5 ms·

Who Owns the Dead?

43 points by Thevet 11y ago

kijin 11y ago
Requiring professional handling of dead people has certain benefits. It reduces the chance of infection (a lot of people in West Africa caught Ebola at funerals last year), and it probably also makes it more difficult for suspicious deaths to go unnoticed. Poisoned your uncle to get his money? The funeral director might call the police. So it makes sense for professionals to get involved at least in the early hours after death, even if only to ensure that the body will not trigger an epidemic. But most of the rest of what we think of as a funeral is just a bundle of arbitrary practices -- some traditional, others invented and popularized by hospitals and funeral homes who profit from them. There is no reason to enshrine them in law. Families should be free to do as they please with their deceased, as long as they don't pose a threat to public health or interfere with a criminal investigation.
- shiggerino 11y ago
  Only an infinitesimal number of stiffs are actually infectious. Most of them are in West Africa and died of Ebola. So it's not really a concern in most circumstances.
  - kijin 11y ago
    Considering how anti-vaxxers managed to bring back diseases that we once thought virtually extinct, I wouldn't be so sure about letting people keep corpses in their living room without some sort of professional supervision. Public health in developed countries doesn't simply maintain itself. It's easy to take it for granted and not realize how much work CDC is doing to keep us all blissfully complacent.
    - shiggerino 11y ago
      Sure, but unwarranted fear of dead bodies isn't good either. Not even many infectious diseases remain infectious, since dead people can't cough or sneeze. And there's no such thing as miasma either. Here's a good explanation from a mortician: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw7bsNKsABQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw7bsNKsABQ
- MatekCopatek 11y ago
  The public health aspect is definitely important. The country where I live has very strict limits about handling dead bodies - they can only be buried in official cemeteries. If you opt for cremation, the ashes must also be buried or spread in selected official locations where they don't pose a hazard. Keeping grandpa in a can on top of the fireplace is out of the question. While I don't value physical remains, I understand some people really do and their opinions must be respected. But it's similar to religious circumcision - when your customs start interfering with people's health, you lose absolute rights to always do what you want.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Are the hashes of dead people really any more dangerous than the ashes of coal or wood that every fireplace or BBQ produces? Sounds too heavy-handed an approach to me.
    - kijin 11y ago
      Hashes of dead people sound like you took a SHA hash of each of them to remember the unique mark that they left on Earth forever. "Here lies John Doe, commit ID: 1b372d0e." On a more serious note, if the funeral director and crematory did their jobs properly, anything dangerous (such as dental fillings containing mercury) should have been removed, either before cremation or before grinding. My country is slightly more lenient. My grandparents' ashes are buried in my parents' back yard, and we had to do quite a bit of paperwork to make it legal. It's still illegal to scatter the ashes in any public land or body of water, and I can understand that because certain scenic locations would quickly become a big pile of ashes if it were allowed.
      - angdis 11y ago
        What people do with ashes is completely unenforceable. How can anyone stop somebody from putting remains wherever they like? How would anyone know? Technically, they're not "ashes" but "cremains" and are composed almost entirely calcium and salts which is very different from ash (the residue of a fire burning).
shiggerino 11y ago
>The funeral home staff arranged the girl over dry ice to slow her decay >Knox slept curled up in the small space beside it at night Sounds like a recipe for more dead people than strictly necessary.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  Is that likely to cause problems? CO2 burns and it requires a lot of it to displace oxygen.
  - kaybe 11y ago
    What do you mean, it burns? Well, it will stick to the ground since it is heavier than air, and it is toxic long before oxygen is displaced [1]. And dry ice contains a very large amount of gas! [1] http://www.principia-scientific.org/at-what-concentration-does-co2-becomes-toxic-to-humans.html http://www.principia-scientific.org/at-what-concentration-do...
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      >What do you mean, it burns? Discomfort. But I can't seem to find a source on what percentage is necessary. It might be higher than the suffocation percentage.
      - kaybe 11y ago
        You mean, the gas? Dry ice, yes, because it is cold, but the gas? (This is the first time I heard that and I find it hard to imagine.)
        nate_meurer 11y ago
        I think Dylan's referring to the way elevated CO2 stings your eyes, nose, throat. Lungs too if it gets that far. It's weird sensation, and it definitely feels "hot" in a way. Asphyxiation by CO2 is quite unpleasant.
Udo 11y ago
I dissected the dead in med school, and I've worked as a TA in anatomy class afterwards. Several close family members have died recently. I cared for my mother when she became terminally ill, and ultimately had to watch her die. I had my share of contact with death, and I'm only prefacing this to show where I'm coming from. When a person dies, what made them a person is suddenly gone. What remains is a lifeless shell. I never saw a dead body that looked like it was "just sleeping". It may sound callous to some, but dead people are not people. It's a little bit different in the US though, compared to the EU, where I come from. Over here, funeral homes do not go to heroic lengths in order to cosmetically make a dead body appear lifelike again. But overall I stand by my opinion that it takes an extraordinary effort to look at the dead and not see that the person who lived there is not inside anymore. Contrast this to the article, where dead people are being talked about as if they were still alive. I suspect these wishes of taking care of dead bodies of loved ones comes from an inability to recognize what death actually is. To me, passages of this article read as if the dead somehow required nursing and comfort. There are many good reasons why it's a good idea to use the services funeral homes provide. First off, I am very suspicious that following such a huge loss, handling the dead body of a relative is a good idea psychologically. I am very grateful I did not have to do this when family members died. Even in cultures where families are expected to take care of their own dead, usually outside people from the village come in to help with the actual process. Most importantly though, a lot of dead bodies pose a public health risk, especially those of older people with a history of hospitalization. I would be very concerned about multiresistant infections such as MRSA. It's not safe for family members to handle these bodies.
- anonmeow 11y ago
  >When a person dies, what made them a person is suddenly gone. What remains is a lifeless shell This is a quite convenient thought conforming to our current pro-death culture. Information that is stored in the cell connection structure of the mammal brain isn't irreversibly destroyed at the moment of death, as one of the many similar studies shows [1] . There are existing methods to preserve some (possibly large) part of this information lots of HN readers have probably heard about. Knowing these facts and being really honest with ourselves we will have to conclude that the final death of the individual occurs when this information-storing fine tissue structure of him disintegrates into unstructured matter. The question becomes then - who, by his indifference or by his profession lets this disintegration process run to its end. Perhaps future generations will look down on us for perpetuating such barbaric customs that lead to rotting of uncountable millions of people into nothingness. 1. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7552/full/nature14225.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7552/full/nature1...

