The thing about getting a second-hand limb is that you'll look at that limb every day and know that it isn't really yours. You'll know that it was cut off a corpse and that can produce psychological issues far more severe than one would see from a prosthetic limb.

This is best illustrated by the following article about a man who was so psychologically disturbed by his transplanted penis that he had surgeons remove the member after only two weeks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,...1874818,00.html

I imagine that would be creepy if he ever recovered sexual function, for both him and his wife. It is literally someone else's penis.


So, this really raises questions about how much profit there would be in selling second-hand limbs. After all, word of mouth from people who have had their alien limbs chopped off due to psychological issues must severely damage the limb business. While most people who buy second-hand limbs ill be too poor to buy cloned limbs, it is just as likely that they would be able to adapt to the use of cheaper non-cyber prosthetics in many cases without the psychological trauma of having someone else's limbs.

For this reason, I suspect that internal organs will be far more popular than limbs could ever hope to be, including fifth limbs. Although, I suppose the fifth limbs will be in high demand due to their potential use in bizarre magic rituals.

Well I'd imagine that in a society where it's considered normal to pluck out the perfectly good eyeballs you were born with to install some metal ones that doesn't really do anything that you couldn't also do with a pair of fancy glasses people wouldn't have nearly as much problem with these types of issues as they do today.

I don't know. There's still a potentially large difference.
A prosthetic is a machine. It's noone's, so when you get it, it becomes yours. Like a posession, but still yours.
But someone else's limb is someone else's, not noone's, and not yours. So even after it's attached, there's that barrier keeping it from becoming yours; because even after it's attached you know that it's someone else's.
Not everyone would have a problem with that. Odds are, if you can't imagine what the problem would be, you probably wouldn't have a problem with it.
I honestly don't know how I would handle it.

Hmm, good point, but the angle that I'm coming from is this, I imagine that once a society as a whole gets over whatever hurdles they'd have to in order to see their meat as so meaningless and worthless that getting cybereyes or having a datajack installed is something that teenagers do on an afternoon jaunt to the mall they are already viewing their natural body as a thing they own, so extending that line of thought to second-hand body parts isn't that great of a leap in my mind.

I guess that way of thinking just seems more in line with the way I see Sixth World society where saturday morning kid shows might very well show unsimulated sex and mom/dad routinely buys 'to the death bloodsport events' on Pay-per-view.

Even now, the example of a donated penis is probably the most hyperbolic of any implanted organ. I'm sure that, while it may be a little wierd, most people are grateful to have someone else's kidney, or heart, or whatever, and genuinely thankful someone filled out a donor card and crashed their motorcycle. Its a small step from "Thank god that guy had a brian hemmorage or I'd be dead" to "Thank god that guy pissed off somebody with a gun, or I'd be dead."

Though I do think hands, faces, and penises are a wierd thing to recieve from a dead guy.

And a small step from there to hiring guys with guns to get pissed off at organ donors.

~J

There is definitely a HUGE psychological disconnect between a donor organ than you can't see and one that you can.
When was the last time you were consciously aware of your kidney? Sure, it happens, on extremely rare occasions, maybe if you have to pee really bad or if you get punched in it, but even then it's not that you're aware of your kidney, so much as a general sense of "Ow, my right here hurts really f'ing bad", or whatever. But otherwise, out of sight, out of mind.

A hand or a face or a penis has to be looked at, touched, and otherwise interacted with on a regular basis. *snicker*

Even so, I see a big difference, even between a lack of regard for your own meat and using someone elses. There's something strange and irrational about our sense of "self". An example is, if you've ever stuck your finger in your ear and pulled out some yellow yuck. (there's no use pretending you haven't) It's mildly gross, but more of a non-event. Now if that were someone else's ear yuck on your finger, it would be disgusting.
We're somehow irrationally blase about our own bodies, but grossed out by others, so by that rationale even a culture who is blase about cyber replacement and even clonal replacment might still have a problem with someone else's arm, because on a gut, irrational level, it's a very different thing.
Maybe. I don't know.

Try checking here

Abstract:
The author presents results of a study of psychological reactions of patients undergoing renal transplantation. The study identified a kind of "emotional transplant": the image of the kidney becomes part of the psychological structures present in the psychic apparatus, finally becoming merged with the individual's self-representations

i suddenly have this horrible vision of a cursed penis that travels from recipient to recipient, ruining lives and spreading chaos. the worst part is, i don't know whether to laugh or start writing.

This makes me want to go watch Killer Condom.

~J

Heck, to me the interesting issue is whether ritual magic targeted at the (hopefully deceased) owner might wind up hitting all the recipients.

I definitely think a penis would be in a different category than say a kidney. A kidney stays inside me. I don't generally think about it. A penis I put in my wife. If it's *MY* penis, life is good. If it's an artificial penis, well I guess that's okay (sort of like a vibrator, right?) If it's someone else's penis, well then I just get upset. Makes me want to go dig that guy up and punch him a few times. Bastard.

