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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and up Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and right at the top of this episode, we want

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Speaker 1: to just hit three quick things. First of all, Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot Com. That's our mothership. That's

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Speaker 1: where you'll find all the podcast episodes, blog post videos,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. And you know it's currently for the month

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Speaker 1: of October. We're gonna have it front loaded with a

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Speaker 1: lot of cool Halloween content. And along those those lines,

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Speaker 1: we have a new season of Monster Science coming out,

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Speaker 1: four new episodes looking at the connections between fictional monsters

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Speaker 1: and real world science. So there's one about werewolves, there's

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Speaker 1: one about Big Trouble Little China. Hopefully a lot of

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Speaker 1: great stuff in there. I think you'll all enjoy it.

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Speaker 1: And hold on, you gotta tell me what's the science

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Speaker 1: of David Lopan. Oh well, it's not so much David

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Speaker 1: Lopan as one of his minions. Okay, very explosive minion um.

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Speaker 1: Just to give you a hint. Uh So, yeah, Dr

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Speaker 1: Anton Jessup will look into that and and draw some

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Speaker 1: interesting comparisons between that and something in the natural world.

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Speaker 1: And finally periscoping, Uh, stuff to blow your mind me,

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Speaker 1: Joe Christian, we will be on the periscope October twenty

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Speaker 1: three attending to our build up of listener mail, which

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Speaker 1: is his built up under the sands like a like

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Speaker 1: a like a prespice mass just ready to blow to

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Speaker 1: the surface. So again October twenty three on that stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind dot com. And now let's move

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Speaker 1: on with today's episode. So it's October, our favorite month.

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Speaker 1: It's my favorite month. I assume it's yours. Okay, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I often get into trouble by placing I think too

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Speaker 1: much emphasis on it, Like I build it up all year,

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Speaker 1: and then when it comes I kind of forget that. Yes,

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Speaker 1: there's extra cool stuff and the weather is hopefully getting

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Speaker 1: a little cooler. Uh, and there's Halloween. But on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, all the other stuff in life is still

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Speaker 1: happening and uh and isn't gonna make it this just

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Speaker 1: idyllic kind of scenario. In our house, we treat Halloween

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Speaker 1: the way malls treat Christmas, where like the entire month

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Speaker 1: leading up to it, it's Halloween every day, So we

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Speaker 1: we watched monster movies all all October. It's it's our

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Speaker 1: favorite part of the year. And so it being October,

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Speaker 1: now we thought we'd talked about some corpses. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's part and partial to the holiday, right, Contemplations

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Speaker 1: of death inform our our monsters are our traditions, and uh, you,

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Speaker 1: you can't separate it from Halloween. So we might as

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Speaker 1: well just get right down to the nitty gritty and

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Speaker 1: talk about what what we do when it when a

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Speaker 1: human being dies? What have we done in the past,

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Speaker 1: what are we doing now, and what might we do

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Speaker 1: in the future. Yeah, so our inspiration for this episode

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Speaker 1: was I think it was two weeks ago, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: a while ago. Robert and I were in here one

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Speaker 1: morning looking for a cool story to talk about, and

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Speaker 1: my wife Rachel had sent me this worry about a

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Speaker 1: tree in Ireland that got blown over in a storm

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Speaker 1: and as it was blown over in the storm, it

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Speaker 1: pulled up a large clod of topsoil with its roots,

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Speaker 1: and hanging there in the roots was half of a

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Speaker 1: human skeleton, and the other half was still left in

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Speaker 1: the ground below the tree. But a tree had grown

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Speaker 1: up out of this dead body that had supposedly been

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Speaker 1: somebody probably murdered in the Middle Ages, and that the case. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he you know, he was probably killed either in combat

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Speaker 1: or some sort of you know, bloodthirsty Irish duel, who knows.

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Speaker 1: But then you buried in a shallow grave, and over

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Speaker 1: time a tree grows there or adjacent to it, and

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Speaker 1: when that tree falls over rips up a portion of

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Speaker 1: his skeleton remains. Yeah, so what began is grizzly into

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Speaker 1: kind of oddly beautiful with the tree coming up out

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Speaker 1: of the ground. And and we found out while looking

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Speaker 1: a bit further into the story in this topic of

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Speaker 1: trees growing out of human corpses, that some people are

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Speaker 1: actually seeking this on purpose. And so that got us

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Speaker 1: thinking about the whole idea of of new ways of

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Speaker 1: dealing with our dead. Yeah. I mean, there are lots

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Speaker 1: of weird things you could do with the dead body.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you might just take a corpse and put

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Speaker 1: it in a rocking chair on your front board, let

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Speaker 1: it scare the trick or treaters, or you might throw

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Speaker 1: it into a volcano, or I don't know, what are

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Speaker 1: some other good things to do. Well. I always like

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Speaker 1: the danger diabolic model, where you just where you're just

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Speaker 1: sealed in gold, right, just alive, just mummified as a

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Speaker 1: golden statue. Oh that's a really good one. So it's

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Speaker 1: like the inverse of the person who gets molten gold

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Speaker 1: poured down his throat. Yes, yeah, yeah, And you know

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Speaker 1: it ties in, of course, our need with a lot

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Speaker 1: of burial practices, to to make something offous that will

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Speaker 1: stand the test of time. We have died, our name

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Speaker 1: is going to die. But hey, show me the solid

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Speaker 1: gold statue of me. Nobody's gonna come around and claim

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Speaker 1: that and reuse that those materials, right, I mean, wouldn't

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Speaker 1: that be ironic if the Great Memorial to the to

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Speaker 1: the Dead Beloved Leader ends up in the electronics of

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Speaker 1: the future there go, I was just thinking about that.

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Speaker 1: I end up getting broken down again, and then my

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Speaker 1: gold is used in various little wearable gadgets, so I

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Speaker 1: gotta make a catalytic converter, come on. But yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 1: So one of the things that we found is interesting

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Speaker 1: looking into this is how much some of the new

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Speaker 1: and exciting ways of disposing of our dead actually mimic

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Speaker 1: some of the oldest ways that we're sort of coming

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Speaker 1: full circle, and so I think we should start by

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Speaker 1: looking at some ancient practices for disposal of the dead. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, just thinking, like the most

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Speaker 1: basic scenario possible, just some primordial human wandering around out

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Speaker 1: in the waist waste plans, you know, dressed in furs,

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Speaker 1: he or she keels over dead. What happens. Nature takes

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Speaker 1: its course, decomposition, insects moving in, laying their eggs, sat scavenging,

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Speaker 1: animals coming in, tearing it apart, the Sun, the elements,

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Speaker 1: all of it working to just erase that body from

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Speaker 1: the face of the Earth, like all signs of it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of those, uh, the situations when

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Speaker 1: you look at the fossil record, Like, one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons that the fossil record is inherently incomplete is because

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Speaker 1: you have to have a certain set of conditions met

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Speaker 1: for the skeletal remains of an ancient beast to fossilize

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Speaker 1: and therefore stand the test of time um and potentially

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Speaker 1: wind up being discovered by explorers or paleontologists. Yeah, definitely,

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Speaker 1: most terrestrial animals do not die under conditions that are

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Speaker 1: conducive for fossilization. Yeah. They come from nothing and they

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Speaker 1: return to nothing. And it just is all part of

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Speaker 1: the the recycling UM. And so we see some some

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Speaker 1: of our our older models of dealing with the dead,

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Speaker 1: you see them UH working in synergy with this, with

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Speaker 1: this kind of recycling of the body UM. One of

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Speaker 1: my favorites, of course is his sky burial or celestial

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Speaker 1: burial UM, which is a form of exposure burial or excarnation,

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Speaker 1: if you will. The most famous example of this UH

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Speaker 1: is probably the Tibetan model, which is called tour or

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Speaker 1: the giving of alms to the birds. So and this

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Speaker 1: is this is when you have the body of a

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Speaker 1: deceased individual and it's um essentially dismantled, taken apart by

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Speaker 1: a chosen individual so that it can be quickly consumed

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Speaker 1: by the vultures. And there are a number of scenarios

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Speaker 1: that play into into this. Okay, for starters, just the

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Speaker 1: Tibetan environment. The ground is um is rocky or it's frozen.

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Speaker 1: It's so available soil as at a premium. So any

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Speaker 1: any available soil in the Tibetan landscape, you're you're probably

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Speaker 1: using it to produce food. You can't waste a lot

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Speaker 1: of it on on burial grounds. And imagine you're farming

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Speaker 1: or grazing your animals on it right now. Meanwhile, you

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Speaker 1: have natural scavengers in the era you have you have

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Speaker 1: some wolves, you have carrying hungry uh um lamba guyers

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Speaker 1: and vultures that are unting the air overhead. We'll hold on.

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Speaker 1: What's a lambur guy Oh, lambur guyer is wonderful um

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Speaker 1: scavenging bird that depends on on the bones and I'll

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Speaker 1: take the bones up to a high height, drop them,

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Speaker 1: let the drones that the bones crack open, and then

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Speaker 1: go down and uh and have at them. So that's genius. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's banned and perhaps serves as some of

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Speaker 1: the inspiration for the practice of sky burials about about

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Speaker 1: to relate here. The other aspect is that the while

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Speaker 1: we tend to associate the bat today, you know, very

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Speaker 1: strongly with Tibetan Buddhism, but the region's earlier bond religion

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Speaker 1: was animistic and viewed non humans as spiritual beings. So

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Speaker 1: in this case, you would have you know, it's not

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Speaker 1: just a scavenging bird, it's a it's a holy animal, right,

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Speaker 1: and so it's it's all the more appropriate that it

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Speaker 1: consumed the dead. That kind of practice seems to me

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Speaker 1: like it's especially acceptable to people if you view the

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Speaker 1: animals that are scavenging as holy in some way, because

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Speaker 1: we don't really tend to look at vultures that way.

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Speaker 1: I think maybe we should, but but we think of

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Speaker 1: vultures is kind of like nasty creatures, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: like sewer rats or something. But if you look at

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Speaker 1: a vulture as a as a noble beast, having to

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Speaker 1: consume your flesh seems like a cool thing. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: even if there's some defensive vomiting involved, Yeah, we spent

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Speaker 1: our whole lives wanting to to fly, and hey, here's

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Speaker 1: your chance in the belly of the vulture. Um. But

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Speaker 1: so that the approach here is kind of like that

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Speaker 1: of the dismantling that I mentioned with the lambur guyer. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you have a period of mourning and prayer. Then the

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Speaker 1: body is blessed, it's cleaned, it wrapped in white cloth,

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Speaker 1: and finally the spine is broken and this allows the

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Speaker 1: body to be folded into a smaller bundle, and then

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Speaker 1: it's carried to a sacred burial site on the back

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Speaker 1: of a close friend or a family member. And then

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Speaker 1: the actual sky burial itself falls to either a rogyapa

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Speaker 1: whose work is uh, it's more straightforward rendering of the corpse,

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Speaker 1: or a lama burial master who has a monk, recites prayers,

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Speaker 1: doing the ritual in addition to breaking the body. So

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Speaker 1: we're talking about taking the body, putting it face down

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Speaker 1: on the stones. Um. So it's not literal burial, no, No,

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Speaker 1: it's it's more like I am bearing you well in

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Speaker 1: the sky, in the vulture, in the birds and the

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Speaker 1: scavengers that will take off. But there's there's some aid

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Speaker 1: applied here. So talking about using a flaming knife for axe,

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Speaker 1: cutting off the hair, then slicing up the body, eviscerating it,

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Speaker 1: chopping off the limbs. Uh, just a ritual dismantling of

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Speaker 1: the body. Um, to allow easier consumption by the birds.

