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Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

I always thought it would be fun to leave behind my skull for my descendents - something to put on the bookshelf. And then, if I attained infinite wealth someday, I'd create some elaborate, expensive treasure hunt that kicks off when someone fines the micro sd card cunningly embedded in it.

But it turns out that it's illegal to remove parts from a human body in the US. So you'd either have to make a backroom deal or arrange to transport your remains to another country and then ship them back. Lame.

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I would suggest that the body of a deceased person should not be treated like personal property. Your family and those descendants who come after you will want to venerate your remains and visit them wherever they may be interred. Placing a skull on a bookshelf is not conducive to this public veneration.

This is why it is customary to inter bodily remains in public places such as cemeteries, where they are open and may be visited by anyone with an interest, or indeed any stranger who wishes to pay respects and keep your memory alive.

Case in point: my godfather/uncle passed away a few years ago, and I missed his funeral because I was unable to travel. The word is that he was cremated, and those remains are kept in the home of my estranged cousin. Therefore, even if I were to travel there, I cannot rightly invite myself to her home to visit the remains of my uncle. It is unjust that they are more or less "held hostage" and that she claims "ownership" of his body, thereby withholding rights of visitation and veneration from the rest of the family, or at least unjustly gatekeeping those rights.

I think it should be a personal decision. As a skull on a bookshelf I feel my remains would have far more impact than if I only had a plot somewhere that was infrequently visited. It's also more of a conversation starter. Also, there is nothing to say you can't have both - the body could be in a plot, the skull left in a creepy library in the ancient mahogany library I left my children. You know, the usual.

> Placing a skull on a bookshelf is not conducive to this public veneration.

Veneration is enormously culturally subjective. There are many, many, many cultures that would have seen placing the skull of an ancestor in a prominent place as a very, very, very obvious sign of respect and power.

But, my people don't engage in ancestor worship. I come from sad stock and I'd rather be forgotten after I die.

Indeed, I am a member of such a culture.

But the context of this thread involves rather obscure and private locales, such as a bookshelf in Chad's garage, or an incel's 1BR apartment. The foot traffic and availability would be near-zero.

I'm not sure how you leapt from that context to "a prominent place".

Compare this to the custom of churches holding relics for public veneration, such as embedding them in an altar, displaying them at a shrine, or in a reliquary held by a priest for people to line up and kiss. Or the standard custom of cemeteries and mausoleums which are open to the public at all times of the year, which offer sacred consecrated ground, and religious/spiritual context for those who venerate the remains.

Having your remains transported out of the US and back seems like it would be pretty easy to do in a hypothetical scenario where you've already "attained infinite wealth"

> But it turns out that it's illegal to remove parts from a human body in the US.

This is not true, it's just a highly regulated market. Look up tissue banks.

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