[melted]

Some of their speakers are just talking out of their ass. There was a woman on TED Radio Hour a few weeks back who was going on and on about how it's so bad that we bury the bodies when people die, and we should instead dress our dead in some mushroom spore infused garbs she's trying to sell. Having a brain of my own, I was like "Lady, do you realize that each of these bodies has produced an enormous mountain of waste in their lifetime? Several tons of shit alone, not to mention garbage, CO2, etc etc". Add to that the fact that those "pollution eating mushrooms" can't really do anything ordinary soil can't do. They can't convert heavy metals to unicorn tears, sorry folks. The stuff dead bodies will release when they decompose matters not one iota. And yet someone in TED approved her participation, and people paid $8K to see this inane drivel. WTF?

Update: here's the talk https://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee?language=en

[patcon]

I was going to respectfully disagree, assuming this speaker was instead referring to larger things about changing the culture of death. But then I actually skimmed the video, and she really is just saying that we shouldn't bury because our bodies house natural toxins. It's pretty silly. I would say that the organizers recognize her getting the stage was a mistake... :)

[wpietri]

What's your evidence that a person's decomposing body is particularly more toxic to the environment than, say, their bodily effluents?

Going for natural decomposition doesn't seem much worse to me than cremation and ash-scattering, and it seems way better than pickling them and burying them in a coffin.