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Speaker 1: So you just don't have a bunch of dead bodies

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Speaker 1: lingering about and then um, I mean they'll even go

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Speaker 1: so far as to pulverize the remaining bones with a hammer,

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Speaker 1: then mixing them with like a barley flower so that

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Speaker 1: the birds can easily consume that as well, basically doing

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Speaker 1: the lamberguier's job for Yeah, but it's but it's beautiful

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Speaker 1: and it's its way, you know, because I mean it's

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Speaker 1: it's very different from especially the modern Western idea of

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Speaker 1: of bearing the body and this little tomb and embalming it,

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Speaker 1: which we're gonna get into all that shortly. Um, but

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Speaker 1: it's more in keeping with that the basic reality of death. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's it's not only more in keeping with the natural

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Speaker 1: process of decomposition, but it's actively encouraging it. It's going

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Speaker 1: in the opposite direction of embalming. So if you look

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Speaker 1: at modern Western burial practices with caskets and involving as

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Speaker 1: essentially trying to prevent the onset of decomposition or put

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Speaker 1: up a big halt sign for nature, this is not

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Speaker 1: only allowing nature to take its course, but it's trying

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Speaker 1: to hasten nature's access to the body. Yeah. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's saying, let's speed this up a bit. Because of

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Speaker 1: the human bodies are fairly large body, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: compared to a lot of creatures out there, So it

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Speaker 1: does their fauna. Yeah, we are and uh and there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of us and be if you have

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Speaker 1: a region that's engaging in this kind of sky burial,

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Speaker 1: you know, it would be easy for the bodies to

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Speaker 1: build up at these sacred sites. Now, another famous model

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Speaker 1: of exposure burial is uh the Zoroastrian model, uh, the

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Speaker 1: scoff Sky burial via a Tower of Silence. This is

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Speaker 1: so interesting and cool and also the Tower of Silence

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Speaker 1: has always sounded to me like the name of a

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Speaker 1: great strategy game that doesn't exist, Like you should have

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Speaker 1: Chess and Go and Tower of Silence. I was thinking

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Speaker 1: like a Dungeons and Dragons module, Like we're gonna play

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Speaker 1: the Tower of Silence is a classic campaign uh adventure here,

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Speaker 1: you know, just because it sounds like a place you

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Speaker 1: would go and encounter a wizard but gelatinous cube. But

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Speaker 1: but the Tower of Sunds. You actually still find these

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Speaker 1: in modern day Iran. Uh. This form of exposure burial

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Speaker 1: is still practiced up in parts of India. And the

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Speaker 1: model for this Tower of Silence basically you have a

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Speaker 1: this cylindrical tower looks like a big stone drum um

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Speaker 1: and on top of the the roof slopes slightly in towards

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Speaker 1: the center, you know, and keep things from falling off

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Speaker 1: because that's where you arrange the bodies of the dead

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Speaker 1: in three concentric rings from men, women, and at the

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Speaker 1: innermost region the children. And uh, basically you just let

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Speaker 1: the sun, insects and scavenging birds do their work stripping

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Speaker 1: the unclean body. And that's key here because in the

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Speaker 1: Zoroastrian worldview, the dead body is just an inherently unclean thing.

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Speaker 1: That is um that not only is it susceptible. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in reality, of course, their diseases associated with the dead body,

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Speaker 1: but within this uh, this magical worldview that also you

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Speaker 1: could have an evil spirit enter into the body. The

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Speaker 1: the just nastiness of the body could could not only

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Speaker 1: make its surroundings physically unclean, but spiritually unclean. So like this,

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Speaker 1: they just want the natural elements to take care of

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Speaker 1: that blight as soon as possible. So they just let

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Speaker 1: the scaven to do their work, and then the remaining

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Speaker 1: bones are taken and stored in an assilary. I love

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Speaker 1: the idea here that nature is a sort of cleansing

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Speaker 1: agent too. Yeah, so it's not just allowing nature to

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Speaker 1: do its work, but it's allowing nature to do something

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Speaker 1: useful for you, you know, to to not only get

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Speaker 1: rid of this uh, this stinking and uh and potentially

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Speaker 1: disease causing mass of flesh, but to potentially remove spiritual danger. Yes, totally. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course, in the ancient world, we don't want to

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Speaker 1: say that it was all natural and stuff, because some

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Speaker 1: people in the ancient world had very similar ideas to

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Speaker 1: the modern embalming mentality. Yeah, I mean the obvious example

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Speaker 1: here is Egyptian mommification, which Christian and I just did

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Speaker 1: a big episode about. I think by the kind of

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Speaker 1: airs it will be like the episode before it. Uh

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Speaker 1: So go back and listen to that if if you're interested.

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Speaker 1: But even that model, even this model that eventually evolves

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Speaker 1: to the point where elaborate means are being taken to

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Speaker 1: ensure that the body remains in kind of like a

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Speaker 1: lifelike state for all eternity. It's its origin still lie

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Speaker 1: in the natural process of decomposition or the natural mummification

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Speaker 1: of this in this case of the body, because the

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Speaker 1: earliest models of Egyptian burial that you find there's there's

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Speaker 1: no casket, there's no housing, it's just a few belongings

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Speaker 1: and a dead body buried in the sand and in

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Speaker 1: the dry sand. This is where you end up with

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Speaker 1: these really the incidental uh preservation of internal organs, the

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Speaker 1: crisping of the skin, um the natural mummification of the body.

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Speaker 1: And then it's only as their funeral practices evolved they

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Speaker 1: so they start throwing in caskets and other enclosures, and

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Speaker 1: then they're interfering with the natural process that had just

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Speaker 1: been a part of living and dying in that environment.

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Speaker 1: Then they return to mummification as a means to to

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Speaker 1: reclaim what was happening naturally. Yeah, that's interesting. I've never

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Speaker 1: thought about it that way. But we could think about

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Speaker 1: decomposition not as a feature of the animal that has died,

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Speaker 1: but as a feature of the environment that it dies in,

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Speaker 1: or at least wherever its body is stored. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I suppose you could take a body from one environment

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Speaker 1: to another. But yeah, if you are in ancient Egypt

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Speaker 1: or at least a very dry, sandy desert, part of it,

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Speaker 1: mummification is almost a natural process. Yeah. Yeah, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's really like the the mummification as we think about

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Speaker 1: the unnatural mummification, the the funeral mummification, it simply means

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Speaker 1: to reclaim the natural process. Yeah. And then of course

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Speaker 1: we've got cremation, right. This is something that's popular now

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Speaker 1: in the modern world, and it has existed for a

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Speaker 1: long time, though it's in different cultures, come in and

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Speaker 1: out of fashion over the millennia. Cremation just means, of course,

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Speaker 1: burning the body into ashes, and it's existed for thousands

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Speaker 1: of yours as a funerary practice. We find evidence of

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Speaker 1: it going back to the Stone Age. Just one example

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Speaker 1: of very ancient cremation. And is this skeletal remains found

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Speaker 1: in Australia known as Lake Mungo One or the Lake

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Speaker 1: Mongo Lady, discovered in nineteen sixty nine by Australian archaeologists.

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Speaker 1: Have you heard about this? It's very interesting, So more

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Speaker 1: than twenty thousand years ago. And I phrase it that

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Speaker 1: way because I've seen wildly conflicting dates on this could

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Speaker 1: be around twenty thousand years ago, forty thousand years ago,

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Speaker 1: we're up to sixty thousand years ago, and I think, uh,

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Speaker 1: this seems to reflect a debate about the dating of

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Speaker 1: these remains. But I think the most agreed upon date

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Speaker 1: now is about forty thousand years ago. I could be

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Speaker 1: wrong about that anyway. At that time there was a

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Speaker 1: civilization living near Lake Mungo in Australia, and and the

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Speaker 1: Mongo lady was one of these people. Evidence shows that

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Speaker 1: her body was cremated, but not just cremated, It was

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Speaker 1: burned and then the leftover bones were crushed and then

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Speaker 1: burned again before being buried. And this definitely, to me

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Speaker 1: indicates some kind of ritual. But what did it mean.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody has any good speculation about this,

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Speaker 1: but it's fascinating to imagine what would cause this. I mean,

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Speaker 1: can you imagine this being done out of respect for

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Speaker 1: a dead loved one. It might have been some kind

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Speaker 1: of ritual along those lines, or it could have been

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Speaker 1: to prevent the returning from beyond the grave of a

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Speaker 1: of a haunting or something like that. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: at heart, they're using the technology of fire to dispose

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Speaker 1: of the dead, and maybe we can sort of compare

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Speaker 1: that to the more modern approaches where it's like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: this is a technological, a modern cultured means of disposing

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Speaker 1: of the dead, and therefore I can get behind it

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Speaker 1: as opposed to just you know, wolves eating a dead

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Speaker 1: loved one. And so you know that this is this

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Speaker 1: is like the high tech means of the day, Like

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Speaker 1: we're not this is not just going to be a burial.

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Speaker 1: This is not going to be just left in the

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Speaker 1: woods for animals. We're going to use our greatest technological achievement,

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Speaker 1: our mastery of fire, to do nature's job for it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think we should definitely not fall into the

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Speaker 1: trap of thinking like, oh, what a bizarre funeral practice

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Speaker 1: they had were more advanced now. I mean, look at

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Speaker 1: all the strange stuff we do now. I mean, funeral

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Speaker 1: practices change over time, and this is what they did

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Speaker 1: for some reason. Yeah. I mean when I was talking

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Speaker 1: about ancient Egyptian mummification with Christian were many times we're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this sounds grotesque and weird to an outsider, Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, across time and space. But is it really

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Speaker 1: that different from what goes on inside a mortuary today

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Speaker 1: with the involving of a corpse. Not really. I mean

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine anything weirder and grosser than modern evolving

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Speaker 1: But anyway, So more about cremation. Cremation was practiced in

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Speaker 1: parts of Asia on and off throughout history. Hinduism has

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Speaker 1: actually traditionally viewed cremation is the proper ritual for the

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Speaker 1: body of a dead adult. So they had cremation ceremonies

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Speaker 1: called antimas sanscar I apologize if I'm pronouncing that wrong,

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Speaker 1: or the anti s d and those are sort of

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Speaker 1: meaning the last rites or the last sacrifice. And this

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Speaker 1: is one of the sixteen life rituals of Hinduism. So

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Speaker 1: it was believed that when you performed cremation on a

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Speaker 1: dead adult Hindu that it sort of ushered the soul

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Speaker 1: into the next life. Yeah. And that's, of course and

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Speaker 1: an important fact to keep in mind when looking at

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Speaker 1: any funeral model, particularly in uh In, when Hinduism and

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Speaker 1: Buddhism is the essential journey into the next phase of existence. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I also found several sources saying there's evidence of

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Speaker 1: ancient cremation practice in China going back to eight thousand

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Speaker 1: b C. And that cremation seems to have often been

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Speaker 1: an accepted practice in Buddhist societies. In Western civilization, it's

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Speaker 1: a little different. So the pagan Skandinavians were all about

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Speaker 1: burning their dead. They loved some cremation until those societies

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Speaker 1: largely converted to Christianity in the later Roman period and

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Speaker 1: then the Middle Ages. Because then you're having this idea

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Speaker 1: of not only resurrection but a physical resurrection of the dead. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Christian and Jewish theology has differed on this, and

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Speaker 1: I'll say something about that in a minute. We can

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Speaker 1: see examples of cremation in Greek literature, like if you

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Speaker 1: look back at the Iliad, So it's a ritual cremation

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Speaker 1: as an honor extended to heroes and great leaders. And

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Speaker 1: this may have actually emerged as a response to necessity

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Speaker 1: for cremation in wartime conditions. So imagine you're having a

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Speaker 1: big battle with somebody you know, on on alien soil

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Speaker 1: and a great Greek hero falls on the battlefield, and

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Speaker 1: the war is still going on, and you want to

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Speaker 1: you want to honor the hero, but you can't take

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Speaker 1: him home at the moment, and you don't want to

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Speaker 1: bury him on foreign soil, So you have a funeral

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Speaker 1: of flames, and then you carry the ashes back after

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Speaker 1: the war is over, the ashes or the bones or

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Speaker 1: something like that. And this may have caused cremation to

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Speaker 1: be associated with a the valorous elite of society, and

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Speaker 1: the same thing seems to have happened in ancient Romes.

