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Comment by ceilingcorner | Hacker News Reader

That’s mostly because you live in a society which doesn’t value burials or the afterlife and which worships information, which must be acquired at any cost.

No ancient Egyptian Pharaoh would be happy with being dug up and placed in a glass box in a museum. They didn’t build the pyramids because they were bored or wanted people to visit them as tourist attractions. To the very real human beings of ancient Egypt, becoming an anthropological exhibit would be deeply troubling, a massively negative outcome.

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But I also wouldn't mind if future archaeologists entombed me in a pyramid, used my body as a comedic prop, burnt me for fuel, etc.

At some point after death we should acknowledge we no longer have moral claims on the world.

You're reinforcing OP's point: You don't care about afterlife. Don't have to, but recognise that many do, and have been for a very long time.

The Pharoh might be incensed we let his slaves go free, educated women, didn't worship Ra, etc. We don't respect any of ancient Egypt's beliefs except we should respect their reverence for the dead? Doesn't make sense to me.

Is it really that difficult to just leave the Pharaohs in the pyramids and not in a glass box at the museum? Doesn’t really seem too much to me. They built the pyramids, after all.

Point of fact, they did not build the pyramids. Their slaves did the work. Maybe let's split the difference -- what proportion of the slaves would want to see the pharaoh's corpses defiled?

> slaves

That's the Hollywood narrative. Archaeology points to them being free men. Though nobody knows for sure.

Regardless, the Pharaohs didn't build 'em, did they?

Yeah, it is that difficult. Huge numbers of people want to see the mummies and will pay for the privilege. The people with legal claims to the mummies make significant money.

Denying the owners profits and the curious the chance to indulge their curiosity for the benefit of people a thousand years dead is a derangement of moral priorities. We should care more about the living than the long dead. We can learn from and about them.

Why should people who lived thousands of years ago have an indefinite claim to a piece of land and the materials upon it? Why should we leave the pharaoh in the pyramid?

Having historical artifacts in museums that millions of people can visit is a valuable social good which embiggens curiosity, exacerbates mental well being, and strikes fear into the very heart of boredom.

At some point moral values clash. The Egyptian Pharaohs kept slaves, fought wars of aggression, and had their living retainers sacrificed so they could continue to serve after death. We haven't kept sacrificing people, because we agree that it's just outright wrong.

He and I think it's also just outright wrong to hide archaeological details from future generations for the sake of the long dead. It sounds like you disagree with us, but the argument that we should respect their wishes just because they wished them is not a strong one, given that we reject some wishes on a case by case basis as morally repugnant.

What is it about this wish in particular that should be respected more than other wishes?

Now how long time is that? Second? Minute? 5 minutes? Hour? Day? Month? Year? Decade? 50 years? Century? Makes one think. Also is there levels of these moral claims?

I reserve all rights to the atoms that make up my body ad infinitum, which means my estate will be able to claim copyright on your descendents for selling work that contains said atoms!

Sure, but weren’t the pyramids built by slave labor?

I feel like there’s enough massively disappointing outcomes to go around.

I mean, after all, everyone ends up dead at the end of the day and we can barely take care of the living.

> Sure, but weren’t the pyramids built by slave labor?

No, they were prestige products.

> That’s mostly because you live in a society which doesn’t value burials or the afterlife and which worships information, which must be acquired at any cost.

Even if I was, I'd be dead when it actually came about. The implication of time-travelling morality is an interesting but problematic one. There's no one actually suffering from the act of desecration, since suffering requires one to be alive.

Surely you can’t simultaneously support cultural relativism (misplaced as it may be for an American author being discussed by mostly Americans) and also speak for an entire group of people who existed thousands of years ago. The only thing we have empirical proof of is that the deceased don’t complain about the treatment of their remains or estates.

Well now, a cultural relativist would definitely disagree with your lat statement. Most cultures would say there's ample evidence in the other direction and that it's bad luck to build on ancient burial grounds.

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