No, I don’t want to buy one. This came out of a discussion about my brother, who is so much weirder than me if you can believe it, who owns a real human skull.
I don’t know how he got it. I don’t know where he got it from, maybe this company, more importantly, I don’t know why he would want such a thing. He is not a scientist, he works in IT. He did get an MFA in theater, wanted to be a professional theater director and loves Shakespeare, I can’t believe the reason was because he wanted Hamlet to be super authentic.
We’re not all that close, so it really hasn’t come up in conversation. I only know about it because he posted elsewhere a while back that he was on a Zoom meeting at work and he showed it off and couldn’t understand why everyone stopped laughing and got silent. So obviously he thinks it’s cool to own it.
It used to be a person. I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in an afterlife, but that’s just basic disrespect.
Anyway… how can you ethically source a skull and then sell it on the open market?
Not saying you and I would call it “ethical” but there are for profit companies who will pay for someone’s funeral expenses to claim the body and sell it to researchers, universities, etc. So they didn’t donate their body to science but their family sold it because they couldn’t afford the service on their own.
Maybe not ethical, but legal, and therefore they may be able to claim it’s “ethical” in advertising.
Propably the same way universities get theirs. If you don’t get a passing grade you pass.
Anyway… how can you ethically source a skull and then sell it on the open market?
You pay an intern in your marketing department to write “ethically sourced” on all your customer facing surfaces.
That’s my concern here. Like how would they know if this isn’t similar to China harvesting organs from executed prisoners?
Not knowing just adds spice!
In theory? It’s all about traceability and consent, preferably with a third party auditing system. A good skull salesman should be able to provide you with documentation of the origin PR your skull and the consent obtained, as well as a contact at their third-party auditing firm. if the skull is fair trade, they should also be able to provide evidence that they are paying above market rates for their skull harvesters.
Thank you kind sir and/or madame for providing a great deal more education on the human skull trade than I had ever intended to pursue!
You could collect skulls after informed consent. People could potentially sell/donate the rights to their skull after they’re done using it, with maybe some permission from next-of-kin, since they have a certain degree of claim as well.
If everyone agrees though, you could then ethically take that skull and sell it to a third party I suppose. It’d be somewhat similar mechanically to using remains for medical education and/or research, except without the noble cause or broader societal benefit.
Otherwise, in my eyes, this would qualify as grave-robbing and definitely be frowned upon. Nonetheless a fairly common practice throughout history though.
My partner and I have a large collection of dead things in and out of jars. If they wanted to live after I was dead, 100% chance they get my skull.
I think informed consent is key - and I know I would give mine for the right sum, unless a family member called first dibs. I am planning to be cremated and a few ounces of ashes more or less won’t make a difference.
I can hardly see any other way to obtain a human skull ethically. If the seller is honest, they should make the signed consent form available to the buyer upon request.
Herein lies the problem. Nowhere on their website can you find any details about informed consent or traceability. All you have are the words “ethically” peppered around the website without any definition as to what they mean by ethically nor any of their processes they use to ensure “ethicalness” of any of their skulls.
Historical digs, people donating bodies to science (but aren’t chosen to bomb tests), John/Jane doe.
I don’t think taking them from historical digs would be ethical (archaeologists certainly don’t), and people who donate their bodies for science are donating them for science, not for anyone to buy off of a website. So I don’t think either of those work here.
The article guy linked states that body donations are regulated at the state level, unlike organ donation. That means some states don’t regulate or poorly regulate body donations, and the organizations that accept donations are free to lie to donors and sell bodies and body parts to other organizations, like the military or who-the-fuck-knows. Without regulation, you can get some weirdo employee that just takes a skull after they’re done blowing up the body or studying it at Red State University and sells it privately.
Or it could be some weirdo died and his taxidermied great grandma from the box in the garage didn’t make the cut for the estate sale, so someone took it to the pawn shop. Watch the show Oddities. Fucked up shit gets bought and sold all the time.
See, that’s exactly why I’m thinking there really isn’t an ethical way to do this overall except in circumstances like great grandma (although even then, I’d call selling human body parts on the open market is pretty ethically questionable in general).
Yeah I agree it’s weird and unethical. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean it’s illegal.
I think it should be regulated at the federal level and everything that happens with a body donation should be transparent and traceable. That still wouldn’t affect the stuff that’s already in circulation and beyond identification though.
I don’t know about the law. I am only talking about ethics because the company claims it’s ethical.
I used to teach anatomy 20+ years ago. Sadly many of the skulls are sourced from the poorest people in impoverished countries. Companies pay a death benefit to the families or to the individual and then “harvest” the skull after death. They used to be priced based on the number of teeth and the presence of mandibular/maxillary degeneration. The highest priced skulls would come from donors and would have all their teeth.