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Speaker 1: A ritual cremation was seen as this honorable, prestigious thing

395
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Speaker 1: to do with the body, and thus it became very popular. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean you're talking, we're talking about skybarrow earlier, right,

397
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Speaker 1: and you are physically becoming one with the birds that

398
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Speaker 1: ascend into heaven. Like here you get to ascend into

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Speaker 1: heaven or at least up into the sky as a

400
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Speaker 1: pillar of smoke. You know. It's it's it's beautiful and

401
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 1: cosmic in its own way. Yeah, And of course with

402
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:25,920
Speaker 1: both the Greeks and the Romans, there are other stages

403
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Speaker 1: to this ritual beyond just the burning, Like there are

404
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 1: stories of uh, of the bones being collected after the

405
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:36,080
Speaker 1: burning and then maybe washed with something nice like oil

406
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Speaker 1: or wine and then stored in some appropriately stately receptacle.

407
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Speaker 1: But then after a while in the Western world, cremation

408
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 1: started to go out of styles. So some theological strains

409
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Speaker 1: of Christianity and Judaism have historically opposed cremation on religious

410
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: or cultural grounds. Uh. This wasn't always necessarily the case,

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Speaker 1: and many Christians and Jews are totally fine with cremation today.

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Speaker 1: It just depends on which subset of theological beliefs you

413
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Speaker 1: might have, And cremation remained pretty unpopular and uncommon in

414
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Speaker 1: the West, except for you know, extenuating circumstances, like when

415
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 1: you had a bunch of plague victims you had to

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Speaker 1: get rid of or something. And it stayed that way

417
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Speaker 1: until the late eighteen hundreds when some influential doctors in

418
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Speaker 1: Britain and the United States started advocating cremation again and

419
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Speaker 1: um it, though definitely with a different method than the

420
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: traditional great Pagan funeral. This was more like what we

421
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Speaker 1: see with modern cremation today, where the body is put

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Speaker 1: into a heated chamber and then the tissues are reduced

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Speaker 1: to ash and the bones are then ground into a

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00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:44,960
Speaker 1: fine powder, very high temperature technological burn, really close to

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Speaker 1: just I mean, it's it's great to put a body

426
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:50,199
Speaker 1: on a on a boat and then shoot it with

427
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: the flaming arrow, but to demand that level of archery

428
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 1: skill on the part of the average that has been

429
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:58,640
Speaker 1: it is too much. It's embarrassing to miss, but it's

430
00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 1: hard to miss getting the body into the into the chamber.

431
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: You just kind of roll it on in and then

432
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 1: of course, in recent years cremation has been on the rise. Yes, yeah,

433
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 1: And we're actually gonna run through some of the stats

434
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,359
Speaker 1: on that here in a second. But I guess to

435
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,439
Speaker 1: close out just sort of ancient models on top of

436
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 1: what we mentioned. Yes, you saw burials in the ground,

437
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: and and and really I think that is still in

438
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 1: keeping with the idea of decomposition. Right. Let decomposition happen

439
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: in the ground, but where I don't have to see it,

440
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: and then let me I'll put a big stone over

441
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,400
Speaker 1: it because I don't want to see it, which means

442
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: I don't want to see wolves running around with pieces

443
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:39,640
Speaker 1: of my loved ones, you know. And of course those

444
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 1: burials were very diverse too, just like we'll be talking

445
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 1: about the ones today. I think some were probably much

446
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:46,719
Speaker 1: more natural, where the body is wrapped in a shroud

447
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: or cloth and then buried and allowed to decompose. Others

448
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:51,879
Speaker 1: had rock tombs and stuff like that. I think you

449
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: can just get increasingly carried away as a culture, particularly

450
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: if you begin to see more and more that individual

451
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:01,439
Speaker 1: is still a lit because it's a it's a tricky areas.

452
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the modification episode, that person is

453
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: not your loved one anymore. It's not a person anymore.

454
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: It's a corpse, but it still looks like them. It's

455
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:13,159
Speaker 1: still them on a physical level. And you want to

456
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: treat it with respect. Yeah, and to bring back Christianity

457
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:20,120
Speaker 1: and Judaism again. Sometimes this can be complicated by theological beliefs,

458
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 1: because some people might have a belief that says the

459
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 1: body is actually important for the afterlife, Like some forms

460
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 1: of Judaism and Christianity will look at that body and say, well,

461
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,680
Speaker 1: that body is eventually going to be resurrected one day,

462
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: and you need to keep the body intact for that event. Meanwhile,

463
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: in Hinduism and Buddhism, where you have the where you

464
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: have the model of reincarnation, then that individual has just

465
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,879
Speaker 1: has moved on to a different form, to a different realm,

466
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: and therefore the body is just worthless at this point. Yeah, yeah,

467
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: there's more of a spiritual afterlife and rebirth. Yeah, So

468
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: what a funeral practices look like in in at least

469
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 1: the United States today. Else, I imagine for a lot

470
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 1: of our particularly US listeners, we probably don't have to

471
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: tell you. You've probably seen it in your life, just

472
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: at least what it, what it looks like, what the

473
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: traditions consist of. But it's interesting, even if you've dealt

474
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:16,400
Speaker 1: with it in your life, how much you don't actually

475
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: see Oh yeah, I mean, we are pretty far removed

476
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: from the physical process of death these days too. I mean,

477
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: to really do a staggering degree, and it ultimately makes

478
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: I think death more shocking when it occurs. Um. But

479
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: just just to put some of the numbers behind what's happening.

480
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: According to the National Funeral Directors Association, UH funeral homes

481
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: in the in the USA for two thousand fifteen, we

482
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: have nineteen thousand, three hundred ninety one of them, and

483
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: that's down from nineteen thousand, four hundred and eighty six

484
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: just in two thousand fourteen, So we see a decline

485
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: every year. UM, fewer of these of these funeral homes,

486
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: and most of these funeral homes are family owned. I'm

487
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: wondering how much the average funeral costs, because in a

488
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: lot of my research for this episode, I saw some

489
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,199
Speaker 1: numbers that were very it seemed very high to meet.

490
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: Some people were saying, oh, ten thousand dollars for a funeral.

491
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think that's probably the high end.

492
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,399
Speaker 1: According to to the National Funeral Directors Association, the medium

493
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 1: cost of a of a funeral for two thousand twelve

494
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: was seven thousand and forty five dollars um, and I've

495
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 1: seen some more recent stats that push that up to

496
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: around eight thousand for today. So um, you know, think

497
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 1: of that. It's just a general sort of framework. You

498
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 1: can probably go lower, you can definitely go higher, you know,

499
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: especially you know you're dealing with prime burial real estate,

500
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with the most expensive model of cast

501
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: get available, which might be the worst. And we'll get

502
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 1: into that. But yeah, another thing is I think comparing

503
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 1: burial versus cremation the primary means of disposal of body

504
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,679
Speaker 1: in the West today. Like I said, cremation started to

505
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 1: come back on the scene in the late eighteen hundreds,

506
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: but it still wasn't very popular, is very slow to

507
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: pick up, right, but it's really been picking up in

508
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: recent years. So according to the stats from the National

509
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 1: Funeral Directors Association in two thousand five, burial accounted for

510
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: sixty one point four percent, cremation thirty two point three. Still,

511
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: that's a hefty number of creat creat of cremations, right

512
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen. This year this is they're they're projecting

513
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: the cremations actually UM tip the scale to forty eight

514
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: point five percent versus forty five point six percent for burial.

515
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 1: So we see cremation in ten years, cremation becoming UM

516
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: slightly more popular, and they project that if this the

517
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 1: rate continues, by twenty we'll see cremation accounting for seventy

518
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: one percent versus twenty three point two percent for burial.

519
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: So well, I can definitely think of one reason this

520
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: might be emerging, which is lack of real estate. Right,

521
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: That's that's definitely definitely one fact or. And I think

522
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: you can also factor in just more diverse backgrounds for

523
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: residents of the United States, either you know their actual

524
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: cultural background or um you know various ideas about about

525
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: about funeral rights that they have absorbed from other cultures. However,

526
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 1: I do have to say that you know, we're gonna

527
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about cremation in a bit

528
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: and some of the problems with cremation, and I feel

529
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: like that could play a role in undermining this projected

530
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: UM rise continued rise of crematory practice. But back to

531
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: your point about real estate UM. Indeed, a two thousand

532
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: thirteen study from York University Semitary Cemetery Research Group suggested

533
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: nearly half of the cemeteries in England could fill up

534
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 1: entirely in the following two decades. So I know, I've

535
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: seen Josh and Chuck do some video while back about

536
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: cemetery real estate. I think it was in New York

537
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: and how it's just so high end demand and so

538
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: expensive it's ridiculous. Yeah, I mean it, simply put, there

539
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: are a lot of us on the earth at any

540
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: given point that are alive, and if you start counting

541
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: our populations of the dead, that's an even more staggering number.

542
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: You just can't continue to say, all right, this plot

543
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: of ground belongs to this person for all eternity. You're

544
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: limited ground. Yeah, you have to fall, you have to

545
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: You have to go with different models, either the reuse

546
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: of grave plots and then storing the ashes away. I've

547
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: seen some really fascinating models out of Japan where you

548
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: essentially have, you know, a mausoleum storing facility and you

549
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: can go to a chamber and it will like a

550
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: machine will bring the urn to you. So, um, it's

551
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: kind of like a combination between a mausoleum and some

552
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: sort of uh, you know, um coin operated convenience machine.

553
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the millions of pods, like the scene

554
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: in the May turps where he wakes up and yeah,

555
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: hold one out and bring it to you. What's the

556
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: most effective way to store this these remains and then

557
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: facilitate visiting the remains and honoring the remains, right, Yeah,

558
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: serialized shelving. Now this brings us to embalming in a Again,

559
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: I need to point out that embalming, of course, has

560
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: been around for a long time, even though in some

561
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: of the ancient Egyptian models of mummification involved varying degrees

562
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: of embalming. Yeah, but if you think of embalming as

563
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: the traditional Western way of of burial, you might actually

564
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: be wrong. They're depending on what you mean by traditional,

565
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: because actually the way we embalm corpses today, you know,

566
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: most corpses in the United States, is not all that

567
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: old of a practice, right. I've heard that it's more

568
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: linked to the Civil War period. Indeed, Yeah, particularly to

569
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: one individual, doctor Thomas Holmes, who introduced chemical embalming out

570
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: on the battlefields during the Civil War, because obviously at

571
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 1: the time you have a tremendous amount of Americans dying

572
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: on American soil though typically you know, far from far

573
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: from home. So in order to return that body to

574
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: the family and return it in a way that it's

575
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 1: still preserved enough for burial. And again keeping in mind

576
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 1: uh Western Christian models um of of of of of

577
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: resurrection and physical resurrection, you know, the importance for the

578
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: body to remain intact in some way, shape or form, uh,

579
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: in order to honor that and potentially make a little money.

