Hey, not extinct! There are dozens of us
Also don’t forget MST3K and Lord of the Rings!
Cosmos (the original)
Connections with James Burke
Secret Life of Machines
All of David MacAulay’s books
Connections 1 and 2. Maybe not 3.
Yeah, that one wasn’t nearly as good
Man, Connections was such a good show. I gotta rewatch that sometime.
The way things work is one of my favourite books. I still have the copy I got as a kid!
QI when he’s older Taskmaster too, though there is a bit too much joke mystery at times.
Its never to early to read The Hobbit to get someone a lifelong addiction to the LoTR. I was trying for in-utero but my wife was not interested.
I’m starting to read the Hobbit to my wife’s pregnant belly. My daughter is due in September so hopefully I’ll have read the full book by then. I’ll then read the Hobbit to her again when she’s old enough to retain it
My daughter is also due in September. I know that its just the voice for the first few months. So I got to practice my reading outload. My wife says I rush when reading to her belly. In my defense Heading Home with Your Newborn is important but not the easiest to talk through
Lotr is overrated, there i said it
BOOOOOOOOO
Even if you dislike the story, its impact on the fantasy genre is hard to argue against. I personally dislike the series too, but I refuse to call it overrated because it influences basically every aspect of modern fantasy writing.
Having a massive influence is just proof of it being overrated, imagine how much more creative stories would be if everything didn’t have to force in elves and dwarves and goblins
My point wasn’t that fantasy needs elves, but rather that when a fantasy setting does include elves, you likely have a rough expectation of what kind of stereotype they’ll fit. That stereotype is the influence I’m talking about.
The “elves are old, somber, magical, close with nature, tall and thin, magically graceful, pale, have pointy ears, have delicate swooping architecture and designs, etc” stereotype is what you’d likely expect from elves if they get brought up in fantasy… And that stereotype is largely influenced by LOTR. A setting can still be fantasy without elves, but including elves in your story will have the reader automatically setting certain expectations about how those elves will fit into your world. You as the writer can choose to conform to (or rebel against) those expectations, but there’s no denying that the expectation exists, and is heavily influenced by LOTR.
I really loved Pratchett’s take on the elves, come to think of it.
Youre very welcome to hold your incorrect opinion but please do not try to ruin other peoples fun. You could also tell us why you have your still very wrong opinion
Perhaps they also fell asleep during the movies. I certainly know I did.
hey, falling asleep during LOTR is part of the fun
I don’t need to justify my comment to you. I said what I said and now a bunch of yall are acting like the sistine chapel roof is collapsing. It’s mediocre at best, 12 hours of dudes larping like dorks
God lotr fans are insufferable.
A 40k fan dissing LotR fans, who could have predicted?
They’re the same picture, they’re just tsundere for Tolkien-san (we know they’re an anime fan too)
Says a 40k fan.
At the very least the LotR fandom isn’t infested with Nazi’s that fail to understand the very basic themes of 40k.
Doesn’t like my thing huh, you NAZI.
i guess i was wrong, lotr fanboys seem really chill and level headed.
Its really a thing though.
You must be completely unaware of the kind of people who gravitate towards 40k.
I didn’t call you a Nazi. I said the fandom was infested with them. Odd that you’d go to such an accusation so quickly.
Doesn’t matter, it’s not on the list for quality. It’s an important piece.
Have to say I agree.
If you want to put a little note saying ‘the movies are overrated’ sure, we can have a debate about that. Fantasy films really aren’t for everyone, and adapting LotR is definitely not an easy task.
If you genuinely mean the books as well, idk what to tell you. The history of the fantasy genre after LotR proves you’re wrong.
Modern fantasy owners might be standing on the shoulders of giants, but to extend the metaphor, it means their heads are higher than those giants.
LOTR could be overrated as a piece of fantasy writing for a modern audience, even if it is absolutely key to establishing the modern fantasy genre. For me, LOTR was good, but it was unsatisfying in some ways. Like, Gandalf and Saruman were obviously powerful “wizards”, but what is it that they could do? How did their powers work? And there were characters like Tom Bombadil who were confusing and had me flipping pages.
