No, I don’t want to buy one. This came out of a discussion about my brother, who is so much weirder than me if you can believe it, who owns a real human skull.
I don’t know how he got it. I don’t know where he got it from, maybe this company, more importantly, I don’t know why he would want such a thing. He is not a scientist, he works in IT. He did get an MFA in theater, wanted to be a professional theater director and loves Shakespeare, I can’t believe the reason was because he wanted Hamlet to be super authentic.
We’re not all that close, so it really hasn’t come up in conversation. I only know about it because he posted elsewhere a while back that he was on a Zoom meeting at work and he showed it off and couldn’t understand why everyone stopped laughing and got silent. So obviously he thinks it’s cool to own it.
It used to be a person. I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in an afterlife, but that’s just basic disrespect.
Anyway… how can you ethically source a skull and then sell it on the open market?
TBF most people already have an ethically sourced human skull.
I didn’t consent to having a skull. Though it’s kinda grown on me.
Wait, you’ve had a skull grow on you? You’re boned
Anyway… how can you ethically source a skull and then sell it on the open market?
You pay an intern in your marketing department to write “ethically sourced” on all your customer facing surfaces.
In theory? It’s all about traceability and consent, preferably with a third party auditing system. A good skull salesman should be able to provide you with documentation of the origin of your skull and the consent obtained, as well as a contact at their third-party auditing firm. if the skull is fair trade, they should also be able to provide evidence that they are paying above market rates for their skull harvesters.
Thank you kind sir and/or madame for providing a great deal more education on the human skull trade than I had ever intended to pursue!
That’s my concern here. Like how would they know if this isn’t similar to China harvesting organs from executed prisoners?
Not knowing just adds spice!
I used to teach anatomy 20+ years ago. Sadly many of the skulls are sourced from the poorest people in impoverished countries. Companies pay a death benefit to the families or to the individual and then “harvest” the skull after death. They used to be priced based on the number of teeth and the presence of mandibular/maxillary degeneration. The highest priced skulls would come from donors and would have all their teeth.
Here’s a link to the UCLA scandal if you want to get a feeling for how scummy the entire industry is
That’s the sort of thing I was thinking, unfortunately.
So is there a guy that has to chop someone’s head off, strip all the flesh and then scoop the brain out??
I’m kinda hoping there’s an acid dip they do instead, cause that would be an awful job…
Most places to do it with insects. Sometimes they just leave them out but any organization with volume will use beetles.
That’s… almost worse. Ew.
Lol. Welcome to the underbelly of comparative anatomy.
That is fascinating - thank you for taking the time to share :)
Reminds me of the mummy
Holy shit, this has to be one of the most insane things I’ve ever learned
There’s probably someone else somewhere who has a “real human brain in a jar”, a couple people with “new” kidneys, corneas, a liver…
Gotta maximize profits!
😞
Pickled brain
Okay… But… Outside of conflicts of interest, wouldn’t those families be worse off without this unconventional life insurance policy?
Are they any better off with it? I don’t the current rates but it used to be around a few pounds of rice. It’s desperation rates for desperate people.
If they aren’t better off, why wouldn’t they just say no?
Dude. Seriously?
more importantly, I don’t know why he would want such a thing
John Oliver had an episode where the main story answers your question.
Basically, if you donate your body “to science” there’s a chance it could end up with such a company. I wouldn’t call it ethical, but as of now it’s legal.
Well that’s fucked. If I donate my body to science, it certianly isnt so my skull can sit in some dudes living room
There’s this woman who donated her body to science when she died ended up in the army being blown by IEDs.
You say that like it’s a bad thing?
Well yeah, I figure when she signed her body up for science she was thinking about Medical Science and not Explosive Device Science…
I believe the science company sold her body to the military.
I’d be totally okay with that, as long as he attempted necromancy
They only really say their skulls are legally obtained. i.e. it wasn’t stolen and no one was murdered for it.
We are committed to ethical sourcing. We follow all relevant laws and regulations to ensure that our specimens are obtained legally and responsibly.
Likely many of these are discarded donations to science, legally purchased from the organization doing the “discarding”. It absolutely does not follow that it was ethically sourced.
Unless you have traceability of each and every skull and a proof of informed consent (from the person whose skull it was, saying that they donate it for sale)for each skull there is no way to properly claim it was done ethically.
My friend is a medical librarian and stumbled across two full real skeletons being thrown away, she took their skulls. So yeah ethically sourced and she actually had a website where you could order different human bones left over from cadavers. So they’re not that hard to source, a lot of people donate their body to science, which is good.
Donating your body to science is not the same as donating it to be sold on the open market. If it’s just sold on a website, sure, a scientist could buy it. But also a guy could buy it so he can fuck the eye sockets.
