
Why undertakers are worried - prostoalex
https://www.economist.com/news/international/21740399-bereaved-better-informed-no-longer-always-do-what-they-are-told-or-pay-whatever-they
======
joncrane
Good! They should be worried!

This is one of the greatest things about the internet: the reduction of
information asymmetry.

Occupations like investment advice and sometimes auto repair exploit the heck
out of information asymmetry.

The death business is especially nefarious because not only are they
exploiting information asymmetry, they also exploit emotional overload.

When I was in college, my dad died in another country. The mortician had me
over a barrel. The hospital had one funeral home they worked with and before I
knew it, the funeral home was in possession of my dad's body. Want to transfer
it to another funeral home? Well there's a charge for that. My only option was
to pay them whatever they asked to cremate him. I paid some outrageous amount
(I believe it was about $600, which was a fortune in the small 3rd world
country he was in) for cremation and a little urn and box to carry him in.

Even as a guy who was emotionally relatively stable (I was mostly estranged
from my father), it was still an infuriatingly weak position to be in as a
"customer" of one of these predatory businesses.

~~~
Sileni
Huh, what do they do if you just say "Alright, guess he's your problem now"?
Pretty sure my parents would be cheering me on from the after life. We're not
the most sentimental bunch.

~~~
joncrane
Ha, good point. We had relatives back in the States that were expecting
something to bury so I was stuck.

~~~
xapata
You could have burned something else of similar volume, maybe a load of his
clothes, and put it in an urn.

~~~
13of40
Cremains are kind of distinctive, though. In fact, once you know what they
look like you can find them at waterfalls and mountain tops all over the
place.

~~~
ramy_d
err... Not sure if i should google or not...

Edit: got curious. I guess it's just white/pale ash?

~~~
13of40
It has little chunks, maybe 3 or 4 millimeters wide, where you can see the
spongy, internal structure of the bones.

~~~
fouc
I heard that used to be true for older cremations, but not for newer ones (due
to higher heat & efficiency) ?

~~~
13of40
Last time I saw a dateable sample (i.e. straight from the crematorium vs. at a
mountaintop or waterfall) was about nine years ago, and it was quite chunky.
This was from a crematorium in Arizona that was presumably using modern
methods. I do recall that there was an episode of a TV show a while back
(Dexter?) where someone did an ashes swap and it was discovered because the
ashes looked like they were from the 70's, but that could have just been
something the writer dreamed up.

~~~
downer59
You can almost imagine an eccentric subculture rife with debate over the
preferences and arguments in favor of the virtues distinctive degrees of
granularity in cremated human ashes, not unlike peanut butter varieties.

The defining aspect of the argument being whether you can tell the ashes came
from a human, or whether you'd rather not know, or care to think about it.

------
tyxtyxtyx
The funeral industry is going through a bit of a transformation right now.
Relatively unchanged for the past 100 years, a lot of funeral home owners
haven’t really felt the pressure to change.

2017 was the first time cremations eclipsed the traditional casketed burial in
the U.S. This is a huge business problem as funeral homes rely heavily on
ceremonies, merchandise, and other services to keep their businesses open. Now
you’re starting to see the innovators take off, while those that are not
adapting lose market share. Those offering low-cost cremations are doing very
well, while those still stuck and expecting the consumer behavior to change
are suffering.

Being the CEO of a tech company in the funeral space (Parting and Parting
Pro), we see this anti-change sentiment holding funeral businesses back. After
interacting with many funeral directors, you realize they aren’t the snake oil
salesmen they are made out to be. However, their lack of understanding of tech
really does hold them back from communicating with their customers. This leads
to sticker shock that gets magnified by information asymmetry.

~~~
noir_lord
Interesting, I write the software that runs one of the largest custom memorial
and headstone etc businesses in the UK.

It’s strange to see an industry I directly know a bit about on here.

The company I work for is actually pretty forward thinking for a none-
technology company, largely down to my boss been smart as hell.

It’s interesting sofwware to work on as well bit of everything, C# for the
sandblast orchestration software, java for he inventory terminals, php (the
legacy system..is interesting), typescript.

It fits me because I like a varied set of skills and the ability to work in a
bunch of domains.

------
DLarsen
We recently experienced a stillbirth after 38 weeks. I was thankful to have a
level-headed, knowledgeable friend at our side to question most of the
hospital norms. We were in no shape to push back. After asking the right
questions, we were able to work with a local monastery to bury our child for a
grand total of $0. IANAL, but at least in California, we determined that in
our situation working with an undertaker was optional. State law clearly gave
us rights to control and custody of our daughter's remains.

~~~
w8rbt
It's common for funeral homes, in the South East, to do no cost or very low
cost infant ceremonies and burials. Maybe common in other areas too, but I
can't say for certain.

I saw this first hand in Georgia, North Carolina and Virgina. I was licensed
and worked in the industry in two of those states and attended mortuary
college in the other. So, I know a good deal about the profession in those
areas.

Glad to know that your friend and the monastery helped you. It is a difficult
time and being asked/expected to make decisions makes it even harder.

------
metakermit
The Big Lebowski said everything that needs to be said on this topic :)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKjBFsyYC0g](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKjBFsyYC0g)

~~~
bootsz
Just cause we're bereaved doesn't make us saps!

