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I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely? The common method of em

I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely? The common method of embalming in North America seems more disrespectful - pumping a body full of chemicals that weren't there in the first place and helping to pollute the earth.

mcv 7y ago
Composting seems like a mixture between cremation and natural burial. At the funeral ceremony, the deceased disappears into a machine, as with cremation, but eventually the body will feed the soil, like with natural burial. I think it's mostly a slower, cleaner version of cremation, though.
SmileyRedBall 7y ago
@spinach: “I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely?” Your processor's all fucked up, your information tray is jammed. Personally, I'd feel a little queasy eating strawberries from my own garden fertilized with my dear ole gran. To reduce the cadaver into compost would totally disrespect such shared memories as were had with their loved one. I guess your response here is yet another depiction of the dehumanizing effects of the coming transhuman post-human epoch. Where, as I read somewhere recently, one can attend ones own funeral as a robot. Oh brave new world that has such people in it.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  And why does this anger you so? Nobody is forcing you to compost anyone else's body, right? You have the right to be burned or buried in a variety of sanitary ways. Composting is currently not allowed, yet, in many jurisdictions. Do you find mummies undignified? Stalin's preserved body left for display? "Heaven" burials Zoroastrianism practices?
- guggle 7y ago
  It's all cultural though. Other people with other culture would find disrespectful that you don't dig up your dead once a year to wash them up and give them new clothes.
- 481092 7y ago
  Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born. Did you know strawberries and other foods go into producing humans? And when we die we, if given a natural death, we can go into producing foods again? It's always been that way. If you want to make the argument that @spinach's view is poisoned by futurism, you ought to take a look at yours which I'd argue is poisoned by modernity. You are the earth, you are of this earth and you'll go back into this earth eventually unless you opt for some expensive astro-death where you'll eventually land into some other material planet into that dirt. And shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die. That's the beauty of those memories, that's what makes them special, the fleeting moments in the nows and thens knowing none of this will last forever. I get that it may make you nauseous as it does me to some extent but OP's view is far from "fucked up".
  - bregma 7y ago
    It's the circle of life. Dang you Mufasa.
  - SmileyRedBall 7y ago
    @481092: “Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born.” But they never read me stories and fed me chicken soup when I was ill-in-bed aged ten! “shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die” You just don't get it do you, I've got old photos of my deceased relatives, they're just made of paper but I wouldn't want to compost them either.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Remember, man, thou art dust, and to dust you shall return.

mcv 7y ago

Composting seems like a mixture between cremation and natural burial. At the funeral ceremony, the deceased disappears into a machine, as with cremation, but eventually the body will feed the soil, like with natural burial. I think it's mostly a slower, cleaner version of cremation, though.

SmileyRedBall 7y ago

@spinach: “I don't think it's particularly disrespectful, isn't all that's needed a change of perspective? What makes it disrespectful, precisely?” Your processor's all fucked up, your information tray is jammed. Personally, I'd feel a little queasy eating strawberries from my own garden fertilized with my dear ole gran. To reduce the cadaver into compost would totally disrespect such shared memories as were had with their loved one. I guess your response here is yet another depiction of the dehumanizing effects of the coming transhuman post-human epoch. Where, as I read somewhere recently, one can attend ones own funeral as a robot. Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

AstralStorm 7y ago
And why does this anger you so? Nobody is forcing you to compost anyone else's body, right? You have the right to be burned or buried in a variety of sanitary ways. Composting is currently not allowed, yet, in many jurisdictions. Do you find mummies undignified? Stalin's preserved body left for display? "Heaven" burials Zoroastrianism practices?
guggle 7y ago
It's all cultural though. Other people with other culture would find disrespectful that you don't dig up your dead once a year to wash them up and give them new clothes.
481092 7y ago
Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born. Did you know strawberries and other foods go into producing humans? And when we die we, if given a natural death, we can go into producing foods again? It's always been that way. If you want to make the argument that @spinach's view is poisoned by futurism, you ought to take a look at yours which I'd argue is poisoned by modernity. You are the earth, you are of this earth and you'll go back into this earth eventually unless you opt for some expensive astro-death where you'll eventually land into some other material planet into that dirt. And shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die. That's the beauty of those memories, that's what makes them special, the fleeting moments in the nows and thens knowing none of this will last forever. I get that it may make you nauseous as it does me to some extent but OP's view is far from "fucked up".
- bregma 7y ago
  It's the circle of life. Dang you Mufasa.
- SmileyRedBall 7y ago
  @481092: “Those strawberries were your aunt before she was born.” But they never read me stories and fed me chicken soup when I was ill-in-bed aged ten! “shared memories are immaterial, detached from that person once they die” You just don't get it do you, I've got old photos of my deceased relatives, they're just made of paper but I wouldn't want to compost them either.
tathougies 7y ago
Remember, man, thou art dust, and to dust you shall return.