…fuck them for science, I hope.
To paraphrase Adam Savage: the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down
He talked about the guy who gave him that quote in a q&a this week. It was the show’s crime scene analyst Alec Jason.
The answer to OP’s question gets pretty obvious when you ask a different question: how can I ethically donate my corpse to some guy who wants to fuck my eye sockets? What do I have to do to ensure my wishes are upheld?
What if I want my children to take possession of my corpse? It’s not a part of my estate; creditors can’t take it from them. Once the probate process has been completed and my estate is completely disbursed, they can auction my corpse to the highest bidder, and keep the proceeds that would have otherwise gone to some filthy fucking financier.
Scientists and medical practitioners aren’t the only people who might want a human skull, nor should they be the only ones with access. An actor may wish to continue performing on stage as Yorick after their death, for example.
Whatever means available for me to monetize my corpse after my death would be an answer to OP’s question.
You are assuming the skulls this company sells were donated. They do not make that claim. They just say they were ethically sourced.
And why should eye care if eye’m dead?
It’s not just about you. Your partner or parent or child or sibling might care.
I can recommend the Last Week Tonight Episode about just this topic. At least in the US, there’s basically no difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn7egDQ9lPgDonating your body to science is not the same as donating it to be sold on the open market.
In the US, it pretty much is the exact same thing though.
I been to a museum and yes they sell real human skulls along with other types.
Just few pictures I took while I visited.
Answer: They don’t.
The majority of these skulls are from people who donated their body to science. But instead of going to science, it goes to companies like this one that sell them. Legal, yes. Ethical, no.
Source that “most” are like this?
Or any
How about a source for any of it
Doesn’t matter. Onus is on them to prove its ethically sourced and they fail miserably at that.
Nowhere on their website does it detail they have any sort of processes to ensure the skulls are sourced ethically. It doesn’t seem like any skulls are traceable or that any consent was given for the skulls to be sold commercially.
In fact this statement from their president seems to indicate what OP is saying is accurate.
All natural bone specimens are legally and ethically obtained. Suppliers World Wide send skulls that would otherwise be discarded or destroyed, as they are collected.
I want someone to drink mead out of my skull after I die and absorb my power. This is my fondest wish.
Describe your powers for a potential future buyer.
Honestly, yeah. I spent decades developing and maintaining it, hopefully will spend a few more decades with it, but after that? I have no use for it anymore, but if it’s still in decent condition, it would be a shame to waste it.
I’d rather have it be of some use to someone, and “drink mead out of it” is very high up the list, right after “use it for science or education” and right before “use it for semi-realistic (but doubly awesome) historical weapon tests or demos”. Other contenders are “deco piece”, “movie/theatre prop” and “ritual implement”.
Actually, that probably applies to most of my body. Reuse or repurpose as much as you can, turn the rest into fertiliser.
Failing that (if my spouse or family can’t stand the thought of cremating my remains, I don’t want to force them), at least bury me with some weapons. Not because I believe in Valhalla, I just want to troll some future archaeologist. Bonus points for mixing eras and qualities, e.g. a wallhanger 1700s cavalry sabre, weapons-grade Xiphos and a non-functional gun reproduction, dressed in a 900s Samurai armour.
Look, if someone cut me a cheque right now, for payment of my bones when I’m done with them I’d take it in an instant.
That’s not what’s happening here, those are likely bodies that didn’t meet the grade for medical/scientific use so they were sold off, which is gross and shitty.
However, bidding on my meat carcass starts at $5000.
Best I can offer is $10 for one of ya finger bones. I’m a nice guy though so you can pick which one. Deal?
Compelling, but I don’t want to break the set.
$20 for the full set. That’s $2 per finger bone.
They are “Skulls Unlimited”.
I’m a little afraid that they have no limits to the skulls that they provide.
“What do you do? Oh, nice, sales! That’s cool. What do you sell?”
“that sounds awesome, I’d totally buy one!” i thought before looking at the price tags. I think I’ll stick with plastic.
That’s another thing I don’t want to know: how much my brother paid.
How much are they? The skulls never loaded for me, even on a VPN.
$2200-$2400, for the ones that were both complete and actually had price tags.
I’ll bet 10:1 odds if you sent the DNA off to 23 and me it’d come back Uighur.
I consider myself to be my consciousness. When I die, I am gone. I have no emotional attachment to the body my consciousness existed in. I am an organ donor. I’d prefer my body go to help people, but if parts of it don’t - I have no possible way to care.
I am probably not the only person who feels roughly like this. Seems plausible to me that you could ethically source human skulls. 🤷♂️