I greatly respect Tolkien’s work. But, unlike some more modern authors, I don’t devour everything he wrote. For example, I absolutely couldn’t read the Silmarillion.
So, yeah, I can see how someone would say that LOTR is overrated, even if it was key to establishing an entire genre.
I think that’s a lot like saying modern orchestral music stands on the shoulders of classical composers but that isn’t really accurate, is it? Moonlight Sonata is Moonlight Sonata. Many classic compositions are still utilized in modern media.
There’s a difference with being disastisfied with certain aspects of a story and that story being overrated. Gandalf and Saruman’s powers being vague was the point. Tom Bombadil is such a minor portion of the Shire, is that even something relevant to the narrative as a whole? Fantasy, specifically, has evolved over time through the introduction of power systems sure — does that make them inherently better than LotR?
Not every book is for every person. You simply cannot deny the level of effort that went into creating LotR on Tolkien’s part, nor that it is held in very high regard to this day. The books simply are not overrated.
Harry Potter, though, absolutely. 100% overrated.
Classical music is a bit different because it’s effectively frozen in time. They’re not introducing new instruments. They’re not using amplification for the most part. It’s like doing the same Shakespeare plays over and over again.
If there were a Beethoven today, he probably wouldn’t be composing classical music. He’d be doing popular music of some kind. In fact, the historical record suggests he would have been a keyboardist in a rock band.
For music, a better example might be Jimi Hendrix. He was an amazing musician and his approach completely shaped modern rock music. But, while his music was influential, are his songs the best rock songs of all time? I don’t think so, because other people have built on what he did and have taken it further.
Tom Bombadil is such a minor portion of the Shire, is that even something relevant to the narrative as a whole?
No, and that’s why a better author (or their editor) would have removed it.
Fantasy, specifically, has evolved over time through the introduction of power systems sure — does that make them inherently better than LotR?
Yes. Not just because of their “power systems”, but because the authors have used some of the ideas that Tolkien introduced, and told better stories with them, or introduced better characters. Or, because they lack some of Tolkien’s key weaknesses, like they’re able to write interesting 3-dimensional female characters. IMO the heavy lifting that Tolkien did is to introduce a world filled with all these various kinds of creatures that we all take for granted now: elves, dwarves, ents, orcs, etc.
He was probably the greatest fantasy writer of his time. But, he’s “of his time”. He unconsciously brings all kinds of biases and baggage into his writing that a reader in the 1950s wouldn’t even notice, but that become more apparent 75ish years later.
You simply cannot deny the level of effort that went into creating LotR on Tolkien’s part
Nor can you deny the amount of effort that went into The Room but that doesn’t mean it’s a great movie. LotR is a great book, but it’s not because Tolkien put a certain amount of effort into it.
But, is it overrated? There are 2 ways something can be overrated. Something can be bad and rated as being ok, and so it’s overrated. Or something can be good but rated as being the best in the world and so it’s overrated. I think LotR is in the second category as a fantasy story. As a foundation for fantasy literature, I don’t think it’s overrated because it introduced so many things that we just take for granted today. But merely as a book, looking at it through modern eyes, it is probably overrated. I think it’s great, but it’s no longer the best fantasy book ever written.
That’s fair, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said — except for Tom Bombadil, I love the flavor he adds to the story.
able to write interesting 3-dimensional female characters
Yeah LotR is a sausage-fest — there is no defending that.
However, this is ultimately a matter of subjectivity, and I don’t think I’ve referred to LotR as the greatest fantasy story. I don’t think there can be a ‘greatest’ of any genre, no more than someone can be ‘the greatest’ at any sport, skill, or whatever else you can think of. ‘Number 1 on the leaderboard’ is an ephemeral position and impossible to guage accurately.
In other words, to me I would be more likely to call Harry Potter overrated than LotR, and it isn’t like JKR didn’t have LotR to pull from. A Song of Ice and Fire, again — very overrated. Despite Martin’s attempts to seem like a modern day Tolkien (which he certainly is not).
