(NSFW) (Spoiler Alert) Could the world go into a shortage of minerals and pave the way for Soylent green, and the scavenging of the dead and buried for minerals and rare nutrients?

It’s not very likely. The Earth’s crust is loaded with minerals, but we haven’t really dug too deeply for them yet. Mining technology is improving along with drilling technology for oil and gas, and prospecting technology is also improving greatly.

In addition to that, we haven’t even started trying to recover dissolved minerals from seawater, which may be carrying more raw materials than a lot of the solid crust sources.

I doubt that we’ll lose our ancient taboos over desecrating gravesites. (Except that over 100 years ago Mark Twain described burning Egyptian mummies on transatlantic steamers as boiler fuel. That’s an aberration that won’t be repeated soon, I think.)

There is already a lot of scavenging of the dead for the gold in their teeth and body parts/tissue to sell. Why would that change?

Personally, I don’t believe there is anything special about dead bodies of people. The “people” have disappeared, and all that is left is the components.

I’m surprised we haven’t already.

Sure, the religious nuts would say that using the body instead of burying it is in some way disrespectful, but if you believe that the soul is separate from the body – as I do – then it would seem that there are far better used that could be made of skin and bones than just burial or cremation.

Once I am dead, I have no further need of my body,

If I remember the plot, though, SG was harvesting people specifically for minerals. Involuntary harvesting is not something I agree with – post mortem is perfectly fine with me.

I don’t think Soylent Green was about minerals.
It was about food!!!!!!!

At one point, God became so angry with Israel, He made them eat their dead babies.
It can happen.

Nope at that time we should be able to travel to other planets to plunder and destroy.

I’m NSFW (Not So Frigging Worried) about a scenario like this, @ talljasperman. You might want to get outside in the sunshine for a while. ;-)