As a needle averse person who has donated blood, here's my strategy: just don't look at the needle. I know, truly a big brain moment.
Also, you should probably donate plasma instead of blood, it takes only slightly longer and has a way bigger impact (unless you're a universal donor, in which case it depends on your country's supply, but your blood is probably in higher demand).
Also also, those namby-pamby bioethicists might have a point depending on what exactly you're referring to. For example, human blood farms are actually something we have to worry about in the real world: https://www.wired.com/2011/06/red-market-excerpt
EDIT: Probably not in countries with high enforcement infrastructure, but for countries with low enforcement infrastructure, definitely.
If you allow trading money for blood in high enforcement countries wouldn't that reduce the market price of blood thus reducing the amount of human blood farms on the margin?
The way to do this is obviously that these facilities are well regulated and that you can't just send bags of blood for money. That is what I mean with high enforcement. You obviously shouldn't be able to just show up with bags of blood and get money in return. I don't understand how increasing the blood supply and thus lowering the price would increase demand for bloodfarms specifically.
If you would and could check that the bags didn't come from bloodfarms it would, of course, be enough to prevent bloodfarms, but it would probably not be enough to prevent regular exploitation. Also, once we start lifting the taboo we shouldn't be surprised if other countries (e.g. those with low enforcement) start doing it too.
> Second, I could just suck it up and give blood. But again, this is something I really don’t want to do. When you donate, they stick a needle in your arm for 10 minutes. I can confidently say I would pay at least $100 to avoid this (and that’s a very conservative estimate).
I used to be in the exact same boat, but I learned I have a particularly rare blood type that has a much higher lives-saved-per-donation ratio, so now I donate every time I can. For my type they want whole blood, which means a donation takes 30-60 minutes. I overcame my phobia by framing the problem in selfish terms of wanting to overcome my own insecurities, and can confirm that exposure therapy does indeed work. The first few times I donated the normal amount I couldn’t get through even the normal 10 minute donations, and nearly passed out. I’m still very uncomfortable, but I can get through the donations now.
Also, think about how when you’re old, and need an IV because of some malady, you’ll have to deal with needles then. And do you really want to be dealing with both the stress of having some illness AND the stress of being exposed to needles at the same time? Might as well experience the stress now, so you don’t have a hard time later when you’ll be more mentally strained.
I wrote more about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/s/gtuxj1lq8V and have a draft post based off those comments. I figure you can do it *and* donate money to a blood drive (although blood drives are probably an ineffective methods of donating your money when there are Shrimp to be saved).
Alternatively, you can just give me $50 dollars a donation and forget the part about how I was going to donate anyways.
I was really hoping there might be some insight here that would help me get my needle-averse child to do a blood panel willingly. But it sounds like I just need to make the alternative incredibly unpleasant, which is an awful lot like punishment or coercion when it comes from a parent.
The rule against compensating blood donors is (apparently) like Swiss cheese.
Carter’s gives platelet donors a $50 gift card every time they donate. And you can make the “gift card” a Mastercard gift card that is available wherever Mastercard is accepted or, like, an Amazon gift card, or 100 different stores.
I know all this because that’s how I pay for eating out. My wife just loves it when I say I’m going to get the bill with my blood money.
Great article! I was donating blood a couple of days ago and was wondering if it was worth anything. I heard a bogus calculation of three lives saved per donation.
I don't know how strong your needle phobia is, but I was in a similar boat. After giving blood a few times, I got used to it. Now almost all of the disutility I incur by donating blood is due to the time involved; the actual experience doesn't bother me.
Regardless of whether you can overcome your needle phobia to quite that extent, you should probably estimate the cost to you of giving blood using the long-run disutility instead of the current disutility, since almost all of your hypothetical blood donations would occur in the long run.
As a needle averse person who has donated blood, here's my strategy: just don't look at the needle. I know, truly a big brain moment.
Also, you should probably donate plasma instead of blood, it takes only slightly longer and has a way bigger impact (unless you're a universal donor, in which case it depends on your country's supply, but your blood is probably in higher demand).