However, this is ultimately a matter of subjectivity, and I don’t think I’ve referred to LotR as the greatest fantasy story.
No, I don’t think you have. I just think that some people do. I think the hype around LotR makes kids go into reading it expecting it will be the best thing they ever read, and some come out of that disappointed.
I agree that Harry Potter is also massively overrated. If you ignore Rowling and her current issues, Harry Potter is a decent fantasy book for kids. But, it became this international phenomenon. I don’t know why.
As for A Song of Ice and Fire, I get that one more. He did things that most other fantasy authors didn’t. For example, he was willing to kill off characters in a way that almost nobody else does. That really raised the stakes because you could no longer assume the main character was untouchable. He also did something really interesting in the early books in that they were fantasy books, and there was all this talk about magic and gods and dragons… but for a long time there was nothing in the books that proved that magic really did exist. The dragons were all dead. The stark children had “dire wolves” but they weren’t magical wolves, they were just really big. People believed in magic and all these interesting gods, but there was no proof that anything supernatural was happening. I was actually disappointed when the later books revealed that magic was real, and that the gods seemed to exist (or at least there was supernatural stuff associated with worshipping / believing in gods). It would have been really interesting to have a full book series that was “fantasy” without the supernatural element.
Perhaps define “overrated” first or else I am not following your point.
I agree. I enjoy it, but I’m not desperate for more. (I feel the same about the original Star Wars as well)
Don’t forget futurama and star trek
Star Trek is a difficult one. The oldest stuff is very dated, even TNG has some things that are very weird for a modern audience. But, some of the modern stuff is basically unwatchable.
Yea there’s some dated episodes but there’s also measure of a man, past tense and a bunch of others that still absolutely slap
Yeah, there are some amazing episodes. TOS also has some amazing episodes. Offhand, I can’t think of anything since DS9 / Voyager that was that good. There were definitely some fun episodes, but nothing that I kept thinking about for a long time after they aired, like say Picard’s living an entire life in The Inner Light.
((Also funny about The Inner Light, is that I can’t think of that episode without thinking of the really awkward way that they had Patrick Stewart pretend to play the flute by having someone lie on the floor out of camera and pretend that his arms were Patrick Stewart’s arms.))
Specifically Star Trek: Elite Force and Futurama (Video Game)
Life of Brian is arguably better for a ensmuggening Python based education.
Nah, Life of Brian was just decent commentary. Holy Grail was silly in a pointless way that resonated with Nerd Boys in the 2000s.
Does Holy Grail not resonate with Nerd Boys now?
I’m a Nerd Man now, I can’t say.
Yeah me too. I’m just thinking it over when I can introduce it to my boy. He’s still too young, but probably a couple of years. I think I was like 11
I kinda feel like kids these days are exposed to weird shit earlier than we were. I’d worry less about him being too young and more worried about the psychic damage you’re gonna take when he thinks it’s boring.
I was worried he was going to be like that with Harry Potter. When I started reading it to him he fell in love with it almost right away. I have to cut off the time I spend on it because he’ll just beg me to keep reading all night if I could.
I watched it at 11, spent half the movie thinking that I had half a medieval movie on the VCR tape (👴) because it didn’t make any sense.
At the black knight scene I got the joke and rewatched the whole thing several times a month for a while.
We grew up to appreciate Life of Brian more but you’re right
Yeah but fewer people get the references
If they don’t get the references, they’re just casuals.
They didn’t get most references in the 80s/90s either… this is the reason why nerds seemed weird…
Really? Maybe I have been missing them my whole life.
Really? Maybe I have been missing them my whole life.
Yup, but if you try to tell the youth of today that, they’d never believe you
My son wants to “game” like most other kids at his class. So I got an old laptop, installed linux mint on it with dosbox. He loves lemmings, the incredible machine 2 and rollercoaster tycoon
I fear that he won’t get many friends this way
Mainstream might be boring but it’s an easy way to connect with people
Column A, Column B
The trick is to introduce your kid to your taste in gaming while they’re young
And then when they are in their tweens and want to game online with their mates, you set them up for it (with proper supervision and such, of course)
And they WILL develop their own taste in gaming – But they will have some common ground with you still.
