fuck thousands for a coffin. or hundreds for an urn. can i legally be burried in butcher paper?

can i donate my body to science and skip burrial all together?

i want my final action to be a big middle finger to the funeral industry picking on people in their weakest moments.

  • OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Do a viking funeral. You know, that ceremony where you are sent out in a boat and a fire arrow is fired into the boat so it burns down while floating into the sunset.

    But skip the boat. Have someone chuck you into the ocean and shoot arrows at you until you sink.

  • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    There are burial grounds that are basically natural parks, where you have to be buried in something biodegradable, like a shroud or pine needle basket, and no grave markers are allowed besides something like a tree or uncut rock. (Burial locations are recorded by gps.) I’d like to be buried in one of these places. Not sure what the cost is, though.

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Ironically enough, it sounds expensive because it sounds like someone bought a bunch of land for that purpose to appeal to people who want to be buried naturally. Big money Maker for them.

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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        2 days ago

        Could be. Being buried in one of the old, forgotten cemetaries that dot the woods in some places might work. You might be able to just add an extra body there and no one would ever see or question it.

      • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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        2 days ago

        Depends on who owns the land, I guess. But they specifically mentioned wanting to be buried in just a wrap or something, which places like this let you do.

        • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I wonder why they wouldn’t just cremate immediately, which makes me wonder if morgue is waiting for a moment when cremating a non-paying homeless person would be most time-and cost-efficient, horrifying I imagine that they might throw that body in with the next paying customer. You know family members are never allowed to witness a cremation of loved one, even if they’re the ones who paid the fee. So hey, morgue might as well throw in a homeless guy, make it a two-for-one deal. Because surely there are costs associated with heating up the crematorium.

  • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Pay a local taxidermist to stuff you so your kid/friend/partner can have you hang out in their living room. I told my mom I’m gonna have her stuffed and posed like a bear.

    Thinking about this now it makes sense why my mom picked my sister as the executor.

  • sunbytes@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    There’s a book called “Stiff” by Mary Roach where she looks into all the various ways to (legally) dispose of your body.

    You can donate it to scientific research (my personal preference) and they will use it as a very accurate crash test dummy (usually).

    Things like the glass in car windows and car crumple zones were invented with the help of such donations, and she claims that on average 14 lives are saved by every body donated.

  • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    No lie, i want a sky burial. Your body is split open and left on a mountainside populated by vultures, after a few days the villagers return and collect your bones, the only thing left. They grind your bones and mix them into crackers, which are then spread around the fields for birds to eat. Your entire body goes back to the birds, i love it. My wife isn’t taking it seriously but I mean it, i want one of those

  • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Regardless of the final resting place after the funeral - DON’T EMBALM. They’ll pressure your family into embalming to ‘ensure the dead look their best on the day of the funeral’, but refrigeration does the exact same thing. You might think it’s more ‘dignified’, but just do a quick google at what the process entails. It’s ALL smoke and mirrors, and I’d rather have people at my funeral actually understand what my body is doing at that point - not the image of what a ‘body at rest’ looks like from Hollywood.

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I want my body dumped on the front steps of my least favorite living politician.

    When they return my body to my next of kin they will dump it back on the politicians’ doorstep

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Donate your body to science. My mother did that. She used to joke that they would put her body in a car trunk in the desert, or some other location, and see what time and decay did so they could measure the process. For all I know, that’s literally where her body is right now. They also do other experiments. Then, after a few years, they return cremated remains to you.

    Try to find an institution that will take your body. I’ve looked into it. There’s a place in a neighboring state that will take mine, but if I die more than 100 miles from them, someone will need to arrange to transport the body to them. There’s not much more to it for me.

    Edit to alter link to a better site

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Word of warning though, check out the company before you do so. My mother in law was in the medical field and had a coworker that did this. The company ended up refusing the body because they had too many bodies. I’ve also heard of your body being used to test munitions, which is pretty much the opposite of what a lot of people would want.

      • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        Hey look, once my body is donated it’s not my business what they do with it. I’m the same way that once I hand over spare change to the guy on the street, it’s not my business what he does with it.

        • Fondots@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Yeah, but if, like OP, the intent of donating your body is to ensure that one exploitative industry (the funeral industry) doesn’t profit from your death, you probably also want to make sure that other industries (like the military industrial complex) that you also don’t like aren’t going to be able to benefit either.

        • 0ops@piefed.zip
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          4 days ago

          Weapons are good enough, fuck those guys. If I’m donating my body I want it to be for something useful, like improving medicine or surgery

        • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 days ago

          In a sense, that’s true. But we’re also talking about making arrangements while we’re alive, knowing that our wishes now will translate into action later.

          If I plant a tree so that my grandchildren might enjoy the shade, I’m still making a decision to do something based on what I believe the effects will be after I die.

          So if we’re making decisions on where or how to donate our bodies after our deaths, we’d still generally want to choose a worthy cause.

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Yes, that is possible. The paperwork for the place I am looking into specifically asks if you object to that and a number of other possible uses to which they may put your remains.

        • otacon239@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Not that I’d personally care, but I don’t know that I’d trust that they wouldn’t just ignore those instructions. Who would call them out?

          • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Indeed, dead men tell no tales, right? I’m with you though, I said yes to all the questions. I don’t care if they shoot my corpse, or beat it with a bat, or use it as a party favor at the lab Christmas party. It’s just meat, as far as I’m concerned and if their experiments help posterity then I’m all for it.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Also keep in mind if this is your wish you can’t be an organ donor. Having a rotting corpse without any organs is a pretty unrealistic scenario and the data isn’t as useful.

    • toynbee@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Among the other warnings here, if getting the cremains is important to you, be careful; my mother did this and we never got anything back. We almost didn’t get anything of my father back, but my sister was tenacious.

      • bluGill@fedia.io
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        4 days ago

        I don’t understand why people care. My dad is gone. I can’t get help fixing my roof from his urn. Some people do talk to the remains of their loved ones, but they can’t hold a conversation so I have never seen the point.

        • toynbee@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Sure, I mostly agree with you, but some people do care. As such I just wanted to offer this warning.

          However, I do have the cremains for my dogs and my dad on a small, out of the way shelf in my living room. In my more down moments, it’s been comforting to think of them as “there” even though I know they’re not. Also it can be a focal point when I’m putting effort into remembering them. Finally, I have a young kid; having a physical object to point at helps with explaining death to them in gentler terms.

          • starlinguk@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            In the Netherlands you don’t even get the cremains back. I have no idea where most of my dead relatives are. In Germany you get them back, but you must bury them. Putting them on the mantlepiece is not an option.

            • toynbee@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              Fair enough, and perhaps not unreasonable. I know a lot of people want to spread them out, which I think is fine in a private area but at best debatable in a public area and definitely not in a protected area.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Just so you’re aware, it’s my understanding that during cremation you’re likely getting first only some of the remains back and second likely not only theirs. I don’t think it matters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the remains of your father was some other ashes entirely. It doesn’t really matter though. It’s just a bunch of carbon at the end of the day.