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just visit jordan harbinger dot com

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slash start or take a look in your Spotify

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app to get started. Now everyone knows

1:18

that dying isn't fun, but now

1:21

it's even worse. Because if you're like

1:23

most Americans, you probably can

1:25

afford it. And today's skeptic comedian

1:27

David C. Molly is here to tell us why dying

1:29

is even harder and more expensive than

1:31

we previously thought. That's right, Jordan.

1:34

Thanks for having me. Yeah. Look, if you wanna

1:36

die, you better start saving some money first.

1:38

Right. mean, you thought health care was expensive.

1:41

Try not caring for your health at all. In addition to

1:43

inflation and all the other things that we

1:45

have to pay for these days. Now we gotta

1:47

figure death into our budgets. And

1:49

apparently, this has been an issue for a couple

1:52

hundred

1:52

years. Like, was thinking this was kind of a

1:54

recent thing. No, there's actually

1:56

a New York Times article from

1:58

eight eighteen fifty six. I

2:00

had a triple fact check this to make sure

2:02

that New York Times existed then?

2:05

They did. I believe it was founded in eighteen fifty

2:07

one. There's an article from eighteen fifty

2:09

six where they wrote, quote, nobody

2:12

that is not comfortably off in

2:14

this world's goods can afford to

2:16

die. And then in nineteen

2:19

fifty one, a collider article noted

2:21

that while the cost of living has

2:23

risen three hundred and forty seven

2:25

percent in the last one hundred twenty years,

2:28

the cost of dying has rocketed

2:30

to as much as ten thousand

2:32

percent. And this was nineteen fifty

2:34

one that they were riding this. Wow,

2:37

that is telling, because we've continued that

2:39

proud tradition of ripping people off when they die. So,

2:41

yeah, people have been too broke to die for a long time

2:43

now. Nicole, you know what? It's a miracle. Anybody even

2:45

bothers to do it

2:46

anymore. David? It's it's okay. The Internet

2:48

makes it easier to die. Oh, that that

2:50

too? But it also makes it easier

2:53

to afford a funeral. You can look things

2:55

up, which I guess is kind of the

2:57

same thing. Mhmm. So the website funerals

2:59

dot org lays out your rights, and I'm

3:01

just right off the top. I want people to know where they can

3:03

go for some of their public information. It

3:06

lays out your rights. It's how to arrange

3:08

these things and what you actually need

3:10

versus what some of these funeral homes

3:13

are going to tell you that you need.

3:15

For example, in forty one states,

3:17

families are allowed to take on this entire

3:19

process themselves, including filling

3:21

out and filing the death certificates. Burial

3:24

permits and all of that in addition to

3:27

the care and transportation of

3:30

the body itself. Now I'm not saying

3:32

you could just toss grandma on the back seat and

3:34

head to the cemetery. So look up

3:36

the laws in your

3:37

state, but you don't need to pay a thousand dollars

3:39

for a gold plane at Hearst. So just know

3:41

your options. I'm just imagining someone

3:44

showing up to the cemetery with like a, you

3:46

know, those hockey duffles or is that

3:48

a Michigan? If I gotta take a hockey bag and be like, hey,

3:50

somebody give me a hand with us. I

3:53

mean, there's probably legal in some

3:55

states. Who knows? Here's looking at

3:57

you, Texas. Yeah. Oh, of course.

4:00

So Wired has a a twenty twenty one

4:02

article titled How Big Funeral

4:04

made the After Life so expensive. Where

4:06

they wrote that, today, death

4:09

is a twenty billion dollar

4:11

industry. Wow. Okay.

4:13

That's a lot Can you compare that to something else so we

4:15

get an idea of scale? Because I think when it just sounds

4:17

like a big number, but what other industries are

4:19

around that size? So that

4:21

would be equivalent

4:23

to, say, the entire global

4:25

music industry for two thousand nine.

4:28

Oh, wow. That's enormous, massive.

4:30

And in its most corporate and

4:32

cynical forms, it's marked by

4:34

largely unchecked pricing, including

4:37

markups as high as five hundred

4:39

percent on caskets. According

4:42

to the National Funeral Directors Association,

4:45

the average funeral cost in twenty

4:47

twenty two is now over eleven

4:50

thousand dollars. Jordan, I

4:52

sent you a list of the funeral costs

4:55

breakdown showing line by line how

4:57

much things

4:57

are. Okay. I'm looking at it now. Three

4:59

hundred and fifty bucks for the hearse.

5:01

Yeah. How long is that ride? Like, when

5:04

I die, just put me in an Uber. That. It's

5:06

nine bucks. Get me down the

5:07

road. Think think about it. It's not very far typically.

5:09

Yeah. No. But Uber HRSE, like, oh,

5:11

my driver canceled again. The

5:13

driver's using way too many horse fresheners.

5:16

Like, dude, you need one 793. That's it.