… It worked for me and my dad (avid PC gamer, mostly plays strategy games and management sims though) anyway. Years later I convinced him to get Civ V and he completely destroyed me in it.
You have a diploma in personality development manipulation haha
That’s the trouble with gamers these days, they’re only in it for the friendship. Fucking posers.
This was the argument I used in high school when I wanted an Xbox 360. My parents were super reluctant given the cost, and then I told them I have nothing to talk about with friends in the hallways and I’m left out of conversations (I was). They reconsidered and eventually folded, and I was very appreciative
I didn’t get many friends the old fashioned way and I turned out fine in the end.
maybe you could have had an even better life had it happened
Unlikely. The reason I didn’t have many friends is simply because I didn’t get along with them: my interests were not their interests. It’s much more fulfilling to find people who align with and elevate you than to seek popular approval.
If you had access to the same things as them you could have had the same interests?
No, because my interests were “reading books” and “knowing things” and I had very little patience for people who did not understand the basic rules to a game on first explanation, for example. That’s still true but it’s much easier to select your peer group as an adult.
alright
“reading books”
you weirdo :)
Omg the Incredible Machine!!! Where can I play it, its been so long!
I think the copyright expired and you can just download it for free, maybe its even on the internet archive. I got mine from abandonware or something like that.
Worms/Scorched Earth/Liero (pixel physics!)
That era had so many good Gorilla clones.
Somehow this unlocked a child memory, when I found out there was a plain text file with the “insults” and I added my own. I felt like a true hacker…
Gotta get Jill of the Jungle on that bad boy
And the music of Weird Al
you don’t need to try so hard, just don’t let him have weird ideas about gender and hope he befriends at least one girl. that’ll be enough. all these idiots need is a female friend going “don’t be an idiot that’s not how things work”.
Or a sister, or any woman who has the standing to tell you “your teeth are blotchy and your breath is bad, that’s why people won’t kiss you, go to the dentist”
I always wonder where are the mothers of these shitty young men?
Like.
If I even thought of going into a misogynistic phase during my younger years, my mother would have put me in my place, yanno?
Are anglo mothers less sprited than latin american mothers?
They’re at home, suffering their husbands abuse while their son learns to be just like Dad.
Oof. Hard to read/think about. But I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening.
My kid won’t experience that (at least from their parents), thankfully. But we’re doing our best to instill an open mind and acceptance for our child.
deleted by creator
It’s easy to imagine them however you want. Truth is a lot of those incels probably come across as normal on the surface and have a normal life and are just depressed people looking for something to blame
We won the lottery on this. Had twins, 1 boy 1 girl at birth. They’re too young to know if they’re gonna be friends, enemies, (probably both?)
Gotta get two nintendo DS then.
I would add Kids in the Hall.
EEEEEERADICATOR!
STOP DOXXING ME!!!
Thia feels like the Powerpuff Girls intro, but replace Chemical X with Young Sheldon.
Throwing Discworld into the mix
Needs more BattleBots.
Robot Wars.
…grant imahara should’ve been cast as reed richards… =(
Extinct??!?
We’re not dead yet, just old!
I’m not
deadextinct yet!I’m making a note here: Huge success
I rewatched Mythbusters recently. It’s pretty disturbing, especially in the early seasons, how often they use actual human remains for what is essentially light entertainment. Like, they’ll destroy an actual human skull for shits and giggles. They had disproved the myth on setting off an airbag with a slim jim and firing it into the head of a would be car jacker, but still had to replicate the results, so just shot a slim jim into an actual human skull, cheering and laughing as it’s decimated. That was an actual person’s skull. How they sourced it, and where the source acquired it, who knows. I’m fairly certain there is a family somewhere though that would be mortified.
