PM

This
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#45 User is offline   Snake Logan Icon

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 04:19 PM

QUOTE (Otal Nimrodi @ Dec 17 2007, 06:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>


I should have said arse. Well I can’t go back in time so let’s pretend I never said that.
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Yahtzee is gay?!
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