People should look again at how we Muslims bury. Not only is it much "green" but also cheap and doesn't waste land forever. There is wisdom in simplicity.
Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
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Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#52In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.
Same thing with engagement rings, it's just a stupid fake tradition created by DeBoers in the 1950s that costs an inordinate amount of money for nothing. I really hope that lab grown diamonds puts that entire industry out of business.
Lab corundum is where it's at. Almost as hard as diamond (Mohs 9), but much less prone to cracking than diamond. It's available in tons of colors (most famous are blue and red -- sapphires and rubies). Lab-grown is so much better than natural that the way they identify natural is by looking for imperfections that lab versions don't have.
Oh, and diamonds burn while aluminum oxide does not.
There's no need to go broke when you can buy a superior product for less money.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#53Basically my whole family have signed our bodies over to the local medical school. They make all the arrangements and pay for everything as soon as they're notified upon death. They'll normally give you the ashes upon cremation after a year or so, but personally I've given them permission to completely skeletonize me and keep the skeleton indefinitely. This helps society by helping student doctors learn, and it remov…
This is what both my parents and myself did. When my mum was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma, it was one less thing to worry about arranging and trying to find money for. She went from diagnosis to death in two months so things were a bit disorienting and just getting a RESPECT form (aka DNR) completed was such a struggle as everyone I spoke to had no record of my previous conversation with the last person I spoke to…
I'll just mention that when my mom was starting to deteriorate, my dad hired a healthcare advocate and set up legal authorities such that if he was incapacitated when mom needed medical decisions in hospice, or logistical details about funeral arrangements, the advocate could represent what mom and dad had discussed prior as their wishes.
Then, a year or so after my mom passed it became clear dad was heading that way, and he set up the same arrangements with the same advocate.
It was a great decision. The advocate shielded the family from a lot of unpleasant details, allowing us to focus on spending as much quality time with dad in his final weeks. In particular it was a huge benefit for my aunt, who's the oldest surviving part of that branch of our family, was very close to my father, and struggled through severe emotional turmoil in the situation. Without that advocate and dad's prior wishes being made very clear, she would have felt duty bound to try to run his cremation and remembrance personally in a way that would have been even more horrific for her.
So for anyone who is facing these situations on the horizon, I strongly suggest looking into something like this. Having a 3rd party that isn't the hospice staff, and that isn't a relative in emotional duress, was fantastic. The advocate dad chose previously was managing director of a care home, and switched to doing advocate work as a sort of soft retirement. So she knew in detail how all of that world works and was excellent at getting stuff done for dad.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#54This article seems to establish that kinship leads to the failure of wage growth and ultimately wealth, people will hide their wages because people will ask for money. This seems like the issue rather is is that wealth accumulation in sub-saharan africa is limited to a small subset of population, I don't think this wealth tax by family members exists when you have a larger group of individuals making more money. You…
The difference is that it's pretty acceptable for you to reject family requests for money, it doesn't make you a pariah and being a pariah doesn't carry the same consequences when non-family institutions govern society.
The article spends a lot of time belaboring this point: you don't have to do what your family asks you to do in developed countries. On the other hand, becoming outcast from your family in a kinship-dominated society means you have nowhere else to turn to which is enormous pressure.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#55In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.
You can always find disaster stories about couples who wipe out their savings and put themselves in a precarious financial situation for a wedding they can’t afford, but it’s actually super common. Traditional weddings costs are paid in part or full by the parents. Many well off young people pay their own way. If neither is an option it’s also common to have a smaller or home-grown wedding. If you know enough people…
It's still very irrational no matter who pays. The article is looking at a society-wide wealth here isn't it?
I mean a party? Thousands and thousands of dollars for just one day?
I did the irrational thing, paid a lot for my wedding and it was really special. My family is much closer to her family because of it. From me and my wife's rational self-interested perspective, it makes no sense: we would be in a better position financially had we not splurged a little for the wedding. Our house could be bigger. We could have more optimally allocated our capital.