5:18

He's blind fresheners. So

5:20

disgusted.

5:21

Yeah. Maybe maybe for a horse, you

5:23

actually need more than one tree. I'll give them Probably

5:25

couple trees. Maybe some under the seat, some of the

5:27

vanilla can thing, whatever that is. Those can't the

5:29

cans are the worst. I feel like those things are toxic.

5:31

That's actually that's probably another skeptical Sunday.

5:33

Like, what is in this car fresher and why is my

5:35

throat hurts so bad? Let's write that one

5:37

down for sure. So three hundred fifty bucks

5:40

is pretty expensive, but it's still

5:42

it's probably half the cost of an ambulance

5:44

or at least, you know, a small percentage of

5:46

the cost of an ambulance. Damn. That's deep.

5:50

So you know things are bad when it's cheaper to die than

5:52

get medical attention, and we still

5:54

can't afford either. Alright. The next

5:56

thing here is other preparation

5:58

of the

5:59

body. What is that?

6:00

Yeah. Are they giving it a pep talk? think

6:02

it's a What's a reiki massage, maybe.

6:06

Okay. At this look, I think the people who work

6:08

at funeral homes are about to lose their minds in our

6:10

ignorance right now for sure. Yeah. So let me

6:13

just like, you guys are just throwing handfuls of poop at this.

6:15

You're not the hell you're talking one star review incoming.

6:17

Right. Yeah. It's for sure. So let me actually

6:19

answer without comedy for a moment. I'll be serious.

6:22

Yes, they do actually massage the

6:24

body. But unlike Ricky,

6:26

it's functional. Okay. An article

6:29

in the Guardian shows an interview with

6:31

a mortician who says that the

6:33

body is vigorously massaged with

6:35

a soapy sponge to help facilitate

6:38

drainage

6:39

and distribution of embalming fluid.

6:42

There's

6:42

a gross joke in there. just not

6:43

gonna make it super inappropriate. Yeah. It's

6:45

something about vigorously massaging with

6:48

a soapy sponge to facilitate drainage.

6:50

But I mean, what what can I get that kind of attention

6:53

while I was alive? You know what I'm saying? Hey. Yeah.

6:55

You can. You just need it's like forty

6:57

bucks an hour, but you can. Actually, it's

6:59

much much more affordable than a

7:01

funeral. It's cheaper now. It's cheaper

7:03

to get that massage So there let this

7:05

be a lesson, kids. Get your fluids drained

7:08

now

7:09

so that your family saves money. It's couple of

7:11

places in San Francisco that'll do it

7:12

on the cheap. Okay. What I'm mostly

7:14

concerned about here honestly is the is the lack

7:17

of regulation and the ridiculous

7:19

markups in the entire process. So The

7:21

rising cost of funerals actually

7:23

leads to about eighty eight thousand bodies

7:26

going unclaimed every year

7:29

so that family members won't be on the

7:31

hook for paying a

7:31

bill. That is awful. That's both

7:34

sad and kind of gross because the

7:36

pain involved in all seriousness

7:39

of not being able to handle a deceased family

7:41

member, but also do you have to just pretend

7:43

like you don't know I I don't know how this

7:45

guy all of his personal belongings got into

7:47

this upstairs bedroom. Sorry, folks.

7:49

Like, I don't know what you even do with that. It's

7:52

tragic and also makes no sense

7:54

somehow. And people can't really say proper

7:56

goodbye sometimes because they just can't

7:58

afford it, so they have to have kind of a separate service

8:00

or whatever. But, yeah, when the authority show

8:02

up, you have to be like, I don't know I don't know who that

8:05

is because you'll be on the hook for paying those bills.

8:07

It's disturbing. That that wired that wired

8:09

article shines a light on SCI.

8:12

It's a company called Service Corporation

8:14

International, which is the most

8:16

generic sounding

8:17

name. That's so ambiguous. Yeah.

8:19

It's like the bad guy corporation in every Batman

8:22

movie, like, oh, he works for Service Corporation

8:24

International. It reminds me of McGyver

8:26

from the eighties and nineties. Do you ever watch McGyver?

8:28

Of course, you did. Right? A little bit. Yeah.

8:31

They said they worked for the Phoenix Corporation, but

8:33

you never had any idea what the hell they did. And

8:35

and they were always like, yeah, we solved problems. And

8:37

it's are you talking about? You saw a prop pet doesn't mean

8:39

anything. That's what service corporation international

8:42

sounds like. It's a corporation that does services

8:44

internationally. Yeah. It was a it's a lazy

8:46

writer. In the in the writer's room.

8:48

But in this case, it's a real company. SCI

8:51

is the largest funeral services provider

8:53

in North America. They've got over fifth eighteen

8:56

hundred funeral homes and over

8:58

five hundred cemeteries in its portfolio,

9:00

accounting for about sixteen percent of

9:02

the overall market share. And instead

9:04

of lowering their prices as it scaled

9:07

like something like a Walmart or a big box

9:09

retailer would do. They could get the prices down.