43 points by Thevet 11y ago

kijin 11y ago

Requiring professional handling of dead people has certain benefits. It reduces the chance of infection (a lot of people in West Africa caught Ebola at funerals last year), and it probably also makes it more difficult for suspicious deaths to go unnoticed. Poisoned your uncle to get his money? The funeral director might call the police. So it makes sense for professionals to get involved at least in the early hours after death, even if only to ensure that the body will not trigger an epidemic. But most of the rest of what we think of as a funeral is just a bundle of arbitrary practices -- some traditional, others invented and popularized by hospitals and funeral homes who profit from them. There is no reason to enshrine them in law. Families should be free to do as they please with their deceased, as long as they don't pose a threat to public health or interfere with a criminal investigation.

shiggerino 11y ago
Only an infinitesimal number of stiffs are actually infectious. Most of them are in West Africa and died of Ebola. So it's not really a concern in most circumstances.
- kijin 11y ago
  Considering how anti-vaxxers managed to bring back diseases that we once thought virtually extinct, I wouldn't be so sure about letting people keep corpses in their living room without some sort of professional supervision. Public health in developed countries doesn't simply maintain itself. It's easy to take it for granted and not realize how much work CDC is doing to keep us all blissfully complacent.
  - shiggerino 11y ago
    Sure, but unwarranted fear of dead bodies isn't good either. Not even many infectious diseases remain infectious, since dead people can't cough or sneeze. And there's no such thing as miasma either. Here's a good explanation from a mortician: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw7bsNKsABQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw7bsNKsABQ
MatekCopatek 11y ago
The public health aspect is definitely important. The country where I live has very strict limits about handling dead bodies - they can only be buried in official cemeteries. If you opt for cremation, the ashes must also be buried or spread in selected official locations where they don't pose a hazard. Keeping grandpa in a can on top of the fireplace is out of the question. While I don't value physical remains, I understand some people really do and their opinions must be respected. But it's similar to religious circumcision - when your customs start interfering with people's health, you lose absolute rights to always do what you want.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 11y ago
  Are the hashes of dead people really any more dangerous than the ashes of coal or wood that every fireplace or BBQ produces? Sounds too heavy-handed an approach to me.
  - kijin 11y ago
    Hashes of dead people sound like you took a SHA hash of each of them to remember the unique mark that they left on Earth forever. "Here lies John Doe, commit ID: 1b372d0e." On a more serious note, if the funeral director and crematory did their jobs properly, anything dangerous (such as dental fillings containing mercury) should have been removed, either before cremation or before grinding. My country is slightly more lenient. My grandparents' ashes are buried in my parents' back yard, and we had to do quite a bit of paperwork to make it legal. It's still illegal to scatter the ashes in any public land or body of water, and I can understand that because certain scenic locations would quickly become a big pile of ashes if it were allowed.
    - angdis 11y ago
      What people do with ashes is completely unenforceable. How can anyone stop somebody from putting remains wherever they like? How would anyone know? Technically, they're not "ashes" but "cremains" and are composed almost entirely calcium and salts which is very different from ash (the residue of a fire burning).