However, the family bonds being strong outweighs all of that. When we zoom out a little bit and look at our extended family and friend group, it all makes sense. These are the people who will help raise our kids, take care of us when we are down on our luck, etc. The 50 people who attended can, because of our big expensive wedding, put faces to each others' names. It was a fun party for us, but it actually served a very important purpose. This value will not be registered in the GDP number.
I'm poking fun at the article. That first of all, we (the enlightened, modern, etc) spend an absolute metric fuckton ton of money on irrational meaningless shit, due to social pressure. I would point the author of the article to homeopathic medicine, which is a 10b market; just ten of these equals the GDP of Ghana. Do a ctrl-f for colonialism or imperialism or extraction and... yeah, sure. They must be poor because they do quirky things at funerals.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am so glad we had a big wedding. It was so much fun, and all my friends and family had a blast.
It's so funny you say that. Was literally just chatting to my wife the other day about how mediocre weddings are. You spend $20-$50k basically LARPing as landed British gentry, and end up having less fun than the average 21st, Christmas or New Year's. So much more stress in planning too.
I know the kinds of weddings you speak of, and it’s sad, and hard to disagree.
Even more sad that for $20-$50k you /could/ have a super unique, awesome and even low-stress wedding (ok that last part depending on parents/relatives may be impossible), yet so many are the same songs (you know them all), same venues (estate, banquet hall, rooftop, etc), same food.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#57In America we spend that money on weddings. Lots of young people wipe their savings on getting married, at one of the most critical times in life (just before starting a family). It often prevents them having kids or buying a home for years.
Yes, we spend a lot on weddings, but not as much (adjusted for income) as they do on funerals. In Ghana they spend 2.3x-9x the yearly median income[1] on a funeral. The median income in the US is $45,140[2], so if we were to spend the same amount relative to income on weddings as they do on funerals, that would mean our weddings would be $103k-$406k.
[1] https://remotepeople.com/countries/ghana/average-salary/
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is more of a self inflicted wound than an intrinsic aspect of modern society.
I wish it was self inflicted. Instead, it seems to be an artifact of modern society. I posted “How to Be Alone?” exploring this issue somewhat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47296547 690 points, 500+ comments. I’m not trying to get pity, but it would be mistaken to say that I brought it on myself. My wife didn’t bring it on me either. We simply eroded over time. But when marital bonds erode, it turns out they…
Hello friend. I responded to your post and have thought about you since. Yet had you not referenced your post, I would not have made the connection.
It's too bad there's not a way to more easily recognize people on this site, a way to build more community.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#59This article seems to establish that kinship leads to the failure of wage growth and ultimately wealth, people will hide their wages because people will ask for money. This seems like the issue rather is is that wealth accumulation in sub-saharan africa is limited to a small subset of population, I don't think this wealth tax by family members exists when you have a larger group of individuals making more money. You…
Ghana's GINI index is only a couple points higher than the US (43 vs 41), and the same as Mexico.
I don't think wealth inequality explains this at all. But what rigid social institutions of any kind tend do is inhibit mobility. Moreover, kinship groups like this tend to lock-in relative wealth by lineage--the wealthiest family of a kin group from 3 generations ago will be much more likely (relative to other cultures) to be the wealthiest family 3 generations from now. Greater mobility means productivity increases faster, which raises absolute wealth for everybody even if relative wealth disparities across the entire population remain constant.
Re: Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead
#60>Kinship societies are actively hostile to economic growth, because economic growth undermines the basis of kinship: that is why kinship societies demand constant, visible sacrifices of wealth—funerals being the most spectacular—that make it extraordinarily difficult for any individual to accumulate capital, reinvest their assets, and pull ahead. The funeral is a window into a system of wealth destruction that serves, above all else, to keep people poor
This reasoning is flawed. Consumer spending is not "wealth destruction" -- who makes the fantasy coffins? Who prints the banners? Local businesses!
Ghana is sitting at a 5.6% GDP growth rate; for reference developmental success India is at 6.5%. Ghana's GDP in 2000 was $5B, today it's $82.B. Its per-capita GDP has more than doubled in the same time period.