580
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: I've seen some some very critical um views on Dr

581
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: Thomas holmes innovation here he introduced embalming the bodies and

582
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: the preservative chemical of choice from about eighteen eighty to

583
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 1: nineteen ten, including for Holmes himself was the use of arsenic.

584
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, which of course is is a poison

585
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: as well as a de choice for embalming a dead body. Well,

586
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 1: surely arsenic was replaced with something that's not as harmful. Yeah,

587
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: Because the thing is, you're filling this body with poison

588
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: and you're depositing it in the ground. Of course, the

589
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: poison is going to get out of the body. Now

590
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: the body, the poison is in the ground, the poison

591
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: is potentially in the water and not just contained within

592
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: the cemetery but also leaching out into the area surrounding

593
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: the cemetery. So yes, we eventually that was replaced, but

594
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: we replaced it with formaldehyde, which the Environmental Protection Agency

595
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: currently list is a probable carcinogen. And each year in

596
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: the United States alone, enough embalming fluid UH is pumped

597
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: into the earth these corpses to feel eight Olympic sized

598
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: swimming pools. That is disgusting. Well, let's let's talk about

599
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: how it works. Okay, Well, I'm just gonna summarize here,

600
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: and this is from actually how Stuff Works article How

601
00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:00,080
Speaker 1: embalming Works. It's an excellent one of our cloud as

602
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: articles there. Check it out if you want a more

603
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: informed journey. But goes down like this body's place on

604
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: a table, bathed and claint. Sounds good. That's pretty much

605
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: every funeral practice ever. Right. Yeah. So next we find

606
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: that embalming fluid gets injected into the arteries through a

607
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: tube connected to an embalming machine. I don't know what

608
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: that machine looks like, but it sounds kind of aggressive.

609
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: You've seen phantasm and looks like okay, yeah. Anyway, they

610
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: say that the fluids a combination of water and preservative chemicals,

611
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 1: which would be like formaldehyde like we talked about a

612
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 1: minute ago. And then because the chemical dehydrates and hardens

613
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: the tissue. The fluid's presence inside the body works as

614
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: a preservative by making the deceased and unsuitable host for

615
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 1: bacteria and other organisms. And this slows the decomposition because

616
00:34:53,600 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: it just makes the body an inhospitable place in the world. Yuh,

617
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: all right. Next, the amount next is important and not

618
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: The amount of fluid required through all steps varies based

619
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: on a case by case analysis, but on average, an

620
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: embalmer needs to use a gallon or three point eight

621
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: liters of embalming solution for every fifty pounds or twenty

622
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: two point seven of body weight. That is so much

623
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: for amalde hyde. Now, so they've got to take the

624
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: blood out right yep, So the blood by by blood? Yea,

625
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 1: how comes the blood? Then the vessels are tied off

626
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: and the incisions are sutured and closed. So I'm just

627
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: closing any opening that remains there. The next you got

628
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: to treat the internal body cavity. You do that by

629
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 1: removing the liquids and gases and adding more of that

630
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: embalming fluid. Yep. They need wash that body, you dress

631
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: it up and of course apply cosmetics. This need be

632
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 1: and obviously depending on the nature of death. There may

633
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: be additional purely cosmetic procedures that have to take place

634
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: if you're going to have the body be viewed, uh,

635
00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: you know, in a very formal way. Yeah. Now, in

636
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: the standard Western funerary practice today, once the embalming is done,

637
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: you get the coffin right and go straight to the casket,

638
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: so it is Dracula's bed. You you know what a

639
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: coffin is, You've seen one before, but just to be clear,

640
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 1: it's a box. It's usually made of wood or metal,

641
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: and you place the dead body inside the box for burial.

642
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,280
Speaker 1: So they range from very basic like the pine box

643
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: and the sort of as a light as I lay

644
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: dying since and then you've got the elaborate, expensive ornate

645
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: boxes with tropical woods that are yeah, you know, some

646
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: people want them. I guess. The word coffin actually comes

647
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 1: from the Greek and the Latin coffin us, which means basket. Okay,

648
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: well this was This makes me think of the Egyptian

649
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: model again, like the the evolution of that, because first

650
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: it came just bare bodies thrown into the into a pit,

651
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: and then they're wrapping them in something and eventually you're

652
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: using a basket, and that's the evolution there into more

653
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: traditional casketry. Yeah, the modern sarcophic guests. But but why coffins,

654
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: Like why even have a coffin? So I think the

655
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 1: ideas they serve as a basic type of barrier between

656
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 1: the body and the elements or nature, and though they're

657
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: typically not creating any kind of perfect seal, they slow

658
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: the interaction between inside and outside, even though that's gonna

659
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,879
Speaker 1: happen eventually, because I mean, decomposition comes from without and within,

660
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 1: Like some of the first things that happen are your

661
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: your insides basically falling apart and rebelling and digesting itself.

662
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,800
Speaker 1: The bacteria inside you become opportunistic, they see a chance

663
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,760
Speaker 1: and they start showing down. And I guess the idea

664
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: of slowing the rate of decomposition is a psychological comfort

665
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: to some of the bereaved, thinking that will it'll just

666
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: prevent I don't know that the corruption of the body

667
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: of the dead loved one. I mean, I guess there

668
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: is some idea associated with mummification and embalming that you're

669
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: somehow preserving the dignity of the dead person by keeping

670
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: them as long as possible from beginning to look like

671
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,399
Speaker 1: a dead person. Yeah, and I think it's important here

672
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: to one thing I read and um, I think it

673
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: was the History of Hell by Alice Kate Turner. I

674
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: believe it's the author, uh that most people don't have

675
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: like a worldview about death in the afterlife. They'll be

676
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: sort of like a primary idea that you adhere to,

677
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: but then you'll still also carry around other models in

678
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,320
Speaker 1: your head simultaneously. So I might be the type of

679
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 1: person who, um has a very safe, secular idea of

680
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: what happens when you die, that you just decompose and

681
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 1: and then you're in the grave, but then I'm never

682
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: really sure. Yeah, or it's like at some point you

683
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 1: still have like this I d that you came up

684
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 1: with that you grew up with about about an afterlife,

685
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: or maybe you really like a particular magical model that

686
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: involves ghosts or what happened, so that model is still

687
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 1: kicking around. So when you're engaging with the dead body,

688
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: yet you're not only pulling out your core belief system,

689
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: the one that you you know would put on a poster,

690
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: but you're also engaging with these these other models that

691
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: are competing in the background. Yeah. And then of course

692
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 1: there's also the widespread rationale that goes the other way.

693
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: It says it's going to shield the external environment from

694
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: being contaminated by the corpse. That could be especially important

695
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: if you have pumped the corpse full of poisonous chemicals

696
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: like from aldehyde. So people selling funeral services have sometimes

697
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: claimed to offer coffins with greater and greater levels of

698
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 1: security in the form of protective caskets, with something like

699
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: a rubber gasket to seal the body off from the environment,

700
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: as if this were desirable for some reason. And um,

701
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: even if that kind of thing appeals to you, you

702
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: don't want to seal a coffin too tightly because the

703
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: decaying body produces gas, and if you don't allow for

704
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: ventilation of this gas, the coffin can literally explode. This happens.

705
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 1: I read a Washington Post st article about this, saying

706
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:05,320
Speaker 1: that some of these protective coffins really can cause this

707
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: to happen. But then to prevent that, some of the

708
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: so called protective coffins were created with semi permeable seals

709
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: that allowed the coffin to burp as gas accumulates the

710
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: burping casket. I like it, and then outside the casket

711
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 1: you might also have another layer of protection, which would

712
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: be these concrete burial vaults. This is an area that

713
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: I really wasn't that familiar with tell um a my

714
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 1: dad died and then be I wrote a short story

715
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: involving a body coming out of a grave when I

716
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: really had to sit down and realize, oh, yeah, there

717
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: there are two different layers one would have to bust

718
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: out off. Yeah, And I think you'll find these in

719
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: a lot of graves today. From what I've read. Their

720
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: main function is cosmetic. It's to protect the appearance of

721
00:40:56,239 --> 00:41:00,439
Speaker 1: funeral grounds by preventing settling of the grave pit over time.

722
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: So as a coffin and its contents began to decompose,

723
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,760
Speaker 1: they you know, they there's a vacuum of space basically

724
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: in the dirt sinks down, Yeah, sunken graves. I spent

725
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: part of my my childhood living in like really rural

726
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:19,840
Speaker 1: Tennessee near Kentucky Lake, and there were some old family

727
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:23,359
Speaker 1: cemeteries in the woods. The houses have been moved away

728
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,800
Speaker 1: ages ago because the flooding of the area for the

729
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: damn But but you'd go out there and there would

730
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 1: be these old grave sites and you knew there were

731
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 1: grave sites because of the sunken graves where the body

732
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: and the casket or whatever it was down there has

733
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: just has flattened out. And uh, and so you just

734
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 1: have this little dip that's creepy. You're saying, not even

735
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 1: a headstone or with a headstone. Um, I feel like

736
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: some of these head headstones, but not like really fancy ones,

737
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: you know. Um, And I guess I can see where

738
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: that would be a troubling idea because it it sends

739
00:41:55,000 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 1: that very very direct message of absence of there's something gone,

740
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: there's something depleted, that person that you loved is no

741
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,800
Speaker 1: longer here, and look here is the sunken grave to

742
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: suggest that even physically they are no longer a part

743
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: of this world. Yeah. And now, of course forces other

744
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: than time and decomposition can also cause this. It can

745
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 1: be a problem if a cemetery doesn't have concrete burial

746
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 1: vaults on all of its coffins, because what if they

747
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:25,800
Speaker 1: need to drive the back ho over the cemetery grounds

748
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: to dig out a grave and it causes the earth

749
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: to collapse. That's a problem also. So so you've got

750
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: to have these things if you want your symmetry grounds

751
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 1: to you know, continually look flat and nice and not

752
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: have collapsing areas, or there might be other solutions, but

753
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: this is traditionally been a solution. So what is the

754
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 1: impact of all all of this casketry? Well in grave

755
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: Matters a journey through the modern funeral industry to a

756
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: natural way of burial. The author Mark Harris says, on average,

757
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:03,360
Speaker 1: ten acres of cemetery ground contains enough coffin wood to

758
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: build forty houses, almost one thousand tons of casket steel,

759
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 1: twenty thousand tons of vault concrete, and enough toxic chemicals

760
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: to fill a private swimming pool. I like this. It's

761
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: like a backyard swimming pool, not an Olympic swimming pool.

762
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 1: I love the swimming pool. As a standard measurement of foulness.