Hands are a little nicer. If it were a woman's hand it would be kind of awkward, but if it were some dude's hand, I'd just use it for all the disgusting activities like cleaning the toilet. Sucker.

I agree... I would much rather have a prosthetic limb then a transplanted one.

On a side note, I think I know why he was all upset. He got stuck with 10cm.

I mean if you had the chance to choose your size, seems like a min of 13 cm would be in order.

there ought to be some sort of Mismatched Limb flaw. you'd have to handwave a lot of medical complications, i guess, but playing a hispanic guy with an anglo hand would be kinda neat.

"She's got man-hands!" -Seinfeld

...this discussion is beginning to bring back odd memories of an episode of Futurama...

How old am I?

Jigsaw Man part of a set of short stories available in Tales of Known Space and I think I may have read the original magazine publication sometime from the late 60's

I'm unclear as to why there is any organ legging in 2070. Transplanting in 2007 is a stop-gap - it's a bad solution that we use because it works at all.

In 2070 they can force-grow clones that are fully functional and have been able to do so for over twenty years (the vat-grown replacements were an option in the basic book of first edition set in 2050). The entire reasoning behind transplants today simply doesn't wash in that future. There's no reason to hold on to someone's former kidney on the off-chance that it will turn out to be a genetic match for someone who needs a kidney to live - you could literally just make a kidney should such a hypothetical need come into being.

The people of 2070 have long since passed an informational threshold where individual organs are no longer unique. And that means that he scarce leavings of cadavers no longer has value.

A second hand organ is a risk for allergies, it's an infection hazard, and the chances of it working as well as a new organ after it's been in a dying host and the open air is as close to zero as makes no odds. The only reason to use one is because there are no other options.

But in 2070 there are other options. And the only value that some dead berk's liver has is that it is 1.4 kilograms of high-nutrient meat that might be enjoyed by a Wendigo, a Ghoul, or a Penanggalan. Everyone else has better, less dangerous, more reliable options.

-Frank

Second-hand organs have the advantage of being cheaper than every other option.
Most poor individuals, especially those who are SINless, simply can't afford vat-grown organs. For those people, it is far more economically feasible just to have somebody hack up another poor sinless fellow who just happens to be a match. The cost of lifelong anti-rejection treatment results in higher long-term costs, but that doesn't matter to those who can't aford the initial up-front cost of a vat-grown organ.

It starts being My Body Part the moment My Body starts keeping It Alive, or It starts Keeping Me Alive.

Like I'm going to tell the Doctor, "You know, I decided I don't want the fantastic new heart, because it wasn't the one I was born with. Can you put the old one back?" Not gonna happen!

I can't understand wanting to needlessly suffer for the lack of a certian body part because I was not the original owner. If I am legally taking care of it now, its mine. It does not matter if it is a car, kids, or body part.

Can I trade up later for a better model?

While you may fully accept someone else's heart would you be so able to accept a miss-matched Frankenstein hand or a mismatched Frankenstein penis?

Also something to remember is that at least in the First World we tend to have so much free time and realatively easy lives that we tend to make up all sorts of new stresses to fill in the gap.

As for me, well, I know that I'd rather have a fully functioning hand or penis then no hand or penis. Now, would I rather have one that "matched" the rest of me, most certainly, and I would probably accept a matching hand/penis that wasn't as 'good' in some way as a non-matching one if given the choice.

But above all else, I would rather have a complete body then not, no matter where the pieces came from.

Hmm, so does that mean that theorically speaking, if a mismatched hand was implanted on someone (A white hand on a black man or visa-versa.) that as time wore on the implanted hand would change color to match the rest of the person's body?

Couldn't you just die it the right color?

Depending on who you believe, Michael Jackson might provide the answer.

~J

Well sure you could Demon_Bob, but I'm curious whether or not it would happen over time naturally.

I feel like we're missing an important issue here. Such as how did he lose his penis in the first place?!

Maybe I shouldn't be thinking about such things, but propriety be damned, cause I'd rather like to avoid doing whatever this poor sap did.

In my 'A-Team Chronicles' campaign, the human mercenary Jonathan has a gadget-laden cyberarm that's a secondhand piece of ware from a guy named Brundle. This Brundle Arm is glitchy -- some would say haunted -- and on rare occasions seems to act of its own accord...Slapping teammates, breaking bottles over the mercenary's head, etc.

It's not really a plot device, more like something I can exploit for comic relief -- but it creates enough of a worry for the PC that he is constantly weighing the benefits of replacing it and losing the the 750,000¥-worth of goodies built in, or sucking it up and living with a wacky cyberarm.

hm. actually kinda tempting to play that guy. you know how really bad stuff never seems to happen to main characters? how they never seem to take any really permanent damage? i've always hated that. it seems more interesting to me to play a guy who takes that and doesn't die or quit--he survives, he overcomes, and you better not fuck with him because there's nothing you can do to him that's worse than what he's already been through.

I sure as fuck would not mess with a guy that has decided to kill his enemies before having his dick reattached. You can't really sidetrack a guy like that.