9:11

SCI has done the opposite. They average

9:13

forty seven to seventy

9:16

two percent higher prices

9:18

than their

9:18

competitors, according to a twenty seventeen

9:20

report co authored by the funeral consumers

9:23

alliance. So they can get away with this because

9:25

they're all over the place and grieving

9:27

people are probably too stressed,

9:30

too emotionally trained to shop around to

9:32

compare and negotiate, especially if they don't

9:34

know they're already getting ripped off.

9:36

Exactly. So sixteen percent is pretty

9:38

powerful. It may not sound like a big number. But to put

9:41

it in perspective, sixteen percent is about

9:43

the same as Home Depot's market

9:45

share in the home improvement industry. Oh, wow. Because that's

9:47

kind of name another hardware store.

9:49

It's kind of a tricky. Right. You you

9:51

may go Lowe's Home Depot and then start

9:53

thinking of Ace Hardware in smaller

9:56

places that are local to you, but you can't really think

9:58

of something bigger than Home Depot.

10:00

Maybe an equivalent would be Lowe's, but that's

10:02

how massive these guys are in the funeral industry.

10:04

And yeah, you're right. They just keep jacking up the prices.

10:06

There's nothing anybody can really do about it. And

10:08

the only people who don't seem to mind is

10:10

their investors whose stock rose

10:13

one hundred and fifty one percent

10:15

over five years. Wow.

10:17

They can just change their terms and they can

10:19

add fees whenever they want. There are even

10:21

stories of them adding fees for

10:23

a person to use a plot

10:25

that they already purchased based on

10:27

a policy change or some other ambiguous

10:30

excuse. Meaning, like, someone could come in and,

10:32

like, buy a plot for, say, what, fifteen hundred,

10:34

two thousand, whatever the price is. So you've

10:36

got the plot paid for, and then you

10:38

don't die for seventeen years or whatever.

10:41

And then in the meantime, they've added certain

10:43

fees and other things

10:46

to, you know, an additional landscaping

10:49

maintenance or whatever fees to every

10:51

plot. And then you show up to use your

10:53

spot and they go, oh, well, now there's additional

10:55

fees because of our policy

10:56

change. We've already bought the plot. What are you gonna do

10:58

about it? And it may cost you several hundred

11:00

dollars to use a plot you've already

11:02

purchased. That's so upsetting

11:05

to hear this happens, especially

11:07

because, of course, a lot of the people involved in

11:09

this are old, like, grieving widows. I'm just imagining

11:11

my wife. Age eighty or

11:13

ninety or older hopefully. Right? And I'm I

11:16

have croaked. And she's like, I have to come

11:18

up with this money and or like, hey,

11:20

calling my kids to get money together. It's just

11:22

kind of despicable. So the solution to that

11:24

kind of thing is if you haven't already bought your

11:26

plot just moved to a different funeral home or

11:28

cemetery. Right? I mean, even if you have

11:31

bought the plot, you you can you can move. Okay.

11:33

But you get a refund, you

11:34

can change. And, yeah, that's the best.

11:36

It's also costly to do that, but still

11:39

most funeral rights advocates and there

11:41

are such things, there are entire groups who do

11:43

this. They say to do just that that

11:45

if a company screwing you around just move

11:47

to another cemetery. And if you

11:49

think you're avoiding SCI

11:52

big corporate generic giant

11:54

because you're going to say a new place

11:56

with a small family sounding name.

11:58

SCI is already onto you. They often

12:00

buy these places up and then they keep

12:03

the original name. So yeah. No one

12:05

even knows it unless you like do a record search

12:07

or something to find out who owns that actual business

12:09

or

12:09

property. You know what's more affordable than

12:11

dying? Purchasing one of the fine products and

12:13

services that support this show. We'll be

12:15

right back. This

12:19

episode is sponsored in part by Peloton.

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13:40

Now back to skeptical Sunday. I

13:44

you know, I wondered about that because I grew up

13:46

in Michigan. There's a funeral home.

13:48

And that place has had the same name for a while.

13:51

Remember thinking, wow, it must have been

13:53

that person's grandfather who's

13:55

running it right now. And my mom's like, yeah,

13:57

I remember going to funerals there when I was

13:59

young, And I'm thinking, okay, that's quite

14:02

a family business. But now I realize

14:04

it could have gotten bought in nineteen eighty two by

14:06

SCI, and they're just like, no. We're still gonna call

14:08

it A. J. Desmond and Sons because it's sounds

14:10

like a homie, folksy place where you'd wanna

14:12

have your relative taken care of.

14:14

Yep. Exactly. Yep. So you think

14:16

you're going to one of those places and and and it's

14:18

just it turns out to be some giant corporate providers.

