What is the scrap value of a typical human?

I’d like to think I’d be worth more stuffed, but that may be overly optimistic…

The game is rigged such that even your corpse is a liability. There is nothing you can obtain from it that would even put a noticeable dent in the disposal fees.

Not much. To some degree it depends on your dental work and whether your fillings were made from gold or silver. Those metals can be smelted and boiled down for their cash value.

On the black market, people have been kidnapped and killed for their kidneys and lungs, so there is some value there.

But your heirs marketing those organs will be rewarded with hefty prison sentences.

Depends on your health and age.
Your organs could make a buttload of dosh on the black market.

Just as the collection might prior to becoming a corpse.

Very little. We’re basically worthless as far as that goes.

@elbanditoroso, my mother used to say, “Don’t put me down with all this gold in my teeth.” I asked my dentist about it once. He said it would cost way more than it was worth to try to recover gold teeth from a cadaver.

I wonder if that’s something a crematorium can do, though. Can’t have been overlooked.

I would suspect the worst. I have often wondered what is involved with cleaning the furnace in a crematorium. How difficult would it be to channel molten liquid away for solidification and recovery?

@gorillapaws Here you go: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/bushman-gorilla

Somebody calculates a value around $600.

One’s DNA is worth all the money in the world, since one could replicate you all over again.
Same body but different personalities.

Yeah, I doubt my DNA is worth all that much there. Unless one wanted to create an army of troopers with severe heart defects.

@Darth_Algar
I am sure all that could be fixed, especially when new technology is being invented to repair the human body . Probably by 2025 or sooner.

*2125. And you would have to sell your organs in order to be able to afford that treatment.

@ragingloli
Who knows what currency will be in 2025 and or if we all have standard wages?

You realize that 2025 ain’t that far away, right?

If I was really desperate I have a standing offer to buy my hair for $1500 (I’m not desperate though). But this question should make all of us stop and think : What is it we really value in each other, and in life?

Estimates on how much cash individual body parts may bring are all over the place, based on the transplant market for vital organs & cell compounds -

• $1.3mil per gram for DNA.
• $ 2300 per gram for bone marrow.
• $91,000 for a kidney.
• $57,000 for a heart.
• $30,000 for an eye.

Throw in another $20k – $40k in fees a woman can make for donating healthy eggs to an infertile couple, and some medical economists figure the actual & potential value of a human body at roughly $43mil.

Beyond that is the question of how & why we ever put a dollar value on human existence. The largest ever jury award in a wrongful death case was $150 billion (from a Texas jury), for murder the price is the whole life of the guilty party, and when a gifted scientist or artist passes the loss can be felt for generations.

So what we are, and why we are, may come down to a lot more than just dollars and cents. At least I hope so.

I have a standing offer to buy my hair for $1500

I would do that again and again. Be a hair farmer!

@Call_Me_Jay – Ha! But it takes years. Not like growing corn, but still easier than cutting out a kidney ;)

@JLoon ”...but still easier than cutting out a kidney ;)”

I’m so glad you joined. You’re constantly cracking me up.

I donated a kidney for $0.

In the US, the deal is if you need a kidney, rope some fool live donor (like me) into the scheme and you don’t have to wait in line.

And compatibility and “matching” is not an issue. If you bring a good kidney into the deal, the doctors can trade it for a match in a kidney exchange.

I gave up a kidney for my brother. It was flown to Los Angeles for some stranger and a kidney for my bro arrived hours later.