Say you're taking a walk in the woods at your local state park. There have been some heavy rains recently, causing a few mudslides, some erosion, etc.

You approach the side of a large hill that has recently collapsed. You notice what appears to be some animal bones sticking out of the side of the recently exposed hillside. You walk over to take a closer look, and realize what they are.
Dinosaur bones, and not just raggedy fragments of dinosaur bones, but good ones. A nearly pristine skeleton of some sort of big dinosaur. You're no expert on this sort of thing, but you're also no idiot. This is something very special.

Pursuant to your state law, you must report this find to the appropriate authorities, however, you're completely aware that this thing would bring a metric assload of money on ebay.

You look around. You're very much alone. You could excise these dinosaur bones and spirit them away without anyone being the wiser. Of course, this may be an important scientific find and in doing so, you would be ruining a lot of important scientific data.

What do you do?

If this happens to me, I'll have a T-rex setup in my livingroom. That would be one hell of a conversation-piece, no?

You must have one big ass living room.

ooo, i can see it now.....

oh me like

Personal Ethical Interpolation:

Most people have a healthy respect for the law, acknowledging that it's morally right, but bending or abandoning it for selfish purposes, but are still sort of controlled by personal ethics, so even if the can get away with stuff, they don't go too far.

I on the other hand believe most laws are wrong and hate the government, but have a healthy respect for my personal ethics, acknowledging that they're morally right, but abandon them completely whenever I feel like it, for personal gain. And I really, REALLY want a T-rex.

I don't really care so I'd "inform" the park ranger but it's probably more likely I'd grab a small piece to take home for myself and let someone else find it

Hmm...I seriously think I could fit a small one. I'm on the top floor, so I maybe could open out the ceiling a little, if I find one that's too big. Or I could leave out a few leg bones to make it fit. I'll make it work.

I'm rich so it wouldn't really matter.

I'd notify the authorities, but if there were some bad ass teeth, I might have to keep one.

lol, I'd keep em and sell them to stupid atheists who believe dinosaurs actually existed!

- loismustdie

How do you know they are dinosaur bones? I mean, are they labeled telling you that?


Just wondering.

There you go. If this was on my own property, then my response would be different. State property, I wouldn't take it. Okay, I would look for a petrified penis to send to RonMexico, but that's all.

Zing!


And I sell them bitches. Beer money, huh.

I'd grind them up, and sell them as an aphrodisiac in Azia

I think you have to turn them in for the sake of science. They could end up being some sort of missing link, or they could have a particular bone from a particular dinosaur that no one has found yet, or it could be a new species (that you may or may not be able to name) or whatever. But this answer is quite specific to the fact that we're talking about dinosaur bones. If it were something like gold or jade, I would have no qualms with you taking it. Its not so much about the right or wrong aspect of it to me, is more about science.

i'm with this exactly. i think the more interesting dilema w/ me would be if something like this happened while i was on vacation in greece or egypt and came across antiquities in a grave. like say i came across a first century gold necklace and knew i could get it out of the country. i wouldn't want the money, and by interenational law they belong to the host country, but it would probably be the only chance to ever own anything like that.

it would be close.

but the dinosaur is an easy report, especially because if it is something unique (and you have the right pr) you may get your name in a textbook or something.

Have Jacob the Jewler turn it into a bad *** necklace

why hasn't scram come in here yet to tell everybody they're wrong?

A friend of mine was in Turkey; a country that has the most aggressive cultural patrimony laws on the planet. Even Egypt isn't quite as hardassed about their old stuff as the Turks. In Turkey, it requires a license to be a simple coin collector.

Anyway, he's a massive antiquities buff and goes to a shop in Ankara that is full of mostly junk, about 80% of it fake. He's also a hard core (and quite brilliant) archaeometrist and blows through this shop in about 3 minutes, casually dismissing everything on first glance as either fake or old-but-worthless crap. The guy in the shop realizes that he's not a simple White tourist looking to buy fake bas reliefs of dead Ottoman kings, but he's worried he is an authority figure of some kind doing a spot-check on his shop (the turks really are hard core about that stuff and you don't want to be caught buying, selling or smuggling unprovenanced antiquities in Turkey as a very long time in prison is a certainty)

He starts to ask my buddy prodding questions and once he's satisfied that friend is a buyer and not an undercover Antiquities Bureau man, he goes to a small room and returns with a very large fragment of an Empire era Urn, embellished with painted figures and spectacular imagery. Offered for $1600 Turkish lira. Declined. Offered for $1400 Lira.
No.
$1000 Lira.
No.
$600 Lira, final offer.

Hmmmmmmm.....

You're wrong.

Ethics are for suckers.

There are only 3 questions.
Can you profit from it? If so, is it illegal? If not, do it. If so, is it the potential profit worth the odds of being caught?

Seems like you have some research to do on how to profit from dino bones, the laws about it, and the odds of getting caught.