I would be psyched as hell for my remains to be used on one of the most influential educational science shows of the era (plus like, that is a metal AF use for my skull). IDK, I know I’m not one of those people that venerates remains but even if I was, this seems like a grander memorial and contribution to science than having your remains parted out to then sit for years in a box in a closet, waiting for the physical anthro undergrads to do the “reassemble the original hands from this mixed up pile of phalanges” exercise for the umpteenth time.
The key distinction here is your will. The will of these people is unkown. Their consent is unkown. If you’re looking at the skulls for sale on the bone room for example, they don’t even know the specific age of most of the skulls and are forced to guess within a range. If they don’t even know how old they are how can they know with any certainty the circumstances of their death? Where in the world can you just find an unclaimed skull to sell? What are the chances that these skulls aren’t the skulls of poor people, or otherwise disenfranchised people? It doesn’t take much imagination to draw the conclusion that the ethics surrounding the buying and selling of human skulls, and then destroying them for no other reason than the momentary entertainment of of the global 1% is at the very best a grey area.
I think you have an incredibly romantic view of human death, and I don’t particularly want to disabuse you of that. So in that spirit, I will spare you the full gory details of what happens to donated human remains / medical cadavers.
Full Disclosure: In my personal collection I own a number of human bones (most but decidedly not all) given to me by the friend who’s bones they were. I use the fingers as a fidget toy sometimes. Also, the persecution of cannibalism is one of the great crimes of the western world. I include these to
amusecharacterize myself and, hopefully by extension, my explanations below.To answer your questions:
If they don’t even know how old they are
The reason stores like The Bone Room do not have personal or demographic information on the remains they sell is because medical cadavers are anonymized. The Bone Room respects that, even in cases where they have purchased bones with a known provenance, and the topic is extremely complex. In short however, this means that the morality of the remains being sold is almost entirely dependent on the reputability of the person selling the remains, and retailers are comprehensively vetted and monitored because of this (there are obviously exceptions, but they are immensely rare).
[...] how can they know with any certainty the circumstances of their death?
It is extremely rare for educational remains to be initially sold as parts (though there are of course examples where it did happen). In the wild and vast majority of cases, an individual bone is the result of donated remains being reduced over time through repeated dissections to the point that only the bones are left. Because of this, it is safe to say that medical cadavers are the most exhaustively inspected remains on the planet, and signs of foul play would undoubtedly be noticed (there are quite a few examples of this).
Where in the world can you just find an unclaimed skull to sell?
China and India were the sources of most modern medical remains, though both countries have stopped the export of human remains. While yes, I cannot deny that there were instances where questionable methods were used to obtain the remains (the term is ‘anatomy murder’), I only know of two specific examples off the top of my head. The first is the Burke/Hare murders, which were committed during the early 1800s, and the second is the very famous Body Worlds exhibit (and hoo boy is that horrifying). Both of these were the impetus for sweeping global legislation to prevent similar situations, and Body Worlds is the primary reason China stopped exporting medical cadavers (because, and I am being uncharitable, it is hard to credibly deny your crimes against political prisoners when you ship the bodies of said prisoners to western countries with bullet holes in their skulls).
What are the chances that these skulls aren’t the skulls of poor people [...] ?
Aside from cadavers sourced from india and china (which again are no longer allowing the export of educational corpses), the remaining remains on the market come from legitimate pre-mortis consent given by the former owner of the parts in question. There are many, many examples of this - leaving your body to medicine/science is quite common in the US, and is an absolutely vital part of our medical infrastructure, and is generally considered a very noble choice to make. It is important to explain here that medical cadavers in the US are shown a degree of respect that can quite accurately be described as veneration, and disrespect of donated remains is emphatically not tolerated. And while US-sourced medical remains are rare to see sold outside of a medical context (US law is extremely strict on this matter), it does happen. I urge you to consider why you think this would not happen in other cultures, or why they would not have similar attitudes towards body donation and donated bodies.