shiggerino 11y ago

>The funeral home staff arranged the girl over dry ice to slow her decay >Knox slept curled up in the small space beside it at night Sounds like a recipe for more dead people than strictly necessary.

Dylan16807 11y ago
Is that likely to cause problems? CO2 burns and it requires a lot of it to displace oxygen.
- kaybe 11y ago
  What do you mean, it burns? Well, it will stick to the ground since it is heavier than air, and it is toxic long before oxygen is displaced [1]. And dry ice contains a very large amount of gas! [1] http://www.principia-scientific.org/at-what-concentration-does-co2-becomes-toxic-to-humans.html http://www.principia-scientific.org/at-what-concentration-do...
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    >What do you mean, it burns? Discomfort. But I can't seem to find a source on what percentage is necessary. It might be higher than the suffocation percentage.
    - kaybe 11y ago
      You mean, the gas? Dry ice, yes, because it is cold, but the gas? (This is the first time I heard that and I find it hard to imagine.)
      - nate_meurer 11y ago
        I think Dylan's referring to the way elevated CO2 stings your eyes, nose, throat. Lungs too if it gets that far. It's weird sensation, and it definitely feels "hot" in a way. Asphyxiation by CO2 is quite unpleasant.

Udo 11y ago

I dissected the dead in med school, and I've worked as a TA in anatomy class afterwards. Several close family members have died recently. I cared for my mother when she became terminally ill, and ultimately had to watch her die. I had my share of contact with death, and I'm only prefacing this to show where I'm coming from. When a person dies, what made them a person is suddenly gone. What remains is a lifeless shell. I never saw a dead body that looked like it was "just sleeping". It may sound callous to some, but dead people are not people. It's a little bit different in the US though, compared to the EU, where I come from. Over here, funeral homes do not go to heroic lengths in order to cosmetically make a dead body appear lifelike again. But overall I stand by my opinion that it takes an extraordinary effort to look at the dead and not see that the person who lived there is not inside anymore. Contrast this to the article, where dead people are being talked about as if they were still alive. I suspect these wishes of taking care of dead bodies of loved ones comes from an inability to recognize what death actually is. To me, passages of this article read as if the dead somehow required nursing and comfort. There are many good reasons why it's a good idea to use the services funeral homes provide. First off, I am very suspicious that following such a huge loss, handling the dead body of a relative is a good idea psychologically. I am very grateful I did not have to do this when family members died. Even in cultures where families are expected to take care of their own dead, usually outside people from the village come in to help with the actual process. Most importantly though, a lot of dead bodies pose a public health risk, especially those of older people with a history of hospitalization. I would be very concerned about multiresistant infections such as MRSA. It's not safe for family members to handle these bodies.

anonmeow 11y ago
>When a person dies, what made them a person is suddenly gone. What remains is a lifeless shell This is a quite convenient thought conforming to our current pro-death culture. Information that is stored in the cell connection structure of the mammal brain isn't irreversibly destroyed at the moment of death, as one of the many similar studies shows [1] . There are existing methods to preserve some (possibly large) part of this information lots of HN readers have probably heard about. Knowing these facts and being really honest with ourselves we will have to conclude that the final death of the individual occurs when this information-storing fine tissue structure of him disintegrates into unstructured matter. The question becomes then - who, by his indifference or by his profession lets this disintegration process run to its end. Perhaps future generations will look down on us for perpetuating such barbaric customs that lead to rotting of uncountable millions of people into nothingness. 1. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7552/full/nature14225.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7552/full/nature1...