Here’s a link to the UCLA scandal if you want to get a feeling for how scummy the entire industry is
So is there a guy that has to chop someone’s head off, strip all the flesh and then scoop the brain out??
I’m kinda hoping there’s an acid dip they do instead, cause that would be an awful job…
There’s probably someone else somewhere who has a “real human brain in a jar”, a couple people with “new” kidneys, corneas, a liver…
Gotta maximize profits!
😞
Pickled brain
Most places to do it with insects. Sometimes they just leave them out but any organization with volume will use beetles.
That is fascinating - thank you for taking the time to share :)
Holy shit, this has to be one of the most insane things I’ve ever learned
That’s… almost worse. Ew.
Lol. Welcome to the underbelly of comparative anatomy.
Reminds me of the mummy
That’s the sort of thing I was thinking, unfortunately.
Okay… But… Outside of conflicts of interest, wouldn’t those families be worse off without this unconventional life insurance policy?
Are they any better off with it? I don’t the current rates but it used to be around a few pounds of rice. It’s desperation rates for desperate people.
If they aren’t better off, why wouldn’t they just say no?
John Oliver did a show related to this. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of restrictions on what can happen to your body once it has been donated.
Thank you yes! I think going into that piece I leaned towards the “dead is dead” philosophy but I think John Oliver changed my mind when he talked about the importance of dignity and ethical sourcing.
This is where I disagree with the rest of society. Dead people are dead and don’t have rights, so I don’t see how most skulls would be unethical.
So the real question is will it upset the living and how much do you want to accommodate those people’s feelings? I’m not sure there’s a clear and unambiguous answer to this question.
Fine, the dead are dead and don’t have rights.
But what about the living relatives and descendants do they have rights?
Dead person or dead person’s family donates his body to science. This is usually done under the agreement that when whatever organization is done sciencing with it, it will be respectfully disposed off(cremated or buried) or returned to the next of kin. It is not usually left to the whims of the organization to sell it like scrap parts.
Without traceability for each and every skull there is no assurance that this was done ethically. There are just so many hypothetical scenarios in which this could affect the rights of next of kin. If its not traceable, its not ethical.
just wanted to note that the fundamental basic of civilization is burying your dead. at least according to archeologists. without honoring those who came before you, we are beasts.
We are beasts. The separation between humans and animals is pure mythology. This idea is part of that myth.
I think it’s a murkier area than you’re thinking. What if the skull was of a slave or of a Holocaust victim? I think selling such skulls would be highly unethical.
I think selling such skulls would be highly unethical.
Would you? Why? FWIW I agree that as long as there’s a living person who cares about the fate of the bones then selling them would be unethical, I’m just curious as to your specific reasons - like, what is the hypothetical you’re imagining, behind this statement? Are you contending it would be unethical even if nobody living cares, just due to the provenance? I can see why you would object if the former user of the anatomy believed in the sanctity of remains, for example.
I’m not sure I’d agree, but I’m not sure I’d disagree either. I’d need to think on it more. Right now, I’m leaning towards respecting the wishes of the dead as far as their remains go, because the universe is big and cruel and the only kindnesses are those we make for each other, so why shouldn’t that extend as far as we do?
Does it matter? I understand this could be emotionally sensitive for some people but the only reason I could see this being relevant is if my purchase somehow induced more slavery or genocide. That seems very unlikely—in fact I can think of a number of common purchases people make all the time without a second thought that are far more likely to encourage such crimes.
I would be concerned that a market would take place, where money could be made selling them, creating more incentives to acquire skulls… you see where this is going?
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It could also be a bunch of people like me who just dont care, and would totally sell their future empty skull for cash for the family.
I actually want to be cremated and have my remains made into some gems, and I wanted my skull to be kept and the gems mounted into the eyes. My wife vetoed that idea, I thought it would be hilarious. She didn’t like the “fine, I’ll just get a generic crystal skull or something then” response.
Anyway, once the brain bucket has no more brain to be a bucket for, I personally would be fine with it getting sold off. Couldn’t tell you if its what it is or not, but I can definitely see there being plenty of people willing to sell it, without it being some sort of victim of something. I also think its much more likely to not be a victim of something.
I think it does matter, yes. I think it’s exploiting a horrific tragedy. You don’t know why the person is buying it. Maybe the person is buying the Holocaust victim skull because they’re a Neo-Nazi and they intend to stomp on it at a party.
