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?
Alongside the story for “donating to science”, by proxy that donation can also be extended to other industries, like the arts.
There have been several stories of people donating their bodies to science, with the provision that their skull be used for Hamlet, or other shows where a bone may be used as a prop. I believe there was a story around a Polish pianist dedicating his skull to solely be used for a production of Hamlet, with David Tennant using his skull in the show.
If you donate your body to science, and they sell the bits they can’t use to get money to do science, are you still fulfilling the original intent of the donation?
There is nothing you can do to my body that I will find disrespectful.
Look, you buy a car and add pollution in the air. You buy a skull and contribute to people being killed and harvested for skulls. What’s the difference?
Sorry, but I fail to see the problem with him owning a skull
You don’t see anything ethically wrong with “owning” a piece of a human that could be someone’s ancestor or relative? People really are disgusting pieces of shit.
Assuming the dead person didn’t mind, no. If I were in a situation where a proven relative of the deceased human would like the skull back, I would give it to them, sure. But if it’s just for art/fantasy, I do not see any problems. I don’t care what happens with my bones after I die.
I didn’t say there was a problem with him owning a skull. Other than how he’s weird about it, I mean.
I was talking about this company. I don’t even know how he got it. For all I know, someone who died willed it to him.
I don’t see how he is being weird about it. OK I wouldn’t show it to a zoom meeting full of random people, sure, but nothing else screams weird to me.
Then again, I work in IT have been described as weird by some people so I suppose I’m not looking at it like usual people would
