[BLANK_AUDIO] I'll ask Julia to, to start by just saying a little bit about what is it that led you to decide to give away a substantial part of your income. Alright, Alexander so, we'll just say. >> Hi there. >> Right, it's right that you're with us. So I was just introducing our, our other guests. I think you can't see them, right? But we got Julia Wise and Zell Kravinsky here, and I'm going to ask them to just say a few words about what led them to the decisions they've made about giving, and then I'm going to come to you. Okay? >> Yup, sounds great. >> Alright. So, Julia, let's start with you. >> I guess since the time that I was a child, it seems that, I had everything I needed and more. I grew up in a pretty middle class family, went to college, got a white collar job, and, I've really never lacked for anything that I needed. And it's always been very striking to me that there are so many people who lack the basics. So I've always wanted to do something about that. And, when I met my husband in college he sort of thought, you know he hadn't really actually thought about it much at all. But sort of talked him into joining me in kind of keeping our needs small basically. We looked at the type of life styles that we had grown up with as sort of middle class kids and we didn't find that we needed a lot of the stuff that we'd had So when you're in college, you're sort of living in a small space and, you know, you don't have a lot of material things anyway and a lot of your enjoyment comes from, you know, friendships and, you know, people you enjoy being with. And so we've really kept the focus on that rather than on getting the, you know, the cars and the big houses and things like that, so. Just by keeping our needs small. I think from the time that we were first thinking about this, it's really been a smooth ride for us. Where as it might've been harder if we had sort of had our parents' life style and then decided to come back. >> Okay. Thanks very much. So. >> I don't know. To, to me, it always seemed axiomatic that you'd give away all you didn't need. It, I don't know why precisely, but, it strikes me as, the other philosophy strikes me as bizarre. To believe that things that have come your way by happenstance. By the accidents of birth and, and time. It should continue with you, and not be distributed to people that need you. I don't know why we accept that as, as the way. I was raised, My father and my grandfather said. So from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. That was the, the Marxist formula. But it seemed to me growing up that all the systems that determine, that gauge the extent of your contribution are, are debatable and self interested, and questions won't get you into trouble. So I just went with, to each according to their need because, at the fringes of need it's easy to see that somebody who has a lot less than you, needs a great deal of what you have if you have a lot more than what you need. >> It's, it's one thing to say that, though, and a lot of people do say something like that, you know, to each according to their need, it's, it's another thing to do it. And I find, I'm not sure if you mentioned your father and grandfather saying that, but were they actually practicing it? >> I guess to an, to an extent my grandfather was and my, you know my father was Leftist politics. He, he was against private philanthropy, because he wanted the edge of revolutionary fervor he felt right. But I, what I didn't understand about that, I wasn't sure in my mind if that was two discrete items on a wish list, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need, or if it was a social contract, because a lot of people in America will say, well, I'm for that. A lot of rich people who don't give will say, well that's fine. To each according to their needs so long as they've, given according to their ability, and the gauge of what they've given is their salary. If you make, 100,000, you gave a 100,000 to society. So they say, that, that formula's fine with them. >> Mm-hm. But. >> But it's a, you, you know, when you start to gauge. >> Right. >> It's going to be one or another, a horribly self-interested project, so, it's so much simpler, to go with need. >> Okay. Let's come to you Alexander. How did you get, involved in this? >> Probably the, the basic answer is through a class very similar to this one. I was taking an Ethics class at Stanford, and, you know, read some of your work, and, you know, some of the stuff about Zell, and so, sort of heard about, kidney donation, as something that people could do in that context. And at first I remember thinking that it, it sounded a little bit crazy and just not something I identified with at all. And then, over time, you know, actually I read it like an undergraduate thesis, that somebody had written, that sort of mentioned as an aside, just how safe it was to donate. And then, you know, sort of following up on that and doing a little more bit more research. And, it also turns out that the, the benefits for recipients are really large. You know, something on the order of ten more years of life. And so, once I started to think in those terms it, it really, I did, sort of, start to see Zell's perspective a little bit more. And, start to think of it as I, I really relatively low cost to myself, running a small personal risk. I could save somebody else's life in ways that seem like, really, really like a positive trade off, and so you know, that's how I started thinking about donating a kidney. And then I mean, I have some affinity for both Zell and Julia's other, other ethical decisions as well, in terms of donating. and, I came to work through, I give well through some similar thinking. >> Okay, so, we, we read the article you wrote for the New York Times, which, I think, you wrote a day