14:20

Right. Okay. So at what point does profit

14:22

become actual price gouging?

14:24

Because five hundred percent markup on caskets,

14:26

etcetera, You think there'd be laws

14:28

preventing things like this, especially on

14:31

a sensitive topic like death. Like, if you

14:33

wanna charge too much, for

14:35

playstations. Okay. I

14:37

get it hashtag capitalism. But with death

14:40

and hand sanitizer and a pandemic, you

14:42

know, people get pissed off about this kind of

14:43

stuff. Yeah. And they're obviously vulnerable like you

14:45

were saying, and and it's like praying upon people

14:48

that are vulnerable. That's kinda why

14:50

price gouging laws exist. Right? So

14:52

if there's some sort of war or there's some sort

14:54

of problem and everybody needs cotton,

14:57

you know, if raw suddenly starts

14:59

selling t shirts for three thousand dollars

15:01

apiece, That's obviously price gouging

15:03

because people are vulnerable. So you would

15:05

think that there would be like a blanket constant

15:07

state of emergency over the death industry. And

15:10

it's just not. And this is a recurring

15:12

theme across these skeptical

15:14

Sunday episodes because we always get to the

15:16

root of the problem. It's almost always corporate

15:18

greed. Right? And then we wanna

15:20

say, aren't there laws regulating it? There should

15:22

be some laws capping this, and I agree.

15:24

But in fact, just about the opposite is true.

15:27

So In most cases, if you

15:29

are an investor, you invest into

15:31

a business and then that business makes

15:33

you a hundred million dollars this

15:35

year You have every right in the world to

15:38

audit that business and say,

15:40

did you do everything to maximize profits?

15:42

Could my one hundred million have been

15:44

two hundred million? And if your

15:46

auditor can improve that they didn't do everything

15:48

to maximize profit, you can sue

15:51

them for the difference of what you think they could have

15:53

made you. And so there's this fine

15:55

line. And and and they have to walk

15:57

this line between profiteering

16:00

or making a a regular profit. And

16:02

then straight up price gouging because

16:05

they may get sued by their shareholder if they

16:07

don't squeeze every single drop out of

16:09

everything. So Yeah. They're definitely encouraged

16:11

to walk that line. And in fact, part of

16:13

it, another state law issue with this,

16:16

is two thirds of our states have

16:18

ready to bomb laws that

16:20

force funeral homes to have

16:22

an embalming room even when they don't offer

16:25

that

16:25

service. Or when families don't make

16:27

that request. Even though right now half of

16:29

Americans choose to cremate and

16:31

embalming is not necessary for

16:34

a cremation. That I don't fully

16:36

understand. Okay. Let me back up. I get

16:38

that they need to make money for shareholders. I used

16:40

to work in finance. I'm very familiar with that. Those

16:42

shareholder suits they're tricky, but

16:44

people wanna make money for their shareholders and for their

16:46

company. I get that. But is embalming necessary

16:48

at all? I know that it slows decomposition, but

16:51

Isn't the idea here that I am inevitably

16:54

going to

16:55

decompose? Why drag that out? I'm

16:57

already dead anyway. I think there's a lot to

16:59

do with people just not being wanna wrap their heads

17:01

around decomposing. Like, I wanna be gone as

17:03

soon as possible. I wanna create more of

17:05

a footprint than I already have. But to answer

17:07

your question, no. Bombing is

17:09

not usually necessary. Even

17:11

though the states have ready to embalm

17:13

laws, there's no federal law mandating embalming

17:16

in any situation. And the concept of

17:18

embalming actually is based on old

17:20

ideas that we haven't even updated just

17:22

like a lot of these topics go there. You know, it's

17:24

like, Yeah. It was from eighteen ninety

17:27

or something, and we didn't we haven't corrected

17:29

the rules on

17:29

it. So embalming became popular in the United

17:32

States during the civil war

17:33

when you know, we weren't all that united

17:36

as opposed to now where we're totally on the

17:38

same page. Right? Right. Yeah. Anyway, it

17:40

it was primarily used because Like soldiers

17:42

were dying so far from home and so it made

17:44

sense. Right? Body were decomposing before

17:46

they had a proper burial with family

17:49

in attendance. So embalming made sense.

17:52

Then, I came across this wonderful

17:54

video called The Twisted Business

17:56

of Death. Explaining these things in

17:58

detail from from a YouTuber named illume

18:01

and naughty.

18:03

Yeah. That sounds like a strip club. Yeah.

18:05

Like think. Like naughty. Not naughty,

18:07

but like not like naughty. Welcome

18:09

a little bit naughty to those deeds. That

18:11

that kind of naughty. Exactly. So

18:14

she's fantastic. And she talked about in

18:16

this video how, like nowadays, as Callis

18:18

as it sounds, Refrigerators are

18:20

perfectly sufficient for the small amount of

18:22

time it takes for, you know, between

18:24

death and burial. In the vast majority

18:26

of situations, And most funeral

18:28

homes have a policy, though, that they

18:30

will not allow a viewing unless

18:33

you embalm. And they say that it's

18:35

for the safety of everyone in the room.

