comment: >
  
  r/LateStageCapitalism
context: This is a terrible proposal.  This creates perverse incentives that can cause harm to inmates who feel that there is no way out other than to donate organs.  We shouldn't create incentives like this that make people have to weigh donating organs vs being treated with dignity.  This is completely unethical.  I'm more in favor of community service, rehabilitation/therapy courses, or heck even working in a high demand sector in exchange for reduced sentence such as paramedic, fire fighter, rural doctor, educator in low income areas ect. I think giving people options to become productive members of the community is a far better way reducing the number of people incarcerated than organ donation. >
  
  Like we want people in prison working these in demand jobs. I’d kill for a job like that. Sadly I got a dui like 8 years ago and can maybe bsa teacher. Prisoners should get all these services and I get nothing? I get it’s complicated. I do think before we incentivize organ donations let me sell my shit. Also make only citizens can sell them. It would save the health care industry a tremendous amount of money. >
  
  The jobs I suggested are in demand but there aren't enough people to fulfill them.  Rural Doctors, Fire Fighters, Paramedics, and educators in poor communities are hard to find because working in these careers is very stressful even if it is rewarding.  If we didn't have a shortage of people then they wouldn't be on this list.  Extending lifelines to people to help them rejoin their communities is the best way to prevent recidivism.  It also boost the economy.  Think of this as a combination rehabilitation, parole, and community service.  We already provide education services to prisoners.  I'm just saying give them an option to train for high demand, Low Applicant, community oriented careers in exchange for a shorter sentence. I think this would help enrich the lives of convicts but also help them reintegrate into their communities which should be the ultimate goal of any type of criminal justice system. Separate them from society and then rehabilitate them so they can be reintroduced and be productive members.  This isn't always possible but that is why we have life sentences without parole.
  This zero sum mindset is what prevents us from having a better society.  I'm sorry your DUI prevents you from getting the opportunities you want.  You deserve an opportunity for rehabilitation and redemption like these prison inmates.  That doesn't mean that we shouldn't have this service because you would benefit from it too if our criminal justice system was rehabilitation oriented rather than punishment oriented.  You were punished but given no opportunity to correct your mistake.  Social services such as free/low-cost healthcare, education, Child care,  and housing benefit everyone by allowing people to live their best lives and become productive members of society.  This allows them to start families, generate wealth and contribute to the economy which then we all benefit from. >
  
  I’m cool with a lot of it. I just don’t think felons are the people who do well as these hard working careers. I do think these people should have jobs. They should get skills in prison. I just don’t get why minimum wage normal jobs are fine. Like the prisoner solution to your problem just seems insane. I’m pretty easy on crime and think prison is about taking your freedom and shouldn’t be much else outside of rehabilitation. I just don’t get how you made it about first responders and teachers. Again it’s not easy to even join the military after having been prescribed adderrall. Hell you can be convicted for a dui and still keep your job as a cop. I just don’t see any community saying they should integrate felons for these jobs. Sadly these communities need to adjust the money in and out so they can attract workers. If they can’t these communities naturally will fall apart. >
  
  Well yes ultimately these high stress jobs should get better pay and benefits to attract candidates.  However under this current economic system in America (Call it Capitalism, call it Corporatism, or whatever other ism you want it is fucking unsustainable) it won't happen. Current economic conditions dictate that all employees are just labor that needs to be exploited for profit even if it means treating people like shit and not paying what they are worth. Until you change that these high stress jobs will always be underpaid compared to the service they provide.  This Band-aid I'm proposing is a way to give inmates a community connection while training them for something higher skill that they can use to climb the economic ladder. Minimum wage menial jobs don't help them train for useful skills and don't necessarily create the community connection that I think should be incentivized for rehabilitation.  Besides in America Minimum wage jobs are poverty jobs which leads right back into crime. Often these communities are poor and POC and lots of POC people are locked up in prison on non-violent felony drug charges.  These are the people that this proposal would most help. These are the people that deserve this second chance the most. >
  
