Hacker News Reader

Comment by d110af5ccf | Hacker News Reader

Why is the government involved in this, again?

Well, I think there is some level of regulation that should be in place. For instance, if I live on a small property next to another small property, it would have a pretty negative impact on me if my neighbor decided they wanted to leave their dead relatives in the open on a corner of the property abutting mine.

Obviously that’s an extreme scenario. I generally agree with you that burial is over-regulated (c.f. human composting) but there should be some ground rules in place.

>it would have a pretty negative impact on me if my neighbor decided they wanted to leave their dead relatives in the open on a corner of the property abutting mine.

More or less negative than it would be if your neighbour was leaving animal remains instead of dead relatives?

You generally can’t do that either.

Presumably because it's in the public interest to ensure bodies are properly disposed?

No, it's not. We should just let the Free Market decide how to dispose of bodies. If people in apartments choose to let their relatives decay in their homes, or bury them in very shallow graves, that's their business.

You're asking why there's a law against setting a boat on fire and casting it adrift on a waterway? I feel like that one speaks for itself frankly. In general most ways of burning a body on a floating boat aren't safe to other people, and there hasn't been enough demand to carve out rules for a safe way to do it.

If freedom of religion means people have the right to meet in close physical proximity for worship services during a pandemic then it should mean people have the right to send burning corpses down a river as a sacrament to Odin. The former is objectively a bigger threat to public safety than the latter, and I would argue the latter is better for the environment than modern Christian burial.

Because the government is just a proxy for the will of the people, and the people don't like icky things and thoughts. And mishandled corpses are very icky to see and think about.

It's the same reason the government has a history of getting involved in people's bedrooms.

You referring to the disposal of human bodies as icky makes it clear that you aren’t familiar with the very real public health consequences that can arise from unhygienic disposal

I'm well aware of them, I'm providing an additional, cultural (as opposed to scientific) reason for why people feel the need for legislature about body disposal.

There are very real public health consequences for bedroom activities too.

Do we really need to explain the difference between burning a boatload of corpses and making love?

If your argument is "people should/shouldn't be able to do this thing that's deeply meaningful to them because of/despite the public health risks", yes, you really do need to explain why these cases are different from each other.

The scale of the public health risk is nowhere near the same, for one.

We might also consider that the "deeply meaningful things" phrase is hiding behind superficial similarities. One is a reproductive function and an important part of a well-functioning couple; the other is an ancient burial practice that nobody can truthfully claim is part of their living culture.

You're sea-lawyering. We know you understand the difference.

> One is a reproductive function and an important part of a well-functioning couple

The activities that people want to regulate tend to not fall under either of those (or at least their status as such is disputed).

> You're sea-lawyering. We know you understand the difference.

Nope. I genuinely think it's a legitimate comparison.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com