18:37

So now it again, they're using this like

18:39

this scare tactic. Right? Like -- Sure. -- well, there's

18:41

a decomposing body. Even if you have the

18:44

viewing three or four days after

18:46

the person's death. There's probably not gonna

18:48

be a whole lot of noticeable differences, but

18:51

this idea that it's a

18:53

now a dead body that could be a safety

18:55

hazard. Right? So you're kind of scared into

18:57

it and it just makes sense. Dead people get embalmed.

18:59

We've kind of been trained to know that. But

19:02

there's a woman named Caitlin Dowdy. She's

19:04

a mortician. She's an author. She's got

19:06

really great content out there. She's also got her own

19:08

YouTube channel. And she says on her channel

19:10

that living bodies are far more

19:13

dangerous than dead ones. That makes sense.

19:15

And that viruses can only live in a

19:17

corpse for a few hours at most.

19:19

And dead bodies can't cough or sneeze

19:22

to spread viruses anyway. And Illuminati

19:24

explains that when we think of a mortician

19:26

in bombing a body, we imagine masks

19:28

and suits and gloves but that's

19:30

not to keep them safe from that

19:33

dead body. It's to keep them safe from

19:35

the embalming fluids. They are

19:37

highly toxic and it drastically

19:39

increases their risk of rare

19:41

cancers. And of course, the funeral homes then

19:43

pass that expense onto the consumer

19:46

even though it's completely unnecessary for

19:48

most

19:48

people.

19:49

Jordan to the tune of twenty six

19:51

million dollars per year just

19:53

in that -- Just in fluids. So

19:55

in addition to price gouging when they have the opportunity,

19:58

these companies are also essentially victims of

20:00

bad legislation. So that costs them

20:02

money. And then they pass that loss

20:04

onto

20:04

us, which is understandable. Yeah.

20:06

Right. Exactly. It reminds me of like the day care

20:08

industry, which we totally need to

20:10

ruin on a future. Skeptical Sunday episode.

20:13

I'm familiar with that. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

20:15

I mean, I remember long and my

20:17

daughter's eighteen now. And I remember

20:19

paying nearly a thousand dollars a month for

20:21

her as an infant. I mean, it's just insane

20:24

how much it costs. And because know,

20:26

the government mandates a certain number of day

20:28

care employees for the number of kids enrolled,

20:31

not attending. Mhmm. And that's why the day cares

20:34

charge you even when your kid doesn't show

20:35

up. I didn't realize that's why they did that. That's

20:37

interesting. I I figured it was I

20:39

I thought that was a pandemic thing because they're like, oh,

20:41

people keep their kids

20:42

home. not gonna get paid. We're gonna go out of business.

20:45

I didn't realize it was because of legislation.

20:47

Yeah. So they have to hire the people. If they have

20:49

eighty kids enrolled, there's some caregiver

20:52

to child ratio -- Sure. -- and

20:54

if five or six kids don't show up

20:56

that day. They still have to employ that person

20:58

in case the kid shows

20:59

up, so they pass that that cost onto

21:01

you. It's like being on monthly membership

21:04

program with a fast food place and the owner's

21:06

like, well, someone's gotta be there in case you

21:08

get

21:08

hungry, and we're not gonna pay their salary. Exactly.

21:10

Exactly. Exactly. You're gonna have to do that anyway.

21:13

Right. Yeah. We have to pay it, so you have to pay it.

21:15

It just everything just rolls downhill to

21:17

the consumer. Right. Okay. And by the way, this

21:19

is not just the services here. The casket

21:21

makers are probably the worst,

21:24

if not among the worst offenders in this

21:26

entire situation. Two companies, Batesville

21:29

and Matthews, dominate the

21:31

casket market. They make up more

21:34

than eight out of every ten caskets

21:36

sold in the United

21:37

States. They technically control eighty

21:40

two percent of the casket mark.

21:42

Oh, wow. That's a near monopoly. So if they can just

21:44

mark up whatever they want at this point, it almost doesn't

21:46

matter. And that's why you're seeing

21:48

three hundred percent, five hundred percent markups

21:51

on caskets. Oh, man. That's unbelievable. And

21:53

since most cemeteries are privately owned,

21:56

Even if you see them as public, they can set their

21:58

own policies. Like, they can require

22:00

concrete vaults around the casket because

22:02

it makes for easier lawn maintenance. But

22:05

then they charge you for the concrete and sometimes

22:07

even lie and tell you it's required by

22:09

law. It's not. There is no federal

22:11

or state mandate on vaults. But

22:13

almost every cemetery has it as

22:15

their policy. And since you have to

22:17

do it, the prices can be ridiculous, and

22:19

they also vary widely. Range from

22:21

anywhere from seven hundred dollars up to thirteen

22:24

thousand dollars for essentially the same

22:26

type of concrete vault that they tell you you

22:28

have to

22:28

have. Here's concrete vault. don't really

22:30

understand. So is this over the top

22:32

of the plot so the lawn doesn't sink down as

22:34

you decompose? Is that what that is? So

22:37

the vault is fully

22:38

enclosed. It's like a concrete box.

