[ExI] People are Genuine Altruists, Sociopaths, or Confused/Moody

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Mon Sep 15 11:24:27 UTC 2008


2008/9/15 Max More <max at maxmore.com>:
> At 10:47 PM 9/13/2008, Harvey wrote:
>
>> These examples are simply poor examples of "genuine altruism" because they
>> all involve me getting benefits.  Why don't you come up with examples of
>> "genuine altruism" where I don't get anything back?  Such as:
>>
>> - Giving blood?
>
> This example is (if I'm informed correctly) not a good one, unlike your
> others. Apparently, giving blood can be beneficial to your health (if you
> are male) by lowering concentrations of iron in the body.
>
> Caveat: I read that quite some time ago, am unsure of the source, and it may
> not be true. But it's plausible. Can anyone confirm this?

It's only a problem if they have the hereditary disease
haemochromatosis, which affects about 1/200 people. Iron overload can
cause multi-organ failure and eventually death. The treatment is
regular bloodletting until body iron stores are depleted to a normal
level. Men present earlier with symptoms and tend to be more severely
affected than women because they don't menstruate. But the best that
can be said for blood donation for most of the population is that it
doesn't seem to do any harm.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou



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