763
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: Is that one of the is that one of the

764
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: measures on wolf from alpha? It may be, Yeah, I

765
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:33,280
Speaker 1: think so, I forget how it it converts into metrics,

766
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,759
Speaker 1: but yeah, okay, So that's some of the impact of

767
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: of burial embalming. Putting in a casket or a vault

768
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: and then burying it. It's not necessarily the most environmentally

769
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 1: friendly way to do things, certainly not the cheapest, and

770
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:50,720
Speaker 1: there there are these problems. But also there are problems

771
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 1: with cremation, right yeah. I mean the big one of

772
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: course carbon emissions, because you're just burning a lot of stuff. Um.

773
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: And also noting it's not just a matter of oh well,

774
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 1: here's a body, I'm gonna catch it on fire, or

775
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 1: here's a body in a casket, let's catch it on fire.

776
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:09,279
Speaker 1: You've got to produce the heat necessary to burn that

777
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:12,359
Speaker 1: body up, which means the use of fuel of some kind.

778
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 1: So there's an added cost there. There's an added uh uh,

779
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: there's an added emission cost there as well. And on

780
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: top of that, you have all these bodies that are

781
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: being burned up that have mercury in their tooth filling.

782
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: So when you burn that up, you have the addition

783
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 1: of mercury pollution. Oh man, that's gross. And I've got

784
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: to read this quote from a BBC article. I read

785
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 1: quote mercury from amalgam vaporized in crematory a is blamed

786
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: for up to six of UK airborne mercury emissions. That's

787
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: all from dead bodies. That is crazy. Um. Now, there

788
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 1: are green crematories out there, um. And however, most of

789
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: the green aspects of what's going on here are related

790
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: to just, for instance, storing the dead up until they

791
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: have enough to just deify the high heating costs, so

792
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 1: like not burning one at a time, right, yeah, like

793
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,360
Speaker 1: wait until you have several. They need to make the

794
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: most out of your fuel use. Because remember we're talking

795
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: about necessary temperatures of six eighteen hundred degrees fahrenheit eight

796
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 1: d seventy one to nine eighty two degrees celsius necessary

797
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: to burn the bodies up completely. It's the crematory equivalent

798
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:25,439
Speaker 1: of car pooling. Yeah, yeah, And and it makes sense,

799
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,360
Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna you're gonna use this, this,

800
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: this level of fuel to burn a body, go ahead

801
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: and burn up several oneove and set it up. Now.

802
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: In terms of figuring out the carbon emissions aspect of this,

803
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: I did find an interesting two thousand thirteen study from

804
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: the Desert Research Institute that ACTO actually looked into the

805
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 1: pollution of crematory traditions in South Asia, where again, you know,

806
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: we mentioned the Buddhist and Hindu models and how prevalent

807
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 1: it is over there, and their findings were, first of all,

808
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:59,879
Speaker 1: that funeral pyre emissions contain sunlight absorbing organic carbon aerosols

809
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: or brown carbon. And uh, and here's a quote, uh

810
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: driving home the findings too, said the researchers estimate the

811
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 1: mean light absorbing organic aerosol mass emitted from funeral pires

812
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: to be equivalent of approximately of the total um carbon

813
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: aerosol mass produced by anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels and

814
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: ten percent of biofuels in the region. So it's a

815
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: significant contribution. Yeah, no doubt. Now I can hear what

816
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,839
Speaker 1: you're probably back there thinking, because our listeners always love

817
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: to suggest this option. You've got a problem with a

818
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 1: thing on Earth, let's say it's radioactive waste, shoot it

819
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: into space. Shoot it into space, they say. Now, if

820
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: we've got problems with dead bodies on Earth piling up,

821
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:49,359
Speaker 1: you know, if you, uh, you want to bury them

822
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: according to proper burial practices that are enforced by most

823
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: cemetery as well, that's going to use a ton of

824
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: concrete and steel and take up all this space and

825
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: leak toxic chemicals into the ground. You want to burn them,

826
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,839
Speaker 1: it's going to release mercury and carbon emissions. So why

827
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: don't we just shoot our dead bodies into space? So

828
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 1: many problems with that model. Yeah, well, actually there there

829
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: are huge problems with that model. But there are private

830
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: companies that will dispose of your remains in space for

831
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 1: a f D fee. If you want to pinch a penny,

832
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: you can just have your cremains transported into space during

833
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 1: a brief suborbital flight and then return to Earth for disposal.

834
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: But that sounds kind of Are any of these companies

835
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 1: offering full body disposal in space? They not that I

836
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 1: know of. They might if the price were right, because

837
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,320
Speaker 1: that is going to be a heck of a price.

838
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:44,439
Speaker 1: Let me explain. So there are several companies that offer

839
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 1: space burial packages. One of them is called Elysium Space. No,

840
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:53,360
Speaker 1: can you give me a little spacey music too? To

841
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: play under while I read some of their materials? Beautiful okay?

842
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: From their materials, Elysium Space offers families the ability to

843
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: send a symbolic portion of cremated remains into the eternal

844
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: wonders of the night sky forever in remembrance of our

845
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:16,720
Speaker 1: dearly departed. Through partnerships with the most reliable space transportation companies,

846
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: Elysium Space provides unique celestial services. The Shooting Star Memorial

847
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: Lunar Memorial and Milky Way Memorial to create an everlasting

848
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 1: tribute and connective experience with those who have gone before us.

849
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: The Lunar Memorial, they will actually send your remains to

850
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:36,320
Speaker 1: the move, so they claim. But we'll we'll get into this.

851
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:39,760
Speaker 1: So first things first, this is not talking about blowing

852
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 1: your entire dead body out the airlock so that you

853
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: know pieces of it are going to end up smacking

854
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: into the observation window of the I s s here.

855
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 1: What we're really talking about is something I might call

856
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: cremation plus. So you are cremated. That is the method

857
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: of disposal for your body. So we're keeping all the

858
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 1: carbon emissions and everything, and then a quote symbolic portion

859
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 1: of the ashes can be transported to space on one

860
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 1: of these scheduled launches. Why just a symbolic portion, Well,

861
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,760
Speaker 1: it's because of cost. According to Thomas Sivett, the founder

862
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:16,920
Speaker 1: of Elysium Space, cremation usually leaves behind about six pounds

863
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 1: of ashes. I looked at other places saying that the

864
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,880
Speaker 1: average cremation goes from three to nine pounds of stuff

865
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:27,799
Speaker 1: left over, and that's a lot of ashes. The cost

866
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 1: of sending cargo into space into lower thorbit is calculated

867
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,400
Speaker 1: on a by weight basis. So if it's ten thousand

868
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: dollars per pound of payload and you want to send

869
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: six pounds of ashes into space, that's a sixty thou

870
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 1: dollar journey. Would would the where would be exterment? If

871
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 1: if intermin is burial in the grave, what would sending

872
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: ashes into space b that? Yeah? Anyway, companies like Elysium

873
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:58,240
Speaker 1: Space would be limiting this symbolic portion of your remains

874
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 1: to a quantity more in the realm of a ram

875
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 1: or something. I wonder if you if you knew an astronaut,

876
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:06,240
Speaker 1: and granted it is a very small group of individuals,

877
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:08,240
Speaker 1: but if you knew somebody that was going into space,

878
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,800
Speaker 1: could you potentially bribe them to to smuggle up a

879
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:15,800
Speaker 1: symbolic sample of some ashes? Maybe you could. I don't know,

880
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I know they have limited amounts of cargo

881
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:21,160
Speaker 1: they can bring with them, but maybe maybe would be

882
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: worth their while to leave the iPod at home if

883
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: you you know, if you grease their palm enough to

884
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:30,359
Speaker 1: replace it with a similar package of ashes. Well, that's

885
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 1: supposedly how the moon exhibit got to the Moon. Did

886
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 1: you ever read about this? Oh, there's potentially a tiny

887
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: art exhibit on the Moon. I think it's disputed whether

888
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: it's actually there or not, but it was this tiny

889
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 1: art exhibit involving some kind of weird drawing of Andy

890
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: Warhol's that looks like it is supposed to be a

891
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:53,239
Speaker 1: penis and uh and this tiny, tiny wafer of an

892
00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:55,920
Speaker 1: art exhibit was supposedly left on the Moon by a

893
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 1: team of astronauts who walked on the surface. Look it up.

894
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: There's there's a funny Wikipedia page about it. But anyway,

895
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 1: the package is offered by Elysium Space. This is great.

896
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 1: So they've got the shooting Star memorial, that's one, and

897
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 1: that puts that symbolic portion of your loved ones remains

898
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 1: into orbit quote only to end this celestial journey as

899
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:20,800
Speaker 1: a shooting star. This is a nice way of saying

900
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 1: that you're released into orbit and then your orbit decays

901
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: until you burn up upon re entering the atmosphere, and

902
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:28,320
Speaker 1: then technically you're a shooting star, because that's what a

903
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:31,840
Speaker 1: shooting star is, something zipping and burning through the atmosphere

904
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 1: as the reinners. Right. So, according to an article I

905
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:36,839
Speaker 1: read in Slate about this, the capsule will of course

906
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: be way too small to see while it's in orbit.

907
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: But Elysium has talked about creating an app that will

908
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 1: let you track your loved ones remain so you can

909
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:48,359
Speaker 1: see where they are in the sky. So maybe then

910
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: here's the one you asked about, the Lunar Memorial. This

911
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,879
Speaker 1: delivers that little graham of your remains are, however much

912
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 1: to the surface of the Moon. Pretty cool, all right.

913
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 1: They say it's nine thousand and fifty dollars for the

914
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,840
Speaker 1: first fifty takers, and then it's eleven, nine hundred and

915
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: fifty for anybody after that, and then they've got the

916
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: Milky Way Memorial, which is I think the prices to

917
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:14,759
Speaker 1: be determined there, which would send that little part of

918
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 1: your ashes into deep space. It's sort of do it yourself.

919
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 1: I looked at how it works. They mail you a kit,

920
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:24,320
Speaker 1: so it's kind of like the you know, the DNA

921
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: testing kits or something, but they mail you a kit

922
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:31,759
Speaker 1: with a space grade anatized aluminum alloy receptacle, and then

923
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:34,239
Speaker 1: you spoon some of the ashes into the receptacle with

924
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 1: a complementary scoop, and then you send it back and

925
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:39,879
Speaker 1: they take care of the rest according to their launch

926
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: schedule on their website. There are a couple of these

927
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:46,879
Speaker 1: Shooting Star package launches lined up for late I don't

928
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 1: know anymore. We'll we'll see if that happens, or see

929
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 1: how that goes. But this is actually not the only

930
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:56,440
Speaker 1: company in the space burial game. People like Timothy Leary

931
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: and Gene Roddenberry have already had their remains shot out

932
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,279
Speaker 1: into space. The previous big player in this game was

933
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,240
Speaker 1: a company called Celestis, and I think they're still around

934
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, still doing what they do,

935
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 1: and they offer packages that from what I could tell,

936
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 1: we're a little bit more expensive than the ones by

937
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: Elysium Space. Well, both are pretty expensive, but but at

938
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: least with the Elysium Space in the picture, it looks

939
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:23,239
Speaker 1: like the market is continuing to diversify. I don't know

940
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 1: if this will become big business. I it's hard to tell. Yeah, yeah,

941
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 1: to what extent to people really get behind this idea

942
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:33,840
Speaker 1: that I mean, it's it's so out of keeping with

943
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 1: the natural process that we've talked about. I mean, and

944
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 1: it's also just cremation plus, but it's it's like cremation plus,

945
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: we're gonna also always some fuel on sending this up

946
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 1: into orbit or to the moon. Um Whereas, at least

947
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 1: for me, I I find the idea of recycling the

948
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 1: soil far more attractive. But but that's just me, and

949
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 1: some people want the more cosmic modeling. Well, I can

950
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:57,840
Speaker 1: see how the I can see the appeal of the

951
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: cosmic model, even though I'm not a person who's ever,

952
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 1: at least so far in my life, been all that

953
00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 1: particular about what happens to my body after I die,

954
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 1: as long as it's not something that's grossly environmentally unsound

955
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: or or involving traditional embalming. And yeah, I mean I'm

956
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,280
Speaker 1: kind of the same. Ultimately, the barrel barrel is about

957
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 1: the survivors, you know, so it's it's kind of up

958
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 1: to down and what's going to make them happy. But

959
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 1: I can see the appeal of the space launch as

960
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 1: it kind of plays on the Williams Sapphire contingency speech

961
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 1: for the loss of the Apollo eleven crew. Have you

962
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 1: ever read this? I believe I have, but it's been

963
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: a while. It's very strangely moving, it's very short, and

964
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,879
Speaker 1: it's also hard to imagine Richard Nixon reading this then.

