iPad 2 Price Drops From 'Arm And A Leg' To More Reasonable 'One Kidney'

from the true-price-of-early-adoption dept

Fri, Jun 3rd 2011 6:57am — Tim Cushing

From Shanghai Daily comes this somewhat tragic tale of tech desire gone horribly wrong:

A 17-year-old student in Anhui Province sold one of his kidneys for 20,000 yuan only to buy an iPad 2. Now, with his health getting worse, the boy is feeling regret but it is too late, the Global Times reported today.

Now, while most of us have desired the latest shiny new thing, few of us have had the courage to put one of our organs on the line for it. Maybe it's just the reasonable fear of unlicensed surgical procedures holding us back or the threat of being prosecuted for illegally harvesting our own organs. Either way, the bar has been raised and no longer will onlookers be impressed by our tales of camping outside the Apple store for 36 hours for a shot at the latest iWhatever.

While this student regrets his decision to go through life with a half-rack of kidneys, he's already built some wiggle room into his story:

"I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it," said the boy surnamed Zheng in Huaishan City. "A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan."

A broker contacted him? Unless by "contacted him," he means "clicked on a Google ad for 'SELL YOUR KIDNEY NOW,'" I'm pretty sure the kidney seller made the first contact. I could be wrong. (The possibility is high. See also: this post.) Of course, this could mean he said something irresponsible like, "I'd sell a kidney to get one of those," in the wrong forum at the wrong time and someone "reached out." You never know.

Unfortunately for this student (whose lifetime stats currently read: iPad[s]: 1; Kidney[s]: -1) there may be little recourse available. The hospital where the removal was performed (Chenzhou No. 198) is "not qualified to perform organ transplants," meaning that even if said kidney is found, he'll need to talk another hospital into re-inserting Kidney A. The broker has also vanished, covering his tracks by turning his phone off. (That's not a punchline. It's right there in the article.)

When he returned home, his mother found out and reported to the police immediately. But they could not locate the broker whose cell phone was always powered off, the report said.

Well, I hope we can all take something from this experience and apply it to our own lives. For me, it's "temper your desires." Or, if you can't, at least perform the kidney-iPad exchange here in the US, where the court systems and ambulance chasers will be more than happy to help you argue that this is Apple's fault.

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Filed Under: ipad, kidney

24 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2011 @ 7:06am

Old news is old.
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- Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2011 @ 7:18am
  
  Re:
  Stupid comment is stupid.
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- shearviscosity, 5 Jun 2011 @ 7:45pm
  
  Re:
  Did you get bullied a lot in school?
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- shearviscosity, 5 Jun 2011 @ 7:45pm
  
  Re:
  Did you get bullied a lot in school?
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  - Katie, 17 Dec 2012 @ 11:04am
    
    Re: Re:
    Yes always
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FUDbuster (profile), 3 Jun 2011 @ 7:41am

That's just sad. And I'm wondering what he'll give for the iPad 3.
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- DC, 3 Jun 2011 @ 7:55am
  
  Re:
  Just how much is 20,000 Yuan worth compared to an Ipad2? Hopefully he will have enough to get an IPhone 5 to...
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  - ComputerAddict (profile), 3 Jun 2011 @ 9:34am
    
    Re: Re:
    The other article I read said he actually got 22,000 yuan which is about $3400 US or 2330 EUR So yea, Unless he's buying his ipad2 on the black market as well, he should have a few bucks kicking around.
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- DogBreath, 3 Jun 2011 @ 8:07am
  
  Re:
  That's just sad. And I'm wondering what he'll give for the iPad 3.
  
  I'm certain the iPad 3 will have a 3D version, and I'm just as sure some nonthinking human will end up selling off one of their eyes for it. Think "The Gift of the Magi", only replace the "love" with "greed".
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2011 @ 7:49am

Fuck him. It's called 'personal responsibility'. You do something completely and utterly retarded and dangerous, you live (or don't) with the consequences.
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- DC, 3 Jun 2011 @ 7:52am
  
  Re:
  Nah, welfare will take care of him.
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  - Killer_Tofu (profile), 3 Jun 2011 @ 10:51am
    
    Re: Re:
    Welfare in China?
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- Francisco, 3 Jun 2011 @ 8:03am
  
  Re:
  He is a 17 years old boy. At least in my country, Argentina, he can not take personal responsibility for his acts because he is a minor.
  
  Kids are stupid, precisely for this the law protects them.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 3 Jun 2011 @ 8:06am

Odds
If conspiracy theory holds, then this might be the 'igniting incident' in what ends up being a global "war" on for-profit trade in human organs.
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- DogBreath, 3 Jun 2011 @ 8:19am
  
  Re: Odds
  Time to get those Organlegging laws passed now. The MPAA/RIAA will be glad to help get them put into law, as the piracy rate will drop dramatically when the only punishment available will be sending you to the organ banks to have your body parts taken and life functions terminated.
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  - Any Mouse (profile), 3 Jun 2011 @ 4:56pm
    
    Re: Re: Odds
    As a transplant recipient (and being relisted for another transplant since the other 'only' lasted 9 years), I can tell you it's already illegal to sell organs in the US and most of the 1st World countries. Now if they'd harvest from convicts on death row...
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    - DogBreath, 4 Jun 2011 @ 12:12pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Odds
      It may be illegal now, but laws change all the time. Anything being "illegal" never stopped anyone who was determined to do it anyway, and the illegality of it meant it was riskier, but more profitable for the provider too. Besides, people with enough money in 1st world countries just go to 3rd world countries to buy what they need, their own countries law be damned (like people in the U.S. buying lower priced lifesaving prescription drugs from Canada or Mexico because they can't afford it here).
      
      Unless U.S. Customs starts asking people "Are these your original organs that you didn't purchase in a foreign country in violation of U.S. laws?" for entry to the U.S.A., the process of organ shopping won't stop anytime soon.
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Kris, 3 Jun 2011 @ 8:25am

Sad story that someone would actually do it
20000 Chinese yuan = 3086.6200 US dollars
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- Any Mouse (profile), 3 Jun 2011 @ 4:57pm
  
  Re: Sad story that someone would actually do it
  Hurray for http://www.xe.com/ucc/ ?
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2011 @ 9:30am

He has the American, "Keeping up with the Joneses" bug
It's really not that much different than what people in America have done in mortgaging houses to 100+%, he's just taking it a step further by "mortgaging" his own body parts, which are immediately foreclosed.

Look at the bright side, at least it didn't damage his credit score.
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Rekrul, 3 Jun 2011 @ 9:22pm

Next week's headline;

Youth who sold kidney to buy iPad2, kills himself after becoming the laughing stock of the Internet and allegedly bringing shame to his family.
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Anonynonny, 4 Jun 2011 @ 2:41am

exchange
I wonder what the buyer got for the kidney. An XBox with a Kinect?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2011 @ 4:33am

Have you seen the iPad2?
It's to die for!
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Katie, 17 Dec 2012 @ 11:03am

iPad 2
Cool
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