[AlotOfReading]

Holding artifacts for safe-keeping is a nice idea in theory, but in practice has been used as a way to justify retaining colonial-era thefts long after any reasonable concerns have subsided.

This has been cited for the Elgin marbles for example, and US museums for indigenous cultural artifacts, and even by the Germans in WW2 to justify keeping things like the Ishtar gate as they were being bombed.

[roflc0ptic]

That makes sense - I certainly see how “I’m doing this for your own good” opens up a bit of moral hazard.