965
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: But supposedly if the crew members of the Apollo eleven.

966
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 1: We're not going to be able to make it back

967
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 1: from the moon. This was the speech that was going

968
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: to be read, and it talks about, you know, a

969
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 1: piece of humankind being coming part of the stars for

970
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:55,799
Speaker 1: forever um and it's very moving. I mean, that's the thing, right,

971
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 1: any of these the funeral practice we've discussed so far,

972
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,239
Speaker 1: it's it's like fift what you're actually doing with the

973
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: body and uh sales pitch right, fifty percent presentation cosmology,

974
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's how do you describe what's happening?

975
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:13,719
Speaker 1: Because on one hand, you could say, oh, well, they

976
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 1: threw a dead body on top of a tower and

977
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of vultures ripped it apart. Or you can

978
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:22,480
Speaker 1: say the body was was unclean and these uh, these

979
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:26,240
Speaker 1: holy creatures came and dismantled it and made it pure again.

980
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:29,399
Speaker 1: You know, it's all about how you sell it right. Well,

981
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,439
Speaker 1: no matter what, it's gonna involve death and decomposition, Yeah,

982
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 1: there's still getting around that. Well, I mean, essentially there's

983
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:37,239
Speaker 1: no getting around the fact that the body will be

984
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:41,759
Speaker 1: broken down or preserved forever in some way. That's also

985
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:45,080
Speaker 1: not all that squeaky and clean. Well, I mean, eventually

986
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 1: we get the heat death of the universe, so something's

987
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Now, I'd be remiss if we didn't mention

988
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: cryo preservation. Uh, this is a This is of course

989
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: the topic onto its own I think. I think there's

990
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:58,359
Speaker 1: an older episode of Stuff to Blow your mind, maybe

991
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:00,920
Speaker 1: even stuff in the Science Lab that goes into this,

992
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: and it's probably a topic that we could revisit on

993
00:56:04,719 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 1: its own episode in the future. And of course this

994
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:08,960
Speaker 1: is the practice where we have a legally dead body

995
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:12,360
Speaker 1: that is then frozen. Uh. And then sometimes it's just

996
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 1: neuro preservation, so it's just a head, a frozen head

997
00:56:15,320 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: that's preserved. With the idea here being that you're kind

998
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 1: of gambling on the possibility that at some point in

999
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: the future will have the technology to take a frozen

1000
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:27,840
Speaker 1: legally dead body or a frozen head and bring it

1001
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:31,920
Speaker 1: back to life or resurrected in some way, um heal

1002
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:35,040
Speaker 1: the problems that are inherent in the body. Imagine it

1003
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: will probably be future Alma style. Yeah, future the future

1004
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: AUMA model is definitely one I keep coming back to.

1005
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:42,839
Speaker 1: And you know, and it also there are a lot

1006
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:45,360
Speaker 1: of factors here, like was was the body frozen in

1007
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: a way that doesn't destroy tissue? Is it cared for

1008
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 1: and maintained during this period? These are all pitfalls that

1009
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 1: the sort of litter the history of cryopreservation. Uh. Thus

1010
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 1: far and uh and you know it's it's again it's

1011
00:57:03,200 --> 00:57:06,440
Speaker 1: a gamble is will these bodies be brought back to life?

1012
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 1: Will these heads be brought back life? Maybe not? Uh.

1013
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 1: It's ultimately not that different from the Egyptian bottle of mummification,

1014
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: right where it's all about preparing the body for a

1015
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 1: journey into a distant world in a distant age. Yeah,

1016
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: it's stalking the body up with everything it's about to

1017
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 1: needy and uh and and it's an expensive model. All right.

1018
00:57:27,640 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 1: So we've discussed the old ways, we've discussed some of

1019
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 1: the current ways out there, even if some of them

1020
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: are a little bit futuristic. But now let's talk about

1021
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 1: where we're going. Yeah, So one of the big solutions

1022
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 1: to all these problems we've been talking about is what's

1023
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: sometimes just called natural burial, just straight up natural burial

1024
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 1: or green burial. Uh. And in recent years you've seen

1025
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 1: a revival of these types of practices This is burial

1026
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: of bodies without all the concrete, steel, the carved tropical wood,

1027
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:01,040
Speaker 1: the formale hyde. The philosophy is one of let nature

1028
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:04,080
Speaker 1: take its course, sort of like the sky burial model,

1029
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 1: except it typically does involve interment in the ground. But

1030
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 1: there seemed to be a lot of benefits of this.

1031
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:13,280
Speaker 1: So it's getting rid of all these poisonous embalming fluids

1032
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 1: and and unnatural metal and concrete substances in the body.

1033
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: And it has come along with what are sometimes referred

1034
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:25,280
Speaker 1: to as green cemeteries, which are places that encourage the

1035
00:58:25,360 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: green burial practice and and help you make it take

1036
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 1: place in at least one a r P pole. More

1037
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 1: than seventy percent of people who were asked about this

1038
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:40,640
Speaker 1: UH picked green burial as the most appealing option for

1039
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:43,479
Speaker 1: their burial, Which is kind of weird because you feel

1040
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:47,400
Speaker 1: like practices haven't really caught up with what people want. Yeah,

1041
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: because there are a number of I mean, just you're

1042
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 1: dealing with with varying like local regulations and even more

1043
00:58:55,840 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 1: overarching regulations UH surrounding the burial of the dead that

1044
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:02,240
Speaker 1: are based on the embalming model. Right. Yeah, As you

1045
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:04,920
Speaker 1: mentioned before, a lot of times when a loved one

1046
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,280
Speaker 1: has died. People aren't aware of what their options really are.

1047
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: Do I have to have a concrete burial vault? Do

1048
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:14,160
Speaker 1: I have to get it in embalmed? You know? Does

1049
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:17,880
Speaker 1: this sealed metal coffin have to explode? And in some

1050
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 1: places there there might be, like you said, laws are

1051
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:23,000
Speaker 1: regulations that say, no, this is where and how you

1052
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 1: can bury. You're dead, and this is what you have

1053
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 1: to do. In other cases there might just be cemeteries

1054
00:59:27,880 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: that privately enforce their own policies. And you know, that

1055
00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 1: might be like, you can't be buried in our cemetery

1056
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 1: unless you have a concrete vault or something. But green

1057
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:41,520
Speaker 1: cemeteries can help make those natural options clear and available

1058
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:44,680
Speaker 1: to the consumer. And so typically this is just going

1059
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:48,920
Speaker 1: to be plane burial in a kind of shroud or

1060
00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 1: a biodegradable casket that's you know, cardboard or would or

1061
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:57,320
Speaker 1: something like that, or even just a blanket. Now, tell

1062
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 1: me about the pet cemetery with an as option. Well,

1063
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 1: there you find a place for the ground wind sour

1064
01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:06,480
Speaker 1: possibly due to wind to go infestations, and then you

1065
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:11,680
Speaker 1: bury naturally the green burial the old way though disclaimers

1066
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 1: sometimes dead is better Okay, well that's that's definitely an

1067
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: option for for the Stephen King fans out there, of

1068
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 1: whom I am one. Um. Now, if you want to

1069
01:00:21,680 --> 01:00:24,040
Speaker 1: a different model, and a model that kind of comes

1070
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: back to our early example of the the Irish soldier

1071
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 1: pulled up by the tree, you can just straight up

1072
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:33,640
Speaker 1: become a tree. Kind of an extension of the green

1073
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 1: burial that we've already discussed, an extension of natural burial

1074
01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 1: that is a little more rigorously designed. And in this

1075
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 1: we were looking at a project that comes that came

1076
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 1: from Italian designers Anna Satelli and Raoul Bretzel, and this

1077
01:00:49,640 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: is called Capsula Mundy or World Pods um And and

1078
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 1: this is really elegant. I really like it. It's still

1079
01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 1: kind of in the design phase. They're saying that instead

1080
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 1: of a cemetery, let's have sacred forests. And you create

1081
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:07,840
Speaker 1: these these sacred forests by planting a tree atop the

1082
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 1: burial of a special egg shaped corn starch pod. So

1083
01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:14,920
Speaker 1: it's like a corn starch pod that contains the dead

1084
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: body curled up in a fetal position, and then you

1085
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:20,120
Speaker 1: just let nature take its course down there. It breaks

1086
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:23,040
Speaker 1: down and then the nutrients from that dead body feed

1087
01:01:23,120 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 1: the tree that takes life above it. That sounds beautiful. Yeah,

1088
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:28,240
Speaker 1: I think it would be great to become a tree.

1089
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:30,960
Speaker 1: I think so too. I I've I've thought about this

1090
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 1: before and often wonder though then that you then put

1091
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:39,320
Speaker 1: increased um demands on the care of that tree, Like,

1092
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: then what happens if that tree dies? Because we've all

1093
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: I don't know if we all, but some of us

1094
01:01:43,320 --> 01:01:46,160
Speaker 1: have planted trees in our backyard before and uh and

1095
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:49,560
Speaker 1: watch them die, And that would be extra disheartening if

1096
01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 1: this was you know, uncle Uncle Clark's tree. Now Uncle

1097
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 1: Clark became this horrible dead tree that or he became

1098
01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:00,760
Speaker 1: one of the talking trees from the Wizard of Oz. Yeah,

1099
01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:04,120
Speaker 1: so I feel like I wonder if there's not some

1100
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: room for dangerous personification of the tree in these in

1101
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:11,600
Speaker 1: these examples, as elegant and beautiful as the example is. Oh,

1102
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 1: but just think what kinds of great Halloween lore this

1103
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:17,320
Speaker 1: would create. You know, the forest where all the trees

1104
01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:19,280
Speaker 1: grew out of a corpse. I mean, what a what

1105
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:22,560
Speaker 1: a wonderful setting for the ghost lore of the future. Yeah,

1106
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:25,960
Speaker 1: I mean, I you know there are cemeteries out there

1107
01:02:26,120 --> 01:02:28,640
Speaker 1: that of course you'll find plenty that are finally manicured

1108
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:31,760
Speaker 1: and and mode, and then people bring in flowers. But

1109
01:02:31,800 --> 01:02:34,680
Speaker 1: you'll still find other cemeteries where they allow the weeds

1110
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:36,920
Speaker 1: and the wild flowers to grow up all around them.

