Here is a news story making the rounds that reminds me a lot of Larry Niven’s ‘The Jigsaw Man‘ and related stories about organleggers and illegal organ trafficking. In China a teenager sold his kidney for around $3,400 dollars to some illegal organ traders, and bought a computer and I-Pad with the proceeds. His mom got suspicious when she saw the electronics — and the freakin surgery scar!
I just have to wonder how long the Chinese government — already the biggest producer of cigarettes in the world and supplier to a citizenry dropping like flies from lung cancer — goes into the organ business for itself. Then we’ll really see ‘The Jigsaw Man’ — a world in which the bar for criminality has been lowered so much that people are executed for essentially minor infractions, since it makes good economic sense to do so.
Near-future dystopia always seemed like an all or nothing sort of endeavor, but I guess we just get glimpses of it as we slowly slide further and further down hill and end up in a Dangerous Visions story one day.
