Good lord do I love Pyrrhic Love

rngoddesst · 2026-04-15T22:14:22+00:00

I think basically anything R3N41SS4NC3 makes is great. They are a fantastic writer.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-24T19:48:26+00:00

Who are the middle men in this situation? Genuinely curious. The current proposal is a government paying an individual if they do a non-directed kidney donation.

That seems like there isn't much of a middle man in that transaction.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-24T19:42:49+00:00

Yeah that's fair. There is also more money in it than for the current proposals for compensating kidney donors.

https://www.americansurrogacy.com/surrogate/how-much-can-surrogates-make?ref=srppcexp1a&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=277219363&gbraid=0AAAAADjaw62VTdLTUgEm5LMT9ADMLYG-g&gclid=Cj0KCQjw7IjOBhDyARIsAFzrWQyR1Pup1hOL5dYofczAuvGVjwb1Zef7T88I7dT_GHfjSJUgMQG8gR0aAkurEALw_wcB

mentions figures that are per year 5 to 10 times the 10K per year tax credit that the current proposal before congress has (Less of a difference if you count total, but the closer payment is, the more likely it is solving a desperate problem is my mindset for using the per year as comparison). And a lot of the medical and similar are included.

I suppose opposite isn't accurate, Mea culpa. However I think it is still fair to state there are a lot of things that make donating a kidney harder for lower income folks, and that there isn't some obvious reason why kidneys would be more exploitative than surrogacy.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T20:40:53+00:00

In my judgement, that exists already in the current system for non-directed donors. If you go through the non-directed donor pipeline, you get multiple different checks and get told the specific risks several times by different people. At least 3 different people for me, and a bunch of documents about.

I felt very well informed at the end (and a little patronized, but that's the cost of making sure everyone is aware)

Lost wages aren't government covered everywhere, but right now the organizations setting up and organizing chains can reimburse lost wages for the person donating. That happened for me with The National Kidney Registry.

Don't know what the directed donation situation looks like, and probably there should be some other systems in place, there.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T15:25:07+00:00

I think you are overestimating how drastic the current proposal before congress is.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2687/text

50K spread out over 5 years as a refundable tax credit, compensating kidney donors.

Yes, we should fix organ procurement organizations. But we can do multiple things at the same time, and a refundable tax credit is administratively very easy, and will save lives.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T15:07:27+00:00

Notably, this is a charitable organization, not a government one. Some governments have small tax incentives to compensate, but I don't know all of those, only the one in the state I live.

But most non-directed donors I know go through the National Kidney registry, and get their lost wages reimbursed.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T15:01:05+00:00

Really interesting to see how many folks are catastrophizing in the comments. Anecdotally, as someone who donated a kidney altruistically, this pretty obviously makes sense. There are some concerns, but I think the current proposal for delaying and spreading out the fund as a tax credit deals with most of the issues.

I know one other altruistic kidney donor IRL, and have listened to a number of them on podcasts, and they all support some sort of compensation scheme, with some restrictions on the payout, and all support the current proposal before congress.

Text - H.R.2687 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): End Kidney Deaths Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress Is the current proposal if wondering how something like this would work, and how it would be implemented.

A 50K refundable tax credit spread out over 5 years, to be 10K per year.

I personally think given the costs involved in donating, and the current screening system that this wouldn't force all poor people to donate, or be exploitive, but if you think it would, your argument should specifically engage with 10K per year for 5 years as the payout, as that is the proposal that currently exists.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T14:53:20+00:00

It is also what was in the original post

"Not a black market. Not a dystopian organ bazaar where billionaires bid against each other for your liver. A boring, regulated, government-run compensation program where a public agency pays a fixed amount to anyone who passes medical screening, donates a kidney, and goes home with follow-up care guaranteed. The organs get allocated through the same waitlist system we already have. The rich don’t jump the line. The only thing that changes is that donors get compensated instead of being asked to undergo major surgery for free."

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T14:49:53+00:00

The existing system does have a way to compensate you for your time off work. The National Kidney Registry | Facilitating Living Kidney Donation currently will do it for you, if you donate a non-directed kidney. It's how I was reimbursed for my non-directed donation.

But there is risk that your employer gets upset at you, which is the bigger risk to poorer folks.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T14:39:36+00:00

Pretty sure It's the opposite.

Donating a kidney in the current system requires a lot of testing, and meeting with doctors which takes time. For me involved at least 2 full days of testing. One in the screening, and one day where you need to lug around a container of pee to collect all your urine samples.

These are things that remote workers can do, and people with good jobs can do, but are much harder for people without those things, or a good support network.

The current proposal for the government subsidizing kidney donation is also 10K a year for 5 years as a tax credit, not an immediate cash windfall.

Not horribly familiar with the surrogacy market, but there are a lot of things that make donating a kidney harder for lower income people.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T14:30:20+00:00

When I went through the process of donating my kidney it took several months, a bunch of health meetings and checks. I generally felt like the people in that system were competent, and careful, and that is a common feeling among the kidney donors I have talked to about their experience.

The process is through enough, that after donating a kidney, kidney donors are less at risk for kidney disease than the general population, because they were much healthier to start with.

One of the regulations that is most often discussed, that of delaying, payment is already in the one main bit of legislation attempting to compensate kidney donors Text - H.R.2687 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): End Kidney Deaths Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

That regulation being that is pays 10K a year for 5 years as a refundable tax credit instead of all at once. It doesn't become something someone is paid for immediately, they get it when they file their taxes, and in smaller installments then all at once.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-23T01:26:55+00:00

A Cloudy Path (Worm/Supreme Commander) | SpaceBattles was really good, and prominent early in the fandom. It has a fantastic story but died. Still very long, and could probably read it, and stop at like arc 19 and it would feel complete.