1111
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:38,280
Speaker 1: And I think that they'll tend to find those to

1112
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:42,440
Speaker 1: be very very peaceful places. You know. I like the vibe,

1113
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:45,880
Speaker 1: so ultimately I like the the idea of the body

1114
01:02:45,920 --> 01:02:48,800
Speaker 1: breaking down and becoming nature again. Okay, So so that's

1115
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:53,000
Speaker 1: the natural green way, either just natural burial or maybe

1116
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:55,800
Speaker 1: burial in a pod that becomes a tree or something

1117
01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:58,280
Speaker 1: like that. We could also look at the sort of

1118
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:03,040
Speaker 1: the lab model, yes, for the green disposal. And one

1119
01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 1: of the ideas that I came across here, which I

1120
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:08,920
Speaker 1: just thought was amazing, is called promission. What is this,

1121
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:11,520
Speaker 1: Robert Well, This comes to us from the Swedish company

1122
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:16,520
Speaker 1: pro Mesha organic a b founded by Suzanne wig Massak.

1123
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:18,960
Speaker 1: And this is how it breaks down. First of all,

1124
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:22,720
Speaker 1: the corpse is frozen too negative eighteen degrees celsius or

1125
01:03:22,760 --> 01:03:26,800
Speaker 1: zero degrees fahrenheit, and then submerged in liquid nitrogen. All right.

1126
01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:30,920
Speaker 1: Then the frozen, brittle corpse is gently bombarded with sound

1127
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:33,760
Speaker 1: waves which break it down into a fine white powder.

1128
01:03:33,840 --> 01:03:37,440
Speaker 1: And I've also read that an adapted muscle stimulation machine

1129
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:39,160
Speaker 1: is used for this, so I imagine we're talking an

1130
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:43,560
Speaker 1: ultrasonic stimulator. Uh. Still, I think that the van damn

1131
01:03:43,680 --> 01:03:46,960
Speaker 1: time coop kick or a grenade launcher should still be

1132
01:03:47,040 --> 01:03:49,760
Speaker 1: an option for the shattering of your corps. Or you

1133
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:52,800
Speaker 1: could also do the sub zero yes, yes, a good

1134
01:03:52,920 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 1: like ninja backhand, backfist kind of thing. Alright. So, um,

1135
01:03:57,120 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 1: then you have this powder, and the powder is sent

1136
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 1: through a vacuum chain or that evaporates all the water

1137
01:04:02,320 --> 01:04:04,600
Speaker 1: because the water belongs to the tribe, as we discussed

1138
01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: in our our down episodes, and then the water, and

1139
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:09,840
Speaker 1: since water is seventy of the body, I mean, it

1140
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 1: makes sense to remove that, uh and return it to

1141
01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 1: the tribe. Then this powder, this pure powder um is

1142
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: taken and you pick any metal objects out of it,

1143
01:04:19,400 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 1: like fillings or whatnot, and dispose of those properly. But

1144
01:04:22,800 --> 01:04:25,120
Speaker 1: then you're just left with this straight up corpse powder

1145
01:04:25,200 --> 01:04:28,160
Speaker 1: devoid of water. It's easier to break break that down

1146
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:30,880
Speaker 1: in the soil than a corpse, so you just spread it,

1147
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 1: bury it however you want to deal with it. It's

1148
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:37,240
Speaker 1: like perfect the perfect ashes of a body without having

1149
01:04:37,320 --> 01:04:40,480
Speaker 1: to actually burn it up and engage in that fuel loss.

1150
01:04:40,680 --> 01:04:43,960
Speaker 1: That's great. So freeze you, shatter you, scatter you in

1151
01:04:44,040 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 1: a shallow grave, and that sounds kind of beautiful. There's

1152
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:51,120
Speaker 1: another one that is maybe less beautiful but very cool,

1153
01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 1: called resummation or resummation. It's sort of a trade name,

1154
01:04:56,600 --> 01:05:00,840
Speaker 1: I think for alkaline hydrolysis. Yeah, this is a it's

1155
01:05:01,160 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 1: often termed in a biocremation. So what you're doing is

1156
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:08,840
Speaker 1: you're using heated water and potassium hydroxide for LIE to

1157
01:05:09,040 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 1: liquefy the body and leave only bones behind, and then

1158
01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:14,840
Speaker 1: you take then the Once you have the bones, then hey,

1159
01:05:14,880 --> 01:05:17,840
Speaker 1: you kind of follow the straight up sky burial model

1160
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:20,560
Speaker 1: and you just pulverize those and then you return the

1161
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:23,280
Speaker 1: bone fragments to the family. Yeah, so the body goes

1162
01:05:23,320 --> 01:05:27,160
Speaker 1: into this giant steel vessel with water and LIE gets

1163
01:05:27,240 --> 01:05:29,840
Speaker 1: heated up very hot to run three hundred or three

1164
01:05:29,920 --> 01:05:33,000
Speaker 1: hundred fifty degrees fahrenheit under high pressure, so essentially a

1165
01:05:33,200 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 1: live filled pressure cooker. And you get left there for

1166
01:05:36,680 --> 01:05:39,760
Speaker 1: a few hours and then you melt and then it's

1167
01:05:39,800 --> 01:05:43,280
Speaker 1: onto the crimulator. With the crimulator that's a real word.

1168
01:05:43,880 --> 01:05:48,200
Speaker 1: It's the machine that grinds down the bones to create

1169
01:05:48,320 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 1: the powder that you get to take home. I think

1170
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:54,520
Speaker 1: the crimulator could be the next great um wrestling gimmick

1171
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:56,120
Speaker 1: if there any pro wrestlers out there. If you need

1172
01:05:56,120 --> 01:05:58,440
Speaker 1: a gimmick, go with the Crimulator. I like it. But

1173
01:05:59,000 --> 01:06:01,800
Speaker 1: this is cited as a greener alternative to burial and

1174
01:06:01,880 --> 01:06:05,720
Speaker 1: cremation because it produces far fewer carbon emissions than cremation

1175
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:08,960
Speaker 1: and it uses less energy. So if you like the

1176
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:12,360
Speaker 1: environment and you like melt movies, maybe you should see

1177
01:06:12,720 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 1: about having yourself melted. Though it's not necessarily available everywhere,

1178
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 1: people in the United States apparently have not always been

1179
01:06:21,200 --> 01:06:24,160
Speaker 1: really keen on the idea of liquid cremation. It is

1180
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:26,880
Speaker 1: legal in some states in the U s according to

1181
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:29,520
Speaker 1: at least one website I found. It's legal in Georgia,

1182
01:06:29,600 --> 01:06:31,760
Speaker 1: but not according to another one, so I'm not quite

1183
01:06:31,800 --> 01:06:34,880
Speaker 1: sure what the laways on that. In two thousand eleven,

1184
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:39,480
Speaker 1: a funeral director named Jeff Edwards liquefied nineteen bodies through

1185
01:06:39,520 --> 01:06:44,520
Speaker 1: alkaline hydrolysis in Ohio before the state officials effectively shut

1186
01:06:44,640 --> 01:06:48,560
Speaker 1: him down by denying him burial permits, claiming that the

1187
01:06:48,640 --> 01:06:52,600
Speaker 1: practice was not in alignment with state regulations. Uh. Edwards

1188
01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:55,920
Speaker 1: had been referring to the practice practice by the name aquamation.

1189
01:06:56,200 --> 01:06:58,920
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what that means. Yeah, you need a

1190
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:02,000
Speaker 1: different term than just horpse liquefication, because that just sounds

1191
01:07:02,040 --> 01:07:05,800
Speaker 1: a bit too um you know, robot apocalypse. I guess yeah,

1192
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:09,680
Speaker 1: I guess so. Anyway, apparently Catholic organizations have or some

1193
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:13,320
Speaker 1: at least have been fighting the legality of this in Ohio.

1194
01:07:13,440 --> 01:07:16,400
Speaker 1: According to one, the idea of dissolving the body is

1195
01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:19,720
Speaker 1: not showing proper respect to the body in this we

1196
01:07:20,320 --> 01:07:22,720
Speaker 1: we see this again and again throughout history. In Mary

1197
01:07:22,800 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 1: Roach's book Stiff, she mentions at one point this idea

1198
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:28,600
Speaker 1: that what we could take bodies and use them for fuel,

1199
01:07:29,000 --> 01:07:32,760
Speaker 1: and that was that was just completely shouted down. Is disrespectful.

1200
01:07:32,960 --> 01:07:37,400
Speaker 1: But ultimately, we're talking about the processing of a dead body,

1201
01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:40,640
Speaker 1: and and sometimes that means just approaching it in a

1202
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:47,160
Speaker 1: very scientific and um, you know, less emotional way. And uh.

1203
01:07:47,320 --> 01:07:49,800
Speaker 1: And when we do that, there's inevitably going to be

1204
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 1: someone or a group of people, whole organizations that say, WHOA,

1205
01:07:53,000 --> 01:07:56,280
Speaker 1: slow down here, you're not processing our corpse, we're bearing

1206
01:07:56,400 --> 01:08:00,360
Speaker 1: them we are. We are we're allowing their passage into

1207
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:03,400
Speaker 1: the after like we're approaching this with with decorum. Well yeah,

1208
01:08:03,640 --> 01:08:06,760
Speaker 1: a scientific or clinical approach to the disposal of a

1209
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:11,360
Speaker 1: corpse is often viewed as somehow vaguely sociopathic, like, you know,

1210
01:08:11,600 --> 01:08:14,480
Speaker 1: you're not showing proper respect to the person. I don't

1211
01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:16,720
Speaker 1: think that's necessarily the case. I mean, you might just

1212
01:08:16,880 --> 01:08:19,880
Speaker 1: not feel that the body represents what the person is.

1213
01:08:20,640 --> 01:08:24,000
Speaker 1: But one example of this is that there was legislation

1214
01:08:24,080 --> 01:08:26,759
Speaker 1: in New York State that was supposed to make alkaline

1215
01:08:26,840 --> 01:08:30,439
Speaker 1: hydrolysis legal there, and it was apparently referred to by

1216
01:08:30,520 --> 01:08:35,160
Speaker 1: detractors as the Hannibal Lecter's Bill, apparently a play on

1217
01:08:35,240 --> 01:08:38,479
Speaker 1: the name of Senator Kimp Hannon, who sponsored the bill.

1218
01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:43,280
Speaker 1: That's it seems unfair, Yeah, because I think in any

1219
01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:46,280
Speaker 1: of these cases, yes, there's a model of it where

1220
01:08:46,320 --> 01:08:49,880
Speaker 1: someone could just very coldly dismantle or process a body.

