Bring Out Your Nearly Dead

Souless hack Virginia Postrel showed up in Megan McArdle's comments recently and was immediately attacked by the commenters, who are civil only when it pleases them.


McArdle discussed opt-in versus opt-out organ donation and evidently Postrel was annoyed by the commenters' emphasis on improving the current process instead of cutting up the poor for their organs. McArdle wisely let Postrel take the heat; you cannot tell McArdle pushes selling organs until you follow the links in her post.

Virginia Postrel • 2 days ago Here's the research everyone so studiously ignores: http://kieranhealy.org/files/p...  

Erica > Virginia Postrel • 19 hours ago Probably because it's poorly written. 28 pages to say improved donation rates are due to improvements in logistics -- better training,clearer responsibility, stronger presence in hospitals -- rather than opt-in or opt-out consent. You don't bury the lede on page 25.  

coketown > Virginia Postrel • a day ago South of the page-break, we usually offer a précis or pertinent excerpt of the linked material for the benefit of other commenters. Often I'm reading the comments on the can and don't really have time to read studies. Just FYI. Your Eminence.  

Noumenon72 > Virginia Postrel • 2 days ago I'm continuing to ignore it. Megan's post helps me make sense of the world, this just tells me a list of facts about the world with no abstract or point.  

bronxcobra > Virginia Postrel • 2 days ago This must be what it was like when the Gods on Mt. Olympus used to decend and cavort among the common folk.  

Julie__K > bronxcobra • a day ago Didn't they do that in disguise?  

Epstein's Mother > Julie__K • a day ago I keep warning you guys that I'm Hera in disguise. What, you think that peacock in my backyard is for decoration? Have you ever heard one of those things? They're horrible creatures!!  

SgtFraggleRock > Epstein's Mother • a day ago That's precisely what I think when a celebrity wants to speak his or her "mind".  

coketown > bronxcobra • a day ago Oh come on. She publishes books one at a time, just like everyone else.  

Needstimulus > coketown • a day ago Kill the unbeliever!  

Virginia Postrel > Needstimulus • a day ago In the future, I will only contribute information when paid for it. Sorry to offend by giving stuff away. My tone of annoyance was directed not at commenters but at the endless repetition of "if only we'd have presumed consent everything would be well" with no regard for the empirical realities.  

kerini > Virginia Postrel • 15 hours ago Somebody go tell McMegan to tell VP we're sorry and didn't mean it and if she comes back we promise to never stuff coketown down the back of her collar again.  

wiredog > Virginia Postrel • a day ago Oh Lord, now she's channeling Bono.  

heedless > Virginia Postrel • a day ago Speaking for myself, I appreciate the link. Please come visit us anytime. We're are an irreverent and sarcastic bunch, but it's (mostly) kindly meant. And it could be worse. This could be a Reason comment thread.  

bannedforselfcensorship > Virginia Postrel • a day ago Needstimulus angered the Gods. But coketown made him do it.  

Needstimulus > bannedforselfcensorship • 18 hours ago The dark forces are getting stronger. They are preventing clear communication and causing a widespread blackout in both sarcasm detection and correct thread responses. You correctly blamed Coketown for my comment, so perhaps not all is lost. When I called Coketown an unbeliever, I was indeed callin him and only him an unbeliever. Somehow the wise and powerful Postrel thought I meant her? I may just end it all right now! Goodbye cruel world! (And keep your hands off my organs!)  

coketown > bannedforselfcensorship • 21 hours ago Nobody would be angry if everybody would just read my book, "The Power of Humour: Humility and the Art of Getting Over Oneself." HowRudeIsThat > coketown • 20 hours ago Please post link to free download.  

Virginia Postrel > HowRudeIsThat • 14 hours ago My final intervention: Would people who think it's so arrogant or hilarious that I posted the link instead of writing my own original article on the subject Megan just addressed, please look at the next comment down (from eyethink2) and think about I might have posted the link? I do not spend my life in comments threads--when I'm not being stupid I avoid them altogether--and therefore did not post as a reply to eyethink2 but rather as a new comment. (Unfortunately Disqus keeps telling me whenever someone posts here.)  

HowRudeIsThat > Virginia Postrel • 14 hours ago I was actually just intending to rib Coketown a little -- his précis silliness gave me the giggles. It didn't occur to me that you would receive every post down-thread. IMO, posting of links that aim to illuminate is almost always a good thing, so thank you.  

eyethink• 2 days ago I read through the links in the article (did not watch the hour long video that I think suggested we should pay donors for organs), but didn't see anything that showed evidence that Americans donated organs at a higher rate that Europeans. Did I miss it? I didn't do outside research to find statistics on organ donation percentages of those who opt-in versus those who have a default opt-in. But I don't see that Megan did either.

Postrel does not need to worry; her audience would happily cut up the poor if they could make a buck off of it. It's all in the approach with self-appointed Masters of the Universe. For instance, the commenters do not seem to realize that Postrel wants to market the organs of living people. She wants to live in a world in which people can get rich coercing the poor to sell their body parts.