  I just so disagree. I do believe in the commitment to help these people. We should focus on making minimum wage jobs you can live on. All I know is in la ca cops and firefighters especially are highly paid. I don’t know what you consider good wages. I just think first is make jobs available to people who can show up and be productive. Not even saying ideal employee level stuff. If these people who lived in a cage can’t deal with that and the freedom. It’s gonna be a tough sell to me and many people it’s worth doing whatever to eventually end up in jail over being a person with freedom in abject poverty. Millions do it day in and day out without causing harm. Lift the poor up. People who commit crime can join them when they free. >
  
  Larry Niven has a story about a space colony that ends up criminalizing people just to harvest their organs to keep an aging population alive longer. Just kind of reminds me of that. This kind of stuff shouldn’t be encouraged should go without saying but here we are. >
  
  Classic “Don’t Create the Torment Nexus” moment.
  Good SciFi is at its peak when once you remove the fictional science it is all too real. >
  
  A lot of good scifi is simple extrapolation from the present. It takes an idea to its logical extremes and explores the consequences of such an act.
  That DS9 episode (Past Tense, Parts I & II) about a bleak dystopian future LA of 2024 (geez, time flies) was inspired by a contemporary newspaper article about a proposed homeless encampment. 
  As it turns out, a lot of these bad ideas and impulses have far longer histories than we'd like to admit. >
  
  "I'd give my left testicle to get out of this place"
  Massachusetts: "what about a kidney?" >
  
  Filthy socialists.
  If they were true libertarian capitalists they’d allow us to auction our organs to the highest bidder on eBay. >
  
  Imagine all the new free market organ harvesting businesses, it will boost the economy. >
  
  Maybe we can make them NFT’s and roll several of them into securities that people can invest their imaginary internet money in and pump up a speculative bubble. >
  
  This is fucking vile. When my brother suddenly died of a heart attack the organ donation folks didn't want anything from his body - because he was gay. His kidneys were fine, his liver was fine, his eyes, his skin, all of the rest but his heart, was perfectly fucking fine. But we have this kind of sick proposal getting made? WTF is wrong with this country. >
  
  Wtf you can't catch Gay from a kidney transplant!? >
  
  Yeah so gay people can’t even donate blood…that’s how fucked this country is right now. >
  
  That is so so stupid. Just test the blood for pathogens. This country is hopeless. >
  
  Fucking obscene. >
  
  So we have private prisons and now prisoners can essentially sell their organs for freedom. What dystopian hellhole are we heading towards?? >
  
  If an inmate is safe enough to release after donating organs, they are safe enough to release without donating organs. Incarceration is not an excuse to dehumanize people. >
  
  Some lawmakers should donate their brains to science, barely used... >
  
  Brain so smoof. >
  
  Organ slavery. >
  
  No way this will be abused
  Also, who takes care of the donor medical bills if any issues arise from the surgery >
  
  New black mirror episode >
  
  If this story came out of China... >
  
  Just a pound of flesh eh? >
  
  Nah that is fucked up. >
  
  “We already use them for slave labor. What about organ harvesting?” - US Lawmakers, evidently >
  
  one of the stupidest things I've heard. Losing a kidney isn't going to make you a good person for society. >
  
  It's basically admitting they really didn't have a good reason to keep people in prison in the first place, and they're using it as leverage to force people to do things they wouldn't normally do. >
  
  People would freak out if they proposed letting the public rent out prisoners to do chores like mowing lawns, etc., and yet this is maybe 1000 times worse. >
  
  Renting out prisoners is very common. They do field work for corporate farms, work in school kitchens, and so on. I've also read of governors having prisoners staff and maintain their houses. >
  
  That sounds like slavery with extra steps (probably because it constitutionally is). Some of prisoners are probably descendants of those original slaves too. >
  
  Any lawmaker coming up with this shit needs to be removed from office. This is shit out of nightmares. Next thing we know, a lot of people are going to jail and the rich not waiting for organs. >
  
  This is the worst, most dystopian thing I’ve heard this month. >
  
  My god what is this country coming to >
  
  This is not the bottom. >
  
  I feel like the lawmakers aren't familiar with the concept of informed consent.
  This is clearly a form of inducement or coercion and therefore the prisoner cannot give informed consent. >
  