1221
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:53,320
Speaker 1: But in the same way someone could very coldly embalm

1222
01:08:53,400 --> 01:08:55,519
Speaker 1: a body. You know, it's just there are ways to

1223
01:08:56,040 --> 01:09:00,800
Speaker 1: carry out these procedures that that honored the day. Yeah. Well,

1224
01:09:00,840 --> 01:09:03,760
Speaker 1: I mean, alkaline hydrolysis has already been used to get

1225
01:09:03,880 --> 01:09:08,800
Speaker 1: rid of animal bodies and medical cadavers at the Mayo Clinic. Yeah,

1226
01:09:09,080 --> 01:09:11,960
Speaker 1: so why not as a as a standard option for

1227
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:15,280
Speaker 1: the disposal of the dead. All right, And that brings

1228
01:09:15,400 --> 01:09:19,040
Speaker 1: us to what Joe the mushroom death Suit. Yes, kind

1229
01:09:19,080 --> 01:09:21,920
Speaker 1: of a superstar of the Internet over the past a

1230
01:09:22,000 --> 01:09:25,040
Speaker 1: couple of years. I guess, uh because I remember seeing

1231
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:28,280
Speaker 1: like when the initial stories came out about the TED Talk,

1232
01:09:28,360 --> 01:09:30,639
Speaker 1: and then eventually the TED Talk came out as well. Yeah,

1233
01:09:30,680 --> 01:09:33,240
Speaker 1: it's a few years old now, so officially it's going

1234
01:09:33,280 --> 01:09:36,280
Speaker 1: to be called the Infinity burial Suit. But come on,

1235
01:09:36,479 --> 01:09:39,400
Speaker 1: you know, let's dispense with the sanitized language. It's a

1236
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:43,720
Speaker 1: mushroom death suit. So the artist and inventor Jay Rim

1237
01:09:43,920 --> 01:09:46,439
Speaker 1: Lee gave a TED talk in July two thousand eleven

1238
01:09:46,840 --> 01:09:50,400
Speaker 1: to introduce this concept of what she called the Infinity

1239
01:09:50,600 --> 01:09:55,560
Speaker 1: Mushroom and the suit that helps the Infinity mushroom eat you. So,

1240
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 1: the Infinity Mushroom is the idea of a strain of

1241
01:09:58,160 --> 01:10:02,920
Speaker 1: mushroom that's trained to rapidly consume dead human flesh, and

1242
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:06,360
Speaker 1: Lee claims that she herself has been training Petrie dishes

1243
01:10:06,400 --> 01:10:10,400
Speaker 1: of mycological tissue culture, which is fungus to eat her hair,

1244
01:10:10,800 --> 01:10:14,120
Speaker 1: her fingernails, or dead skin cells. Uh. And this is

1245
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:17,720
Speaker 1: a specific instance of the concept of decompic culture, which

1246
01:10:17,800 --> 01:10:21,280
Speaker 1: is an idea originating with the entomologist Timothy Miles, in

1247
01:10:21,360 --> 01:10:25,479
Speaker 1: which we essentially grow and cultivate our own decomposers the

1248
01:10:25,560 --> 01:10:28,200
Speaker 1: same way we grow and cultivate our own food crops

1249
01:10:28,320 --> 01:10:32,519
Speaker 1: or our draft animals. And the suit is simply an

1250
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:35,960
Speaker 1: organic cotton suit. It looks kind of like black pajamas

1251
01:10:36,360 --> 01:10:39,559
Speaker 1: with white veins spreading across the outside of the body.

1252
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:42,720
Speaker 1: It looks vaguely futuristic, kind of Starfleet. Yeah. Apparently the

1253
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:47,080
Speaker 1: white veins were said to represent the mycelium, the sort

1254
01:10:47,080 --> 01:10:50,000
Speaker 1: of roots that the mushrooms put out. And this suit

1255
01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:53,160
Speaker 1: has fungal spores embedded. And I believe the idea is

1256
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:56,479
Speaker 1: that once the perfect strain of fungus has been created

1257
01:10:56,600 --> 01:10:59,080
Speaker 1: for the purpose of eating you, it's spores will be

1258
01:10:59,160 --> 01:11:01,320
Speaker 1: embedded in the suit, and then your body goes in

1259
01:11:01,439 --> 01:11:04,760
Speaker 1: the suit and then they chow down. According to a

1260
01:11:04,840 --> 01:11:08,000
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven interview with New Scientists, she mentioned that

1261
01:11:08,080 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 1: the suit as it was might not be friendly enough

1262
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:14,000
Speaker 1: to the mushroom spores and talked about you know the

1263
01:11:14,080 --> 01:11:16,400
Speaker 1: possibility that she might have to coax the spores to

1264
01:11:16,479 --> 01:11:19,960
Speaker 1: continue eating with a second skin of gelatin inside the suit.

1265
01:11:20,840 --> 01:11:24,640
Speaker 1: I find the aesthetics of this idea oddly compelling. But

1266
01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:29,080
Speaker 1: if this thing ever were made widely available, I wonder

1267
01:11:29,120 --> 01:11:32,880
Speaker 1: how many people would actually buy it and use it. Well,

1268
01:11:32,960 --> 01:11:34,760
Speaker 1: this could be an aspect of the project. There's more

1269
01:11:35,479 --> 01:11:39,280
Speaker 1: art and science, right, because ultimately the mushroom death suit

1270
01:11:39,439 --> 01:11:42,160
Speaker 1: is less about her saying, hey, this is this thing

1271
01:11:42,240 --> 01:11:45,320
Speaker 1: we should all wear, and more about presenting uh, an

1272
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:50,439
Speaker 1: extreme but aesthetically pleasing model of the kinds of burial

1273
01:11:50,479 --> 01:11:52,680
Speaker 1: practices we could be moving towards. It's kind of like

1274
01:11:52,800 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: high fashion, right Nobody. No, nobody looks at that futuristic,

1275
01:11:57,560 --> 01:12:01,120
Speaker 1: crazy like square dress on a catwalk and says, oh,

1276
01:12:01,240 --> 01:12:04,639
Speaker 1: I'm going to wear that, And the fashion designer probably

1277
01:12:04,720 --> 01:12:08,080
Speaker 1: doesn't think that either. But it's about presenting this, uh,

1278
01:12:08,240 --> 01:12:13,800
Speaker 1: this extreme idea that will then pull us in its direction. Yeah,

1279
01:12:13,920 --> 01:12:16,120
Speaker 1: I can see that. How It's sort of a it's

1280
01:12:16,200 --> 01:12:20,559
Speaker 1: the concept that filters down rather than the exact explicit design,

1281
01:12:20,800 --> 01:12:23,600
Speaker 1: And the concept really isn't all that different from the

1282
01:12:23,720 --> 01:12:27,000
Speaker 1: idea of sky burial, Whereas with sky burial, You're you're

1283
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:32,200
Speaker 1: talking more about direct access to larger animal scavenging birds.

1284
01:12:32,320 --> 01:12:35,760
Speaker 1: This is providing access to smaller decomposers, the fungus, the

1285
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:39,400
Speaker 1: tiny microscopic things that will still eat us the same

1286
01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:42,040
Speaker 1: way the vultures will. I think the problem here is

1287
01:12:42,160 --> 01:12:46,799
Speaker 1: that um in the sky burial model, the carrying birds

1288
01:12:47,360 --> 01:12:50,599
Speaker 1: have have an elevated status, and there there's a there's

1289
01:12:50,640 --> 01:12:53,320
Speaker 1: a magic to them, and we need to We need

1290
01:12:53,400 --> 01:12:56,040
Speaker 1: more magic with our mushrooms. We need mushroom gods. We

1291
01:12:56,120 --> 01:12:58,760
Speaker 1: need to worship the mushroom. Yes, we need we need

1292
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:02,560
Speaker 1: some troom bay maybe love crafty and deities that we

1293
01:13:02,600 --> 01:13:05,760
Speaker 1: have to deal with, some sort of Nego goddess, or

1294
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:09,639
Speaker 1: perhaps the mushroom goddess of dungeons and dragons. I can't

1295
01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:12,280
Speaker 1: remember her name off hand, but I know she's in

1296
01:13:12,320 --> 01:13:16,400
Speaker 1: the back of the campaign book that I just picked up. Yeah. Well,

1297
01:13:16,479 --> 01:13:19,000
Speaker 1: one's always tempted to think that the machine elves are

1298
01:13:19,120 --> 01:13:23,479
Speaker 1: in fact mushrooms of some kind. In reaction to this

1299
01:13:23,640 --> 01:13:26,120
Speaker 1: mushroom thing, I thought some of the comments sections on

1300
01:13:26,200 --> 01:13:29,560
Speaker 1: these articles were sort of weird because people seem surprisingly

1301
01:13:29,640 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 1: gung ho about it, or conversely reacting negatively with what

1302
01:13:34,439 --> 01:13:38,240
Speaker 1: seemed to me patently irrational reasoning, with people seeming to

1303
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:43,559
Speaker 1: think things like the fungal composition would be painful. Well,

1304
01:13:43,840 --> 01:13:46,640
Speaker 1: it comes back to like the the irresistible urge to

1305
01:13:46,760 --> 01:13:48,840
Speaker 1: humanize the dead body. You know, we're talking about the

1306
01:13:48,880 --> 01:13:51,240
Speaker 1: caskets and about like sealing it off and that being

1307
01:13:51,280 --> 01:13:53,080
Speaker 1: a huge aspect of it. But then it's ultimately like

1308
01:13:53,680 --> 01:13:56,560
Speaker 1: I feel like, I feel like Grandpa would like a

1309
01:13:56,600 --> 01:13:59,280
Speaker 1: comfy pillow. I feel like Grandpa would be more comfortable.

1310
01:13:59,320 --> 01:14:01,200
Speaker 1: I would be more comfortable if we just aligned the

1311
01:14:01,240 --> 01:14:04,360
Speaker 1: whole thing with pillows. Yeah, ry are their cushions inside

1312
01:14:04,400 --> 01:14:06,559
Speaker 1: of coffin? Yeah? And then it just gets just spirals

1313
01:14:06,600 --> 01:14:09,040
Speaker 1: out of control from there. So yeah, we can't help

1314
01:14:09,080 --> 01:14:11,599
Speaker 1: but look at the body and think, I don't want

1315
01:14:11,640 --> 01:14:13,960
Speaker 1: something painful to happen to that body if that can

1316
01:14:14,000 --> 01:14:16,360
Speaker 1: no longer feel pain and it's no longer a person,

1317
01:14:18,080 --> 01:14:20,200
Speaker 1: but we do it anyway, just human nature. I guess

1318
01:14:20,240 --> 01:14:23,320
Speaker 1: it is all right. So there you have it. Burial

1319
01:14:23,439 --> 01:14:27,040
Speaker 1: some old options, some current options, some futuristic near future

1320
01:14:27,120 --> 01:14:31,760
Speaker 1: options for your consideration. Uh. In the meantime, checkout stuff

1321
01:14:31,760 --> 01:14:33,160
Speaker 1: to Blow your mind dot com. That's where we find

1322
01:14:33,160 --> 01:14:36,679
Speaker 1: all the podcast episodes. That's where we find videos, blog posts,

1323
01:14:36,720 --> 01:14:38,840
Speaker 1: and links. After those various social media accounts, you can

1324
01:14:38,880 --> 01:14:41,040
Speaker 1: follow us on Facebook, you can fall us on Twitter,

1325
01:14:41,320 --> 01:14:43,000
Speaker 1: or Blow the Mind on Both of those were also

1326
01:14:43,040 --> 01:14:45,519
Speaker 1: on tumbler Believe the handle there is stuff to blow

1327
01:14:45,560 --> 01:14:47,680
Speaker 1: your mind. One word and if you want to let

1328
01:14:47,760 --> 01:14:50,360
Speaker 1: us know about the coolest way of disposing of human

1329
01:14:50,400 --> 01:14:52,920
Speaker 1: remains you've ever heard of, or want to let us

1330
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:55,400
Speaker 1: know how you like your remains to be disposed of

1331
01:14:55,520 --> 01:14:58,000
Speaker 1: after your death, you can email us at Blow the

1332
01:14:58,040 --> 01:15:04,479
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com. For more on

1333
01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:07,280
Speaker 1: MISS and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works

1334
01:15:07,320 --> 01:15:07,760
Speaker 1: dot com