8mo ago

Oopsies

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I think it's interesting to ask whether people in the opt-out countries are really consenting. Can you really say someone has consented if you never actually made the request?
- I agree, but it raises an interesting argument regarding the definition of consent. I don't necessarily believe in free will so I like to mention it in situations where you can easily see that people are more accurately described as reacting to their environment than making any kind of conscious choice.
  Simply by changing from opt-in to opt-out, you mostly reverse the observed behavior of a population. Lots of applications for this sort of thinking, like voting for instance.
  
  Necrophilia has entered the chat
- In fact, the truth is surprisingly simple: much depends merely on what happens if people don't make a decision, something called a no-action default, or simply a default. The countries on the left of the graph ask you to choose to be an organ donor, and those on the right ask you to choose not to be a donor. If you do not make an active choice, you are, by default, a nondonor in Germany and a donor in Austria.
  Dan and I wanted to understand this. We started by asking a sample of Americans whether they would be donors or not by presenting them with a choice on a webpage. One group, the opt-in condition, was told that they had just moved to a new state where the default was not to be an organ donor, and they were given a chance to change that status with a simple click of a mouse. A second group, the opt-out condition, saw an identical scenario, except the default was to be a donor. They could indicate that they did not want to be a donor with a mouse click. The third group was simply required to choose; they needed to check one box or the other to go on to the next page. This neutral ques-tion, with nothing prechecked, is a mandated-choice condi-tion; it's important, because it shows what people do when they are forced to choose.
  The effect of the default was remarkably strong: when they had to opt in, only 42 percent agreed to donate, but when they had to opt out, 82 percent agreed to donate. The most interesting result was from those forced to make a choice: 79 percent said they would be a donor, almost the same percentage of donors as in the opt-out condition. The only difference between the group that was asked to opt out and those who were forced to make a choice was that we forced the respondents in the mandated-choice condition to pick either box before they could go forward. It shows that if forced to make a choice, most participants would become donors. Otherwise, if they were given a default, most simply took it, whatever it was.
  From The Elements of Choice by Eric Johnson
  It's more complicated than the one example, and he covers it further, but as a rough guideline, it looks like forced choice and opt out are similar in this case. Which would make sense because the opposition is mostly religious and strict religious people are more motivated to opt out.
  
  Wow, good source. 82% donor rate for the opt-out group versus 79% for the forced-choice is a smaller difference than I would have guessed.
- Yeah, the formulation is a bit off here. With opt-out, you have no way to measure consent, because you can't discern between people who actually consent and those who just haven't opted out, for lack of knowledge or other reasons.
  These societies have simply weighed up the two options and decided that saving lives is more important than leaving personal freedom intact at all costs.
- We don’t get their consent to be buried or cremated or whatever else people do with the remaining bodies of their loved ones. It’s just opt out. Why should organ donation, which provides a societal and personal benefit be different?
  
  I'm pretty sure people do make their wishes clear regarding their funeral preparations. You can put that kind of stuff in your last will and I would assume it holds some legal weight.
  I actually agree that organ donation should be opt-out, but there is an unavoidable argument against that. Namely, the fact that people have the right to opt-out at all implies that you have a responsibility to verify their informed consent before enrolling them in the procedure. At least, that would be the conventional wisdom according to the field of medical ethics.
- Ok but for most people it doesnt really matter with a dead body. If you opt out because of religion its okay have it your way but other than that its not like it matters, youre dead.
What am I missing? What's the oopsies?
- I think this post is alluding to the results of the US election and asserting that (at least part of) the reason is that many people decided not to vote.
  Related to people's tendency to do nothing when faced with the need to opt in is the status quo bias—the tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision.
  
  Yes. Drag is also calling out the people who decided that voting for Harris is voting for genocide, but not voting at all means you get to be completely guilt free. Drag's seeing a pretty heavy bias towards inaction there.
  Imagine if voting were compulsory, but there was a box on the ballot that says "I express no preference between the candidates and ask that my vote be counted as nil". You wouldn't hear the same rhetoric from people in a country where the decision is framed that way. Which is kind of the entire point of the textbook chapter drag is reading today; the framing of a choice influences people's decisions.
- Forgot to opt in maybe?
  Or, for the more sinister approach, forgot people had to opt in to organ donation and was just taking organs willy-nilly?
Hey FYI in the US it has to be this way. In certain states they have an opt-out on drivers license forms, but that's still technically an opt-in. Being a body-donor can't benifit you, so thus your direct consent is needed for it.
- I feel like this is more an issue of poor healthcare than personal choice. It seems like rather than the U.S. chosing to be opt-in, they are physically unable to give everyone the choice to opt-out.
  
  No. It's a thing due to its liberal legal system.
- Being a body-donor can't benifit you
  This assumes that "you" are a pattern of neural impulses (or a soul) rather than a body. If you're a body, then you getting to beat your heart in someone else's chest is surely a benefit.
  Drag agrees that people are minds, not bodies. But it's interesting to hear this logic from a country where so many people argue that a woman is a uterus, not an identity.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/537908/deceased-organ-donor-rate-in-europe/
Most organ donnors are in Spain (Opt - In)

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