22:41

Right? So it goes into the ground before we ever

22:43

been to a funeral and you see them sort of lowering

22:45

the casket down. They're lowering it into a concrete

22:47

vault in most cases. So it's got an entire

22:50

it's like a box with a removable lid.

22:52

They keep the lid off to the side, they lower

22:54

the concrete vault into the ground, then they

22:56

put the casket inside the

22:58

vault, and then they put the concrete lid

23:00

on top of the vault. You're

23:04

listening to Skeptical Sunday on the Jordan

23:06

Harbinger Show. We'll be right back. This

23:08

episode is sponsored in part by Peloton.

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creating these episodes week after week now

26:24

for the rest of skeptical Sunday. I

26:28

can see why that would be easier than to cut the

26:30

wire. But it's also even more unnecessary

26:32

than putting my fully dressed, fully embalmed

26:35

body into a nice weather proof

26:37

wooden box, and then they're putting me in

26:39

cement. It's like, I wasn't that durable when

26:41

I was alive.

26:43

Good boy.

26:44

Not even close. Yeah. It fully dressed makeup,

26:46

embalmed. And by the way, they make sure

26:48

the inside of the casket is lined

26:50

with, like, some kind of velvet like Sure. You can

26:52

be comfortable.

26:53

Yeah. That's gonna last way longer than

26:55

my actual life. That makes sense.

26:57

Yeah. It makes no sense. And and there have

26:59

been, by the way, I didn't bring up these individual

27:01

stories because I don't wanna authority one of the boss

27:03

or create lawsuits for you. But there have been

27:06

instances of funeral homes Digging

27:08

these things up, taking these expensive

27:10

caskets out of the ground and reselling them. Oh,

27:13

that's horrifying. Well,

27:16

when the dirt's still fresh, they can get away with

27:18

it. So a lot of this doesn't even make sense

27:20

to even give it a shot, you know.

27:22

Yikes. So to answer your

27:24

question, yes, it does it does help with the

27:26

with the landscaping. I mean, that's crime.

27:28

And we're gonna get emails from people who run funeral

27:30

homes who are like, we don't do this. It's not

27:32

all funeral homes and we know that. Right?

27:34

We're sort of acknowledging that. It's just

27:36

some of these giant corporate entities

27:38

are doing

27:39

this. And also, of course, the criminals that

27:41

are digging up freshly buried people,

27:43

dumping the body out, and reusing the casket.

27:46

That's some real though despicable

27:49

ish. It's just yet another

27:51

reason to avoid pouring

27:53

money into something that's just for

27:55

your own piece of

27:57

mind. Right. You're It doesn't mean anything. There's no

27:59

reason to do that. Jeez.

28:00

Yeah. So there's gotta be some laws regarding

28:03

all these kinds of things. So

28:05

so as far as laws, they're none mandating

28:07

the vaults. Right. Okay. But there are laws

28:09

mandating pricing transparency. Thankfully.

28:12

And yes, they are constantly being

28:14

violated. Surprise. Surprise. Alright. So

28:17

funeral homes and cemeteries are consistently

28:19

found to not have the proper documentation. They

28:22

don't put out their public pricing list like

28:24

they're mandated and all sorts of things

28:26

required by law. But what are you gonna do about it? Tell people

28:28

not to die. So yeah, you

28:30

can negotiate, you can question the pricing,

28:33

you could demand a full price list, they have

28:35

to give it to you and you could go to

28:37

as far as price shopping and all of

28:39

this, but you're grieving, you're you're under this whole situation.

28:42

And you could always go with cremation.

28:44

Yeah. I've I've I've heard that's

28:46

on fire right now. Oh, okay.

28:50

Alright. Okay.

28:52

Anyway, I'm out of my own jail. Hang on, but

28:54

not not right now. I'll start our slime. mean,

28:56

there's a there's a group of people that are

28:57

dying when they hear that. Oh my god.

29:00

Okay. Bad. Continue. Okay.

29:02

So there's even a problem with

29:04

the cremation thing. So according

29:06

to now this earth, and I'm gonna quote

29:09

here, four point three million gallons

29:11

of embalming fluid are used in the United States

29:13

each year. When someone is buried

29:15

after being embalmed, some of these harsh

29:17

chemicals can get into the ground

29:20

and potentially get into your drinking

29:23

water. Can we just talk about how disgusting it

29:25

is for a moment that you could be drinking water?