or two before you actually, donated the kidney, right, that's how it starts off. So, perhaps you ought to, bring us up to date, and, and, tell us how it went. >> Yeah, well, it went well. I'm safe and healthy, and my wrist so I don't need to start a kidney chain. Often people want to donate to their spouse, or a loved one, but they're not a match, and so what they do is they enter a, a chain, so that it's easier to get a match, and so, you know, I donate to somebody. A middle school, math teacher in rural Pennsylvania, who then, her husband donated on her behalf to, sort of, continue this chain, which ended up having six connections. And then, you know, I think I, I think I said in my op ed, it might be called Relatively painless. And that, perhaps, was a slight overstatement. [LAUGH] But overall, the operation is safe, and it wasn't too bad at all and I'd happily do it again and you know, [LAUGH] I took a couple, sort of, went home for Christmas, and then was back at work in the, in the new year and back to rock climbing a few weeks after that, so I mean, it hasn't affected my, like, lifestyle, or decisions at all, really. But, I'm happy I did it and I would happily do it again. >> If you had another kidney to spare. [LAUGH] >> Well, yes exactly. >> Have you had any contact? You, you mentioned the, that you've identified the person obviously who received it. Have you had any contact with them? >> Yeah. We've corresponded a little bit. You know, I had a tough time deciding initially whether I wanted to sort of be known to her, or know who she was. Because you know, I entered the process sort of randomly it, it wasn't like I picked my recipient. And so, even though I felt really good about sort of the average affect of donating. There was this question for me about you know, when you're thinking about like, the actual sort of embodied person that you're giving to, instead of like an abstract idea. Like, maybe it's somebody who you, you don't end up liking or maybe they are the one, you know, a hundred or something where it doesn't work out or they get sick [COUGH] [INAUDIBLE] number significantly higher than that. Maybe my kidney, like would just failed for some reason and she would get sick again the next year. And so, you know, I, also we decided that given the decision and given who I was, I knew I would want to be able to thank the person who donated to me. And so, that seemed to me to be like the right decision, was to you know, be in touch so that she could thank me if she wanted to, because I knew that would be important to me. But it, it wasn't an, easy decision for me, to make that call. >> Okay. Zell, how about you, have you had contact with the person you donated to. >> Not, not for a while. >> Mm-hm. >> And then, you know, it's a little complicated maybe because my wife still doesn't support the decision and >> Right. I think that was. >> Oh, I had good feelings about the recipient. >> Yes. Okay, yeah. I think that's, that's clear from the, the article that you have some tensions in your domestic life, because of you, your, your ideas about what you ought to be doing. Disagreeing with those of your, of your wife. >> But I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm wondering if Alexander had the same, Had somebody in his life who was [COUGH] from the negative and change their mind afterwards. You, you know my friend, Alan, didn't want to talk to me about it. Afterwards, as you know, he became more enthusiastic about it. >> Right. Alexander was there someone in your life who was opposed to what you were doing whose come around? >> You know I was pretty lucky the, you know my, my parents initially were enthused to say the least. But after you know a few months of sort of wearing them down and continuing forward in the process, I demonstrated that I was serious about it. They they sort of came around and were ultimately supportive. I mean I think they both wished I had delayed it indefinitely. But when push came to shove, you know, they, they were there to, to see me in the hospital and to help me through the process. And I really appreciated that. There were, there was nobody in like sort of my personal life who was saying, you're making such a huge mistake, don't do this. You know, I dunno if any of you guys read the, comments on the Times op ed. Like, you know, there were like 190 out of like 200 there saying, you're making such a mistake. Don't do this. but, I was, I was lucky to be privileged in my personal life with a lot of sort of, supportive, thoughtful friends who, who were, happy, happy to help in the process. >> Okay. Thanks. >> So Julie you said in, in your decision you made that jointly with Jeff who is now your husband I guess, wasn't at the time we were discussing it, is that right? So that would have made things a lot easier but, but how about your parents and his parents, did they think that you ought to be saving more for buying your own home or for having children in future or something of that sort? >> My parents have certainly been more conservative about sort of financial decisions then I have and I think there were, especially in the early years, some things I did that didn't exactly help that. You know, like you know I said that I wouldn't accept any Christmas presents one year and if they gave me any, I'd, I'd sell them and give the money to charity. That didn't go over too well. I don't recommend doing that. I, it just upsets your grandmother. So once I learned to not do things that upset my grandmother things were a lot smoother, and at this point, you know, I think they're, they're proud of me, and they see that I'm not living in a cardboard box, which I think was their fear. and, you know, that I, I have the things I need and so I think they're, they feel much more positive about it than they did, certainly.
