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This company sells real human skulls. It claims all of its skulls are ethically sourced. How do you ethically source a human skull for sale to a random buyer? (www.skullsunlimited.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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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?

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[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 38 points 2 weeks ago

This is where I disagree with the rest of society. Dead people are dead and don’t have rights, so I don’t see how most skulls would be unethical.

So the real question is will it upset the living and how much do you want to accommodate those people’s feelings? I’m not sure there’s a clear and unambiguous answer to this question.

[-] 7oo7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago

Making it a commercial business makes it unethical. Who's to say they won't be exploiting the poor, desperate people and twisting the legality, cross country loopholes to profit?

Do you think diamonds, lithium, rare metals are ethically sourced too, just because the retailer/marketing says so?

Does exploiting people for profits upset you? How many of the "most" need to be unethical to upset you?

Post like these confirm to people saying only the most lunatic fringe, out of touch with reality left reddit during/after the reddit controversy.

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

I’m opposed to capitalist exploitation but don’t you think that’s a bit tangential here? Like we don’t see this sort of hand-wringing about buying a video game console.

Personally I try not to participate in capitalist consumption more than necessary, so I wouldn’t buy a skull for that reason. But that’s not why this upsets people. Otherwise they wouldn’t be constantly buying new clothes, gadgets, etc. to amuse them. Those industries are if anything more likely to exploit and harm people, so focus your scrutiny there if you are so concerned with the global workers.

This reminds me of the fake concern for sex workers that is used to shun and exile them from polite society. Yes, sex-workers are exploited, but when you’re using that exploitation as a shield for your real agenda, that needs to be examined critically.

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this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024

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