29:27

Yes.

29:28

A super gross man with embalming

29:31

fluid that came from a dead body.

29:33

Ugh. So maybe that concrete vault

29:35

is a good

29:36

maybe they can't align it with plastic and rubber

29:38

now that I think about it. Oh, it's so

29:40

So the waterproof And the one

29:42

point four million cremations recorded

29:45

in two thousand seventeen created C02

29:47

emissions equaling fifty two thousand

29:50

cars on the road. Oh my gosh.

29:52

That is look, it's hard to do things at scale

29:55

because it sounds like a ton, but then you're like, oh, but it's

29:57

all of America. But then again, it's still

29:59

so many cars. On the road every

30:01

day. Right. So I've heard of green burials.

30:03

Actually, I don't know anything about them, but is that

30:05

where we're headed with this?

30:06

Yeah. That's

30:07

exactly where I'm going. I always try to take

30:09

this to something positive, right, as we

30:11

wrap up. I wanna offer some solutions. I

30:13

wanna say, what should we be doing? don't wanna

30:15

just come on here and complain. I I wanna offer some

30:17

sort of solution. And We're at a tipping

30:20

point right now. This is and I'm not just using

30:22

scare tactics here. We are at a moment

30:24

where our society is just really needs

30:26

to decide who we want to be. So

30:29

in twenty nineteen, experts were

30:31

expecting cremation to be at seventy

30:33

percent by twenty twenty

30:34

five. So we're very close but

30:37

while also noting that fifty

30:39

four percent of people are currently

30:41

considering a green burial.

30:44

Okay. So it sounds like we kinda go

30:46

either way at this point. With that sentiment, it just

30:48

comes down to public

30:50

knowledge knowing what a green burial is or

30:52

that exists, willingness to face this head

30:54

on. Exactly. Yeah.

30:55

And it's an uncomfortable topic to deal with, but

30:57

it is

30:58

so important. Okay. So

31:00

what is a green burial then exactly? Okay.

31:03

So now this Earth interviewed AAA

31:05

green cemetery owner, his name is Ed Biggsby.

31:07

And he said that a green burial

31:10

is no embalming fluids, no

31:12

concrete vaults, only biodegradable

31:15

burial containers, hand

31:17

dug grades, and no polished

31:19

monuments. Basically, like a serial

31:22

killer would be

31:22

cat. Right? Just get rid of all the evidence

31:24

quickly. The old Dexter dumped me off

31:26

in the ocean except no plastic bags and no

31:29

duct tape. There you go. Yeah. That's enough.

31:31

Fair enough. Who's doing the hand digging?

31:33

That seems like a really that's a lot

31:35

of work. So that's part

31:37

of the

31:37

joy. The Jordan, if you won, your

31:40

family can take art in the process

31:42

-- Oh. -- and burying you. Now,

31:44

I don't know that I'd wanna take part. I guess it would depend

31:46

on who it was, how close I was to

31:48

them, and whether or not I was happy about their

31:50

disappearance. But the

31:53

options there, if people are wanna be connected

31:55

to the earth, they wanna be a part of saying goodbye to their loved

31:57

one in a loving way, not in a smart ass

31:59

terrible way, like I just worded it. You

32:01

can actually take part in that. And if you don't want

32:03

to, the cemetery will will do

32:05

the the digging for

32:06

you. So okay. Then the body just decomposes

32:08

back into the earth kind of as as

32:11

was intended --

32:12

Yeah. -- before we came up with all this nonsense of

32:14

concrete vault and fluids and everything.

32:16

Absolutely. So the biodegradable

32:18

container is a very small box. And

32:20

it basically just disintegrates within

32:23

the earth within about three to six months,

32:25

something like that. And then so does your body and

32:27

usually within about twelve months, there's no evidence

32:29

of any burial at all, just like

32:31

all the animals throughout all of history

32:34

who have ever died in every forest

32:36

ever. You're now just part

32:38

of the Earth, and that's exactly what nature

32:40

intended. Neil Degrasse Tyson, who

32:42

I'm honored to have had on my podcast twice

32:45

was questioned by a religious activist

32:47

at an event way back in twenty fourteen.

32:50

This guy gets up and he tells a story about a guy

32:52

that's about to be executed. And he's like, upon execution,

32:55

the religious believer has peace

32:57

at death because his source is

32:59

god. What will you have as a skeptic? And

33:01

he's like, you have nothing. You have nothing

33:03

to keep you at peace. And Neil's answer

33:05

is one of the most beautiful things

33:08

I've heard on Death and I have

33:10

the audio here to play. Alright. Well,

33:13

I I don't know if I fully understand the

33:15

question. I do know that

33:17

if he's about to be executed, How

33:19

about you are about to be executed? I'm

33:21

about to be executed. You have

33:23

nothing except your knowledge and

33:26

your your knowledge of science, your

33:28

experience. I would request that

33:31

my body in-depth be

33:34

buried, not cremated. So

33:37

that the energy content contained

33:39

within it gets returned to the earth

33:42

so that flora and fauna can dine upon

33:44

it just as I have dined upon

33:46

floor and foreigner throughout my life.