Also also, those namby-pamby bioethicists might have a point depending on what exactly you're referring to. For example, human blood farms are actually something we have to worry about in the real world: https://www.wired.com/2011/06/red-market-excerpt
EDIT: Probably not in countries with high enforcement infrastructure, but for countries with low enforcement infrastructure, definitely.
If you allow trading money for blood in high enforcement countries wouldn't that reduce the market price of blood thus reducing the amount of human blood farms on the margin?
No, because you would be increasing the demand (for bloodfarms) by a huge amount.
The way to do this is obviously that these facilities are well regulated and that you can't just send bags of blood for money. That is what I mean with high enforcement. You obviously shouldn't be able to just show up with bags of blood and get money in return. I don't understand how increasing the blood supply and thus lowering the price would increase demand for bloodfarms specifically.
If you would and could check that the bags didn't come from bloodfarms it would, of course, be enough to prevent bloodfarms, but it would probably not be enough to prevent regular exploitation. Also, once we start lifting the taboo we shouldn't be surprised if other countries (e.g. those with low enforcement) start doing it too.
Do you think that you can get paid for plasma donations in the US is overall good or bad?
I don't know, I haven't read any studies on it. But if I had to guess, I'd assume that it's probably a net-good.
> Second, I could just suck it up and give blood. But again, this is something I really don’t want to do. When you donate, they stick a needle in your arm for 10 minutes. I can confidently say I would pay at least $100 to avoid this (and that’s a very conservative estimate).
I used to be in the exact same boat, but I learned I have a particularly rare blood type that has a much higher lives-saved-per-donation ratio, so now I donate every time I can. For my type they want whole blood, which means a donation takes 30-60 minutes. I overcame my phobia by framing the problem in selfish terms of wanting to overcome my own insecurities, and can confirm that exposure therapy does indeed work. The first few times I donated the normal amount I couldn’t get through even the normal 10 minute donations, and nearly passed out. I’m still very uncomfortable, but I can get through the donations now.
Also, think about how when you’re old, and need an IV because of some malady, you’ll have to deal with needles then. And do you really want to be dealing with both the stress of having some illness AND the stress of being exposed to needles at the same time? Might as well experience the stress now, so you don’t have a hard time later when you’ll be more mentally strained.
I wrote more about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/s/gtuxj1lq8V and have a draft post based off those comments. I figure you can do it *and* donate money to a blood drive (although blood drives are probably an ineffective methods of donating your money when there are Shrimp to be saved).
Alternatively, you can just give me $50 dollars a donation and forget the part about how I was going to donate anyways.
I was really hoping there might be some insight here that would help me get my needle-averse child to do a blood panel willingly. But it sounds like I just need to make the alternative incredibly unpleasant, which is an awful lot like punishment or coercion when it comes from a parent.
Oof good luck
The rule against compensating blood donors is (apparently) like Swiss cheese.
Carter’s gives platelet donors a $50 gift card every time they donate. And you can make the “gift card” a Mastercard gift card that is available wherever Mastercard is accepted or, like, an Amazon gift card, or 100 different stores.
I know all this because that’s how I pay for eating out. My wife just loves it when I say I’m going to get the bill with my blood money.
Great article! I was donating blood a couple of days ago and was wondering if it was worth anything. I heard a bogus calculation of three lives saved per donation.
I don't know how strong your needle phobia is, but I was in a similar boat. After giving blood a few times, I got used to it. Now almost all of the disutility I incur by donating blood is due to the time involved; the actual experience doesn't bother me.
Regardless of whether you can overcome your needle phobia to quite that extent, you should probably estimate the cost to you of giving blood using the long-run disutility instead of the current disutility, since almost all of your hypothetical blood donations would occur in the long run.
so you can get compensated for plasma but not for blood?
Glenn you already payd 2k for sex with a black dude now you gonna pay 2k more so people give blood, you gonna go bunkrupt soon
Context???
Glenn Greenwald findom video dropped last night
Insane lore drop