------
op00to
When my mom died a few months ago, none of the family wanted a funeral. Waste
of money in our opinion. We went with direct cremation with a firm that does
only direct cremation and saved thousands of dollars over direct cremation at
a traditional funeral home. Shit is a racket.

------
ihsw2
It's interesting that donating your body to science is nowhere to be seen,
either in the article or the comments.

Many organizations will even provide a stipend to the next-of-kin, and some
even still provide cremated remains (to the next-of-kin) once the body has
served its purpose.

Furthermore, consenting to organ donation can serve an immediate life-
threatening need.

------
throwaway84742
Speaking of which, would a DIY funeral pyre be legal in this country in some
shape or form? Purely hypothetically. Seems like an interesting product idea.
It doesn’t have to be a pile of logs, could be just a thick body bag with
enough burnable material to completely incinerate the body inside.

~~~
scottshepard
Probably not. A crematorium gets up to 1400 degrees F. I doubt a thick body
bag could do that.

~~~
throwaway84742
How about if it’s something like thermite, or staged combustion with a very
high temperature stage at the end?

~~~
dbasedweeb
Thermite is dangerous, essentially impossible to extinguish until it burns
out, and would burn through any realistic oven. It also emits a dangerous
amount of UV so you need welding goggles and distance from the burn. If you
really wanted to burn a body (illegal in most cases) it’s a matter of good
airflow and the right accelerant. And disarticulstion of the limbs and head,
which for me at least, would be a difficult thing emotionally. Once you’ve
hacked your loved one into roughly even pieces, dig some ditches lined with
steel drums, get some charcoal and wood, wrap the pieces of your loved one in
natural fibers soaked with jet fuel, and light it up. Make sure that you layer
their “chunks” on a scaffold or logs, and try to make sure that there is a
clear “intake” and exhaust at opposite ends for airflow. If needed take the
remaining remains and subject them to a second pass with jet fuel.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be able to do that to a total stranger,
never mind someone I cared about.

~~~
throwaway84742
What I had in mind is you buy a bag, put the person in it and it does its
thing totally automatically. You’d need to do it outside city limits of course
and in open air and you’d carefully watch the direction of the wind. I’m not
really suggesting people should pursue it, I was merely wondering if it’s even
legal.

TBH, I don’t see why human remains can’t be disposed of the way other garbage
is disposed of, through the same garbage processing facilities. Just literally
take the deceased to the garbage processing center and chuck them into the
shredder along with their old mattress.

When it comes to remains, I don’t consider them to be “my loved one”, that
part is gone. I will honor whatever wishes they’ve had before they died, but
my own wish will be that my loved ones just quickly get rid of my body at a
minimal cost and move on. To remember me, just celebrate what I’ve left
behind.

~~~
dbasedweeb
There are a few reasons, the most important three are these:

Public health. Corpses are breeding grounds for some very unpleasant
pathogens, and you want to protect people from them. People working with the
corpses or the machines to process them would be at risk. Back in the days of
unregulated burial, it wasn’t uncommon for earthquakes and floods to cause
large numbers of shallow burials to erupt. So, public health on a number of
levels is a concern.

Emotion. Most people don’t have your attitude towards the deceased, although
it’s fair to say that some do. It’s also true that how people think they’ll
react may differ from the reality of their reaction when they’re grieving.
Most people wouldn’t be comfortable casually disposing of their loved one’s
corpses. There are many cultures around death in the world, but few could be
thought of as treating the deceased remains casually.

Politics. The first and second reasons combine with cultural and sometimes
religious norms and make such a proposal as yours difficult if not impossible
politically.

~~~
throwaway84742
Regarding public health, I’m not convinced dead humans are any worse than dead
cattle TBH.

I do agree on the other two points you’ve made. This is one of those things
that are fraught with irrationalities and taboos, and have been for millennia.

------
advisedwang
[http://archive.today/4K797](http://archive.today/4K797)

------
dbg31415
Two relatives of mine died recently, one had arranged his own funeral, the
other did not.

TL;DR: If you want to make less stress for your loved ones, you'll plan your
funeral yourself.

Also I remember seeing a post on HN a while back about water cremation. I
thought it was interesting.

* Leaving Earth the Greenest Way Possible: Water Cremation - YouTube || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Le7rLbkFe4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Le7rLbkFe4)

~~~
e40
Can you arrange but not pay for it? I'd be worried about paying for something
that is never used (because of unforeseen circumstances).

~~~
thesandlord
Never used? Like if you somehow gain immortality or something (which is
totally plausible)? I feel in that case money is the least of your problems.

(apologies if I misunderstood the question)

~~~
pilom
I think they meant what if your body is lost at sea, or blown up, or burned in
a fire, etc.

------
tropo
I'd prefer a sky burial, as the Tibetians and Zoroastrians use. This involves
birds of prey. In at least the Tibetian style, the bones are handled in a
second pass by breaking them up and mixing them with some sort of flour.

This seems unavailable.

Another choice I like is to become biodiesel and fertilizer pellets. This too
appears to be unavailable.

~~~
ofcrpls
I think you would love to read this article[0] about the confluence of
antibiotics abuse in cattle, Zoroastrian sky burials and the declining vulture
population in India.

[0]
[http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/sil...](http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/silent_towers_empty_skies/)

------
bawana
i want to burn up on re-entry. Elon, you hear me?! I want a space burial.