Well for that reason, it makes sense; it's of more value to you in the hands of people who know what they're looking at. To be honest, I'd prolly report it too, not because I believe it's right, but because I'd never get away with selling them, and I have no actual interest in them, so at least this way I might get some small reward or acknowledgement of my genius or something for finding them.

But your and my choice have nothing to do with ethics. I think almost no ones' ever does, though -- or better yet, I think "ethics" are only even practiced to fulfill some deeper, probably self-deceiving incentive.

Then again, it’s possible that other people really are capable of mystical selflessness, in which no part of the conscious or subconscious takes any pleasure, and I’m just a borderline sociopath.

I think when you're talking about jail, it's less about the raw bulk numbers, and more about utility/ambivalence curves, especially when the payoff is this volatile. It’s pretty hard to run these kinds of numbers, because there’s no good way to assign values to, say, extreme wealth and jail, which means even the numbers look good, there’s no way to know if you’re even close.

ship it holla balla!

In a state park... notify authorities.

In my back yard... T-Rex in living room.

No, this is really all that matters. And I mean period. Not like "with respect to this issue." But like "the only thing that matters in life is my new quest to have a T-Rex set up in a 3rd story loft in, say, Hoboken."

New life goal.


Wang

I think the Field Museum only paid like $9,000,000 for the complete "Sue" skeletal setup, which was an absolute ****ing steal if you ask me.

Considering that people readily pay about that much for a very low-level, insignificant Picasso oil, I cannot for the life of me figure out how Sue only sold for 9 milbones. If I were some sick-rich investment banker, I'd for damn sure buy a complete T Rex before I bought some other pretentious display of flagrant extravagance like a painting or an antiquity of some kind.

yeah, state parsk are there for our enjou=yment, why do anything to jepopardize that?

On any normal topic, I would throw up my idealistic middle finger at the government, take these bones myself, and sell them for whoever wants to study them at the highest bid.

Of course, I have a soft spot for science and study on the history of this planet. I would probably try to cover this up until I could get trusted scientific authories (local, national, or international) to take care of this material and get as much new information out of it as humanly possible.

If my only choice, though, was to let my local government **** this up or I **** this up, I would rather dig up the bones and get as much money as possible

LOL!

very accurate, sir

Seriously. I mean, can you imagine being rich and leading people on tours of your house?

Me: "Off to the left, here, we have my wife's arboretum. Down the hall is the Churchill room, and if you take this hallway straight and to the left, you'll see my gigantic kick-ass real-life dinosaur. And if you'll follow me, we'll proceed to the sec-"

Some Loser: "Wait, wait, wait. Did you say dinosaur? As in stegosaurus or triceratops?"

Me: (as if confused by question) "Well, yes. My T-Rex is around the corner. I... just assumed you'd rather see my winery."

Some Loser's Wife: (hand to chest, as if in shock/surprise) "Well, oh my... I-"

Me: (hardcore and dead-serious) "No shit, lady. I could buy and sell all of you three times over, AND I've got a motherfucking dinosaur in my house. Here's a quick suggestion: never, under any circumstances, should you fuck with me. Because- I'll repeat this one more time- I have a mother****ing Tyrannosaurus Rex set up right across from my wife's arboretum."

All of My Former Friends: "...???"

Me: "Ooooh, I almost forgot. I actually recently purchased a chammie Elaeanor Roosevelt used to clean her Clarinet! Everyone follow me...."



Wang

This can't be right...can it?

I would spell it 'shammy', but maybe that's the pedestrain spelling. How bourgeois of me...and I probably even used 'bourgeois' incorrectly.

Bed time?

I knew it was a "ch" start, but it's actually "chammy." Which looks retarded, but is right.

Dammit, this ruins the whole joke, which was retarded from the get-go.


Wang

Honestly, I think it's good we've diverted attention away from it. You've done much better work.

And, since I already have this copied and ready to paste (and since we're talking about dinosaurs)...

Never wrong to Funk up my night a little...

In any case, I feel rusty, so I need to toss a few more of these around before I write up some of the better stuff I have saved up.


I... and the biggest loser ever.


Goodnight

I'm astonished that in this over-the-top dream-sequence-like scenario, you didn't specify which super hot celebrity is sitting in as your arboretum-romping wife. Candice Bergen, perhaps? Without doubt.

chamois.

thank you. yes wang, I believe the correct and appropriate spelling and usage to be "chamois."



thank you L.L. Bean.

Had to comment on this.. Very funny, sir.

Speaking of chamois, could I interest you in a popsicle?

That was actually part of initial image that popped into my head. For some reason it was Helen Mirren, halfway between how she actually looks and The Queen. I think my brain put her in there because all of my friends were supposed to be uppity, stuffy, aristocratic types that carry around those weird glasses people use at the opera and wear long white gloves and are old.

But I left it out, because I figured the suggestion that I was married to Helen Mirren would just make me look very, very weird. Unlike the suggestion that I would buy a T-Rex just so I could use its mere presence to spice up a none-too-subtle monologue meant to strike fear into the hearts of my neighbors, and social acquaintances who were just being polite in accepting that invitation for a dinner party.


Wang