  If this shocks you then you would be outraged at what passes for voluntary pleas in criminal court.
  “Sir, if you plead right now you will get a 2 year sentence and be out on parole in 60 days. If you take this to trial we won’t have a trial for 1 year or more and if convicted you will be facing a minimum of 25 years in prison without parole. Oh… you want to take the 2 year offer even though you didn’t do anything? Cool.” >
  
  Reminds me of Wagner group. >
  
  That’s some dystopian shit >
  
  Prisons are not organ farms, coming from someone who believes in organ donation. This system is so broken >
  
  One gets the sense that the people writing the laws all grew up on the same dystopian fiction that I did, and took the EXACT WRONG messages from it. >
  
  Progressive Massachusetts yall… 😳🤡 fucking disgusting. >
  
  I'd have expected this from lawmakers in Texas, not Massachusetts.
  Massholes. >
  
  Next phase is taking the organs after an inmate is "executed". Look up what's happening to uyghurs in china. >
  
  Read Larry Niven's short story The Jigsaw Man >
  
  Alright, who let the Republican into the chamber? >
  
  Surprising/not surprising democrats actually. A lot of people view prisoners, homeless, and disabled people as subhuman. Unfortunately that mindset reaches across aisles. >
  
  Unfortunately true. >
  
  The evil fucking ghouls who proposed this should be forced to wear shrouds and chased off into the woods. Not for one second can we allow this shit. >
  
  how much for a lung?
  does it have to be my organs or just in my possession? >
  
  Why is it that in the US there are these proposals now and then that you only expect to see in countries like Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia? It's like part of the country is stuck in a mindset from the 1800s. Still the wild west I guess... >
  
  Insanity pool growing ever larger >
  
  If this passes… when someone donates a kidney, gets out, and proves their innocence outside of prison, and then sues the state for costing them a kidney on top of years of their life, then they will put the kibosh on this.
  It’s also worth noting that it seems like a terrible idea on many fronts, even for guilty people. Prisoners have higher rates of transmissible diseases that they can catch from unreported rape or other reasons. If your sentence is commuted you will never feel like a full citizen again, because you literally lost a part of your body for freedom.
  How we treat the ~~“worst”~~ most unfortunate of us (prisoners are not actually much worse than the general population, but billionaires are) speaks volumes to who we are as a society.
  Edit. Also, where does “organ donation” end. If sperm and egg donation or “donating” a womb to carry a fetus to term became a thing that would be twisted as fuck. This is all just a terrible idea that abuses a vulnerable population. >
  
  Between Canada starting down the slippery slope of poverty euthanasia, the recent stress test of US and other democracies around the world, and now this, this really is starting to look like the start of a dystopian era. >
  
  This sounds exploitative as hell… >
  
  Holy Stephen King- at least in his story, you only get stuck in time travel >
  
  Massachusetts citizen here. I hate this. It’s unethical and cruel. 
  Let’s do an opt-out only organ donation (instead of opt-in) for every citizen. >
  
  That will play well in the over-seas press. >
  
  There might be a case for cruel and unusual >
  
  For fuck's sake! Selling your organs is illegal! So these fucks decide to change a law that probably carries a GREATER sentance than what these people are facing, so they can donate organs, (to people who can afford them). Probably the law sponsors have relatives that need transplants.
  The medical care the prisoners receive will be 3rd world shit service while the patients receiving the organs will get top notch service. And what happens if the prisoners need an organ back?🤷‍♂️ >
  
  Shouldn’t this be posted under “whatcouldgowrong?” >
  
  So they want to turn prisons into organ farms. Do we need more proof that we are living in dystopian times? >
  
  Ooh that is unethical. I'm all for it but this has big issues and ain't gonna fly. >
  
  
  Ooh that is unethical. I’m all for it
  
  Wat. >
  
  What is hard about that? Incentivizing prisoners to donate organs to get out of jail is unethical. Are you aware people in the US cannot bid their organs? Think about it for a little while.  Now that you have, surely you will agree that in general, there is an ethics problem with such things.  Now that you are there, I think both you and I are also able to say, screw ethics, that prisoner being put to death should be put to death in a manner where their organs can be harvested to stone for their crimes. It's what China does. Or maybe we just give them a get out of jail card for a kidney. >
  
  You might want to edit your comment because you literally stated that you were “all for it”.