33:49

I think that is just absolutely beautiful.

33:51

So Even if you do hold a specific

33:54

religious belief, it's hard to deny that being a

33:56

wonderful way to go that's certainly better

33:58

for the environment than any Chemical related

34:00

process humans have

34:01

created.

34:02

Yeah. I love that. So above all, know

34:04

your rights, negotiate shop around,

34:06

have a green burial, Yeah. Or just donate

34:09

your body to science and tell everyone together

34:11

at the most fun house, have some drinks

34:13

and talk shit about you behind your back just like

34:15

they did the whole time you were a

34:17

lot. Right. Exactly. What about mummification?

34:20

I've seen too many movies and that never ends well.

34:23

So, well, that's a good point.

34:25

Yeah. You got me on that one. I didn't think anybody

34:27

could make death and funerals any worse, but

34:29

somehow, David, you have managed. Sweet.

34:33

Thanks. Alright.

34:37

You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan

34:39

harbinger show with one of the most recognizable

34:41

names in journalism. My great great

34:43

great grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt

34:46

who made two fortunes, one

34:48

based on steam ships, one on

34:50

railroads, you know, he died with a hundred million

34:52

dollars, which in eighteen seventy seven

34:55

meant that he controlled one out of every

34:57

twenty dollars in circulation. Nobody

34:59

could believe it. My mom was going around a

35:01

real time. She inherited couple of million dollars

35:03

in nineteen forty one. My mom

35:05

drank and my brother ended up jumping

35:08

off her balcony in front of my mom when he was twenty

35:10

three and I was twenty one. The next day,

35:13

my mom and I went to the funeral home to view his

35:15

body and there were reporters waiting outside

35:17

the funeral home to get video of us going

35:19

in. And I remember in that

35:21

moment sort of hating the

35:23

camera people who were doing that I do know

35:25

what it's like to be on the other end of the

35:27

lens, and I don't want to make somebody else feel like

35:29

this. I couldn't get a job at ABC

35:31

or CBS. I thought my

35:33

very nascent career in broadcasting

35:35

was never gonna get started. I the director

35:37

kindly made me a laminated press

35:40

card, which was totally made

35:42

up. And I borrowed one of their cameras, a

35:44

small little camera ended up

35:46

just spending the next two or three years going to

35:48

war zones and just investors. You

35:51

never know exactly how people are gonna

35:53

react to something. You know, we all think, oh,

35:55

well, you know, if I was there, this is

35:57

what I would do. You can intellectually

35:59

you think you know who you are, but I'm

36:01

telling you when the lights go out and there's

36:03

no air condition and it's really freaking

36:06

hot and you don't have food and

36:08

there's crazy stuff going on around you.

36:10

You've become a different person very, very

36:13

quickly. Sometimes you become the person

36:15

that you never thought you'd be. You become a

36:17

superhero and you risk your own life to help

36:19

other people. Some of the people who thought they

36:21

would be the heroes end up punching women

36:23

in the face in order to scale a wall to get

36:26

to safety. You

36:28

don't know who you are until everything

36:31

is at jeopardy. To hear more from

36:33

Anderson Cooper about traveling through war

36:35

zones and how we got his start and broadcast

36:38

journalism without relying on family connections,

36:40

check out episode five eighty four of

36:42

the Jordan harbinger show. Thank

36:45

you once again for listening. All suggestions for

36:48

skeptical so they are always welcome. Just email

36:50

me jordan at jordan harbinger dot com.

36:52

Give me your thoughts there, your ideas, If we're

36:54

way off on something, definitely let us know that too.

36:56

A link to the show notes for the episode is at jordan

36:58

harbinger dot com. Transcripts are in the show

37:00

notes You can find David Smolley at david

37:03

c Smolley on all social media platforms

37:05

at david c Smolley dot com or better yet

37:07

on his podcast the David c Smolley

37:09

show. Links to all that are in the show notes

37:11

as well. The show has created an association

37:14

with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger,

37:16

Chase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird,

37:18

Emilio Campo, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel

37:20

Misrahi. Our advice and opinions

37:22

are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer.

37:25

Sedir your own research before implementing anything

37:27

you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by

37:29

lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if

37:31

you found the episode useful, hey, please share it with

37:33

somebody else who needs to hear it. Somebody who died recently,

37:36

they could use this information. In the meantime,

37:38

do your best to apply what you hear on the show so

37:40

you can live what you listen, well, or or not

37:42

live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. Special

37:46

thanks to Peloton for sponsoring this episode

37:48

of the Jordan Harbinger show.