The possible future actions of a morally corrupt bigot have nothing to do with whether or not this collection of bones ought to be sold. I don’t think they should be sold just because I think it’s weird to purchase a person, even after death. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with donating said bones to a research lab. The person who died is gone. They no longer exist. Only their loved ones matter in that they may be upset by the use of their remains.
Bones are relics and relics only have the value we ascribe to them.
Would you say the same about an executed person’s organs if they had no next of kin? China should be free to harvest them like they do now? The person who died is gone.
Sure, if someone died of natural causes. Use them to save someone who is otherwise dying.
That’s not what I said.
The problem there isn’t the use of the organs, but that they’re murdering someone to harvest the organs.
How do you know the skull wasn’t harvested from the same prisoner?
I agree with you but I don’t think it’s intrinsically unethical because they are skulls, but because there might be humans emotionally attached to the remains of the diseased. Those skulls belong to someone (not the dead person anymore), and it is up to that person like with the rest of their property. In this regard, selling the remains of a loved one so you can feed the living, sounds exploitative to me, but I could say the same thing about any other economic injustice. All of with fall under unethical consumption under capitalism.
If no one has a connection to said skull, then I’d agree that it is just a piece of bone, and dealing with it is no more ethical or unethical than with a piece of bone your dog finds outside.
It’s always about the living and their feelings. The dead don’t care about nothin’ because they lack the ability
Making it a commercial business makes it unethical. Who’s to say they won’t be exploiting the poor, desperate people and twisting the legality, cross country loopholes to profit?
Do you think diamonds, lithium, rare metals are ethically sourced too, just because the retailer/marketing says so?
Does exploiting people for profits upset you? How many of the “most” need to be unethical to upset you?
Post like these confirm to people saying only the most lunatic fringe, out of touch with reality left reddit during/after the reddit controversy.
I’m opposed to capitalist exploitation but don’t you think that’s a bit tangential here? Like we don’t see this sort of hand-wringing about buying a video game console.
Personally I try not to participate in capitalist consumption more than necessary, so I wouldn’t buy a skull for that reason. But that’s not why this upsets people. Otherwise they wouldn’t be constantly buying new clothes, gadgets, etc. to amuse them. Those industries are if anything more likely to exploit and harm people, so focus your scrutiny there if you are so concerned with the global workers.
This reminds me of the fake concern for sex workers that is used to shun and exile them from polite society. Yes, sex-workers are exploited, but when you’re using that exploitation as a shield for your real agenda, that needs to be examined critically.
I’ve always wanted a human skull. I collect oddities, and it is a holy grail item for me. I have told my wife that I want my hand and skull handled by a master articulator that I know, so that I might live on as an occult tool.
My skull would be an ethically sourced skull whenever somebody buys me. Freaks like me are out there. And we give bomb head.
Same same same. I would love to have one, and I would absolutely be down to have mine preserved.
Also I study CS which is funny considering the “he works in IT” from the OP
Looks like they go for around $3000. That’s out of my price range.
Reminds me of this bit
Here’s a “fun” tidbit: even as late as the 1980’s it was cheaper for films to buy actual human remains than convincing fake skeletons. This happened famously in Poltergeist (1982).
I own a real human skull; my parents gave it to me
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Hell they can have mine if they want, if they put me out of my misery they can have it right now.
yeah, I don’t entirely understand resource hoarding after death, or accepting peer pressure from dead people. make me into cat food and coffee table decorations, or fertilizer, I don’t care
what I’d rather not is have my flesh pumped full of chemicals that make my resources unusable to the local biome for a few decades.
Aww shit… here we go again
What kind of a bone headed idea is that?
Answer: They don’t.
The majority of these skulls are from people who donated their body to science. But instead of going to science, it goes to companies like this one that sell them. Legal, yes. Ethical, no.
Source that “most” are like this?
Doesn’t matter. Onus is on them to prove its ethically sourced and they fail miserably at that.
Nowhere on their website does it detail they have any sort of processes to ensure the skulls are sourced ethically. It doesn’t seem like any skulls are traceable or that any consent was given for the skulls to be sold commercially.
In fact this statement from their president seems to indicate what OP is saying is accurate.
All natural bone specimens are legally and ethically obtained. Suppliers World Wide send skulls that would otherwise be discarded or destroyed, as they are collected.
How about a source for any of it
Or any
I consider myself to be my consciousness. When I die, I am gone. I have no emotional attachment to the body my consciousness existed in. I am an organ donor. I’d prefer my body go to help people, but if parts of it don’t - I have no possible way to care.
I am probably not the only person who feels roughly like this. Seems plausible to me that you could ethically source human skulls. 🤷♂️