A specific example of a non-western attitude towards funeral practices (and oh boy is that a complex topic) would be memorial Japmala beads - a Nepalese tradition whereby Japmala (kinda like a rosary but for asian-originating religions) are made from bones donated to the temple by a (usually devout) person and are thence sold to raise funds. While done with consent, remains sourced from this practice are not infrequently sold for medical use on the condition that when the bodies are reduced to bones, they be returned to the temple. If some are removed, or missing (say, because they are a good example of some condition), or they were destroyed as part of their work, this isn’t objectionable - so long as the remains are treated with respect, it’s seen as benefiting the community as a whole.
This does not specifically translate in this case, but I’ve included it as an example of ethical sourcing of remains that really does not gel with traditional western views on the subject.
And two brief points:
It doesn’t take much imagination to draw the conclusion that the ethics surrounding the buying and selling of human skulls [...] ?
I can imagine a great many awful things, but that does not mean they are happening. This specific argument has really irritated me, in a way that I strongly suspect is unfair.
[...] than the momentary entertainment of of the global 1% [...]
Mythbusters began almost a quarter century ago, and has had an outsized impact on science literacy and education. I think it’s unfair to characterize this as mere passing entertainment for the global 1% (and additionally it totally ignores the US’ cultural hegemony). Although certainly not a traditional use of human remains, the fact that we are still having a discussion about the topic twenty years later as a result of the episode could easily be argued to be a sign of the great impact the show has had on culture in general and thus tautologically justifies its own existence.
Alright, hopefully that was less tiring to read than it was to write.
I agree with you in general but cannibalism is actually bad because prion disease. Not eating other people makes sense for simply health reasons.
I mean I still think if everyone involved consents it should be allowed, but there’s a good reason we don’t like it as a society.
That sure is the conventional wisdom, isn’t it?
In truth there’s only ever been one example of Prion disease transmission through cannibalism in humans - Kuru - a disease present in one incredibly tiny population (the Fore) in Paupa New Guinea, once. Incidentally, it was essentially only transmissible if you consumed the brain (or spine) of an infected person, which was the part reserved for young children / pregnant women. Stopping the practice of eating the brain would have effectively eliminated the disease, and conveniently the australian colonial government and local christian missionaries had recently outlawed funerary cannibalism. I’m sure that, by their reputation for extreme tolerance and cultural sensitivity, they would never exaggerate the dangers of cannibalism to back up their claims.
Anyways, no new cases of Kuru have occurred since the Fore stopped practicing funerary cannibalism (voluntarily, once someone stopped just beating them and took the time to explain what was happening) and the disease has essentially been eradicated. So, though it’s probably best not to eat another member of your species without checking to make sure they don’t have parasites (and hypothetically Creutzfeldt–Jakob’s disease. Although there’s never been a case of it being transmitted via cannibalism, that’s simply because it’s vanishingly extreme rarity means it’s likely never had a chance to happen), there’s no particular harm that’s going to happen because of it.
It’s almost like prion disease is rare. If you can get vCJD from eating meat of a cow that had BSE, you can very likely also get it from eating a human that had vCJD. Particularly given that it is proven to be transmissable via blood transfusion. And that cows can get BSE from eating other cows. BSE outbreaks are also pretty much the only instance in which we actually have enough data on cannibalism and the potential of disease spread.
The reason we don’t have many cases is that we don’t eat people and that the diseases that you’re likely to contract from doing so that don’t die from cooking are very rare. Add to that that even cultures that do consume human meat generally only do so to a very limited degree (and often from people that died violently rather than disease or old age), and of course not much has been recorded.
Since prions can occur spontaneously, it is very possible that a culture of frequently consuming human meat indiscriminately could even eventually lead to some new prion disease spreading which happens to transmit via meat consumption at an above average rate.
I think I said most of that already, I’m sorry I’m not quite sure what your point is. The risk of getting a prion disease is already extremely low, and even within that the majority of CJD infections are spontaneous. That’s sure the consensus in the literature, fwiw. An above average transmission rate would therefore be spectacularly unspectacular, given how few new cases would be needed to achieve that.