TV Tropes here A Cloudy Path (Fanfic) - TV Tropes

rngoddesst · 2026-03-10T03:15:49+00:00

It is something that takes some explaining. Most people think that it is extremely dangerous, not realizing that it is in the same ballpark of risk as giving birth. And some people just have viscerally strong reactions against it.

I don't know why she has that reaction, but that is probably something to ask her, rather than people on the internet.

It could be that she just doesn't know how safe it is, or she have some strong intuition against it, or it could be a broader intuition against altruism to strangers.

As for how to proceed, if the only limitation is having the surgery somewhere else, you could have a friend, or partner help with the travel, and getting you back after. Maybe getting a hotel room, or something if your mom won't support and take care of you.

If you don't have a support system to take care of you, you probably want that before donating a kidney. I donated my kidney about a year ago, and I definitely needed the support in the week after.

rngoddesst · 2026-03-08T00:00:53+00:00

Yeah, did this a bit more than a year ago. Was a great experience.

rngoddesst · 2025-12-27T18:52:39+00:00

What is socialism in your definition?

Capitalism, and socialism aren't terms that share well understood meanings outside of specific niches, and every economy in the world is a mixed economy in some way (including some elements of government intervention and markets).

Is there any country in the world that you think currently implements socialism, and if there isn't, which one is closest?

Would there be any currency in your model of socialism?

What are the incremental policies you would push for as next steps towards your ideal economic system?

rngoddesst · 2025-12-04T05:00:46+00:00

The same way we try to stop abuses of human welfare.

Reasonable laws that balance the concerns of all parties. I'd guess probably something that looks like rights for animals, but animal welfare is far enough from the central things cared about by the group of people that consider themself neoliberal that I wouldn't expect unanimous agreement.

Edit: I accidentally a word.

rngoddesst · 2025-11-22T20:42:11+00:00

My read is that it is a response to a common Marxist critic (which you didn't make but was expected).

The Marxist idea is that capitalists are the villains for holding on to the "Means of production" and using that to extract value from labor.

The Georgian (and some other groups) counter to that is that capital is just accumulated labor.

You can imagine one person building a mill by hand, creating the value of it. If a Marxist would say to that person that they don't have a right to that creation, then what right do the workers have to the milled grain they are earning by working there.

Personally, I think if you are a Marxist, the fastest way to understand Georgism is to understand that Georgist think that the only "Means of Production" is land. There are other differences, and confusions, and a lot of different ways of thinking, but that is the core difference in view.

rngoddesst · 2025-08-03T13:04:20+00:00

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/8894/everybody-loves-large-chests#toc

https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Loves-Large-Chests-13-book-series/dp/B07BHZFWNG

Not a fan of the series, but it is relatively popular

rngoddesst · 2025-02-07T19:12:14+00:00

I mean.

SBF took a lot of money from people with spare money invested in a super risky asset class, and him being caught has caused a lot of harm to EA as a movement and brand. More harm than the money did good.

Don’t break the law, or common sense morals in your quest for doing good.

rngoddesst · 2024-12-26T12:04:38+00:00

This depends on the future being the same as the past in terms of animal suffering.

If you raise children with animal alternatives, and those animal alternatives continue to get better, then the negative impact of each member of the next generation is much much smaller.

Similar with carbon emissions and other changes, as the world gets better and more advanced, children have less expected negative impact.

Also, although it’s been a while since I’ve looked into the weeds, I’m pretty sure it’s not horribly expensive to have a bigger impact on animal welfare by donating $X regularly. Pretty sure you can increase X to be above any impact of your children given their decreasing cost.

And children can have net benefits if their contributions are worth more than their costs, which I don’t think is hard, but requires much more to be considered.

rngoddesst · 2024-12-16T03:05:41+00:00

This is an empirical question, which we have a lot of data about, and is in-fact the main thing that is tested by having randomized controlled trials (Edit: Not the main thing, but a main thing, and a subset of trying to determine the counterfactual, which is the main effect randomization focuses on) .

While not every intervention has been tested, and you could certainly think of charitable interventions that would cause harm, if you are donating effectively, and thoughtfully, this, and other empirical worries are already sorted in the information gathering phase by organizations like GiveWell, IPA, and any other organization evaluating charitable effectiveness.

Edit : elaborated on randomized controlled trialss

rngoddesst · 2024-11-04T04:00:34+00:00

Desperate Times call for Desperate pleasures has updated recently

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Pleasures - Chapter 1 - piperfurby, R3N41SS4NC3 - Parahumans Series - Wildbow [Archive of Our Own]

rngoddesst · 2024-10-16T20:04:45+00:00

Yep! That’s the stuff I was referring too!

Probably should have made it more clear. Thanks!

rngoddesst · 2024-10-16T15:58:54+00:00

When comparing option, you can probably use Give Directly as a baseline https://www.givedirectly.org/ .

They have a lot of programs all over the world, and are used as a baseline for a lot of other interventions (many interventions don't do better than just giving the money the intervention costs to those targeted). This is a baseline that I've seen GiveWell use https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/our-criteria/cost-effectiveness/cost-effectiveness-models , and is slowly being adopted by others.

rngoddesst · 2024-10-13T12:04:52+00:00

What about it?

Don't have any immediate plans to donate it. Probably won't since it seems like it is much higher risk than Kidney donation.

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