I don’t think it’s an “incredibly romantic” position to wonder if it’s disrespectful or scientifically necessary to wrap a human skull in pig skin and then punch it with a robotic fist until it collapses for television.
Nnnno, you can hold that position independent of your feelings towards death. I am curious why you think it’s unnecessary to do that, though. It’s (relatively) common to use human remains for destructive testing in all manner of experiments. Is the problem that they’re filming it instead of publishing the skull fracture patterns of knapped stone clubs in the journal of archeology? This really isn’t any worse than, say, seeing how long it takes for human remains to fully liquefy when sealed in plastic and subjected to various conditions (more importantly, the rate at which organs decay while submerged in that soup). Is it worse than melting regions of a body with acid to test a theoretical new skin-grafting technique? Flaying their skin and muscles from the bone then macerating it to a homogeneous mixture to test for microplastic distribution rates in the 35-40 Indonesian Female demographic? Anything that happens to remains on a body farm? Those are all real examples. Thinking what they did is somehow worse than what bodies normally go through, that’s the romantic view of death I was referring to.
Is the problem that they’re filming it instead of publishing the skull fracture patterns of knapped stone clubs in the journal of archeology?
The problem is that “what happens when a superhuman being with a ring on punches you in the forehead” isn’t exactly an important question to answer.
This really isn’t any worse than, say, seeing how long it takes for human remains to fully liquefy when sealed in plastic and subjected to various conditions (more importantly, the rate at which organs decay while submerged in that soup). Is it worse than melting regions of a body with acid to test a theoretical new skin-grafting technique? Flaying their skin and muscles from the bone then macerating it to a homogeneous mixture to test for microplastic distribution rates in the 35-40 Indonesian Female demographic?
Again, yes. As it is not for science, it is for entertainment. Adam and Jamie are not scientists, they are special effects artists. And they are not conducting experiments, they are staging entertainment. They are not in a lab, they are in a special effects warehouse. They are not publishing their findings to Nature, they are editing them for a television audience. Mythbusters is not hard science, it is science themed entertainment. Which is fine. But these skulls belonged to real people and there is a power dynamic involved in where they come from, and who buys them, and what they’re used for.
You can’t see the applicability in investigating the creation of surface indications of handheld objects on skin being subjected to various degrees of force, or demonstrating a method of investigating that question to the general television viewing public? Not even being slightly sarcastic or insincere here, I’m very curious what qualities qualify something as being ‘science’ to you. Not being in a lab excludes archaeology, and not publishing your findings to Nature excludes
methe unfathomably vast majority of scientists from counting as ‘scientists’.
Maybe, in the far future, I elected to have my skull sent back in time for that purpose.
Because I totally would.
Oh yeah, totally! When I die, if the mythbusters need my corpse to test a myth, they’re welcome to it! If I could, I’d choose the “cleaning the decaying corpse smell out of a car” myth; remembered forever as an unforgettable stench. Or one of the giant explosions, so I could rest in pieces.
Jamie personally sourced it. That’s all you need to know.
Do they say they’re actual human remains? They make realistic facsimiles specifically for testing things like they test.
They do. They even go to a specific shop in one of the episodes: The Bone Room.
The Bone Room was famous - within its niche - around the world. Featured on Mythbusters, as well as having several appearances on local news magazines, written up in articles in local and nationwide publications, and listed in guidebooks, The Bone Room was a destination for travelers and one of the must-see places for locals to bring their visiting friends and relatives.
“Meemaw, I’m so glad you came to see me! …wanna go see some human remains?”
I’m fine with that. I mean, bodies aren’t really people anymore. The people part flickers out to nothingness, leaving the meat husk.
I personally don’t give a fuck but yea others might not like it
I don’t see what’s disturbing about that. As long as the bodies come from a legal, reputable source, what’s the big deal?
This is the ritual to create a Tom Scott.
Portal the game, or Portal the TV series from TechTV?
Do you stan Leo or Patrick?
Patrick. Leo was waaaay too pompous.
I’ve spent the entire day wondering WTF portal variant is being referenced here. 😅
Or Portal the Australian death metal band?
