To add to that thought: Before THAT person died, someone ELSE had died in the previously most painful way possible, and at some point in the future someone else will probably find an even MORE painful way to die that we can't even imagine.
At some point it will probably reach a limit where one needs to be unusually susceptible to pain to die an even more painful death.
That's assuming all the pain happens within a given span of time. As long as we can keep lengthening human lifespans, the length of a painful death can keep stretching out.
To be clear, I'm not happy about this thought, I've just thought about the worst ways to die a lot more than is healthy.
Well, the topic is horrible but since we are already at it why not just get it done with?
Would a too prolonged suffering count as a painful death if the person is not dying for most of it? Many people live with chronic pains but I wouldn't count that.
If you're intentionally torturing them to death the entire time, I think it'd count.
But for that they would need to be increasingly weakened without the chance to recover, and there is only so far that can be pushed. If it's just prolonged torture that doesn't make the person any closer to death, then it's just torture.
Who's to say they couldn't be allowed to partially recover? What is somebody sanded off 2mm of skin, rotating locations such that they only hit the same spot every 3 days, for instance? This type of permanently damaging long-term torture could be made to drag on for years and steadily march the victim towards death.
Feels like that going against the spirit of the thing. If they are recovering, it isn't a dying process.
Morbid curiosity piqued, has a person ever been spaced? (Not just vacuumed)
The closest would be the Soyuz 11 disaster. A seal on the re-entry vehicle was damaged when the capsule detached prior to re-entry. Terrible way to go I imagine.
Cant be too far from drowning in a ship.
More pleasant, probably. Drowning takes a bit. Zero pressure results in a near instant blackout.
Presumably there could have been a point where someone drifted gently off to wherever it is we all go, comfortable and surrounded by loved ones, and in their naivety everyone present thought "oh how awful".
I've been on the Internet for a while now and I can safely assure you that the those even more painful ways of dying may not have happened yet, but someone certainly thought then up already.
They died in the most painful way possible so far
Oh, I'm hearing some cereal killer aspirations.
*No one is going to convince me it's spelt any differently
Fortunately, when pain gets too extreme, it flips a breaker of sorts in your brain and you stop feeling it so much. Happens during really catastrophic trauma, presumably to keep the pain from distracting you too much from your (at that point probably necessary) fight or flight reactions.
Adrenaline is part of it, but I don't think it's solely responsible, as its not always present in accounts. Sometimes people can be very calm.
That's why psychological torture is preferred by a lot of "advanced interrogators".
Keep someone locked in the same uncomfortable position for days while you're blasting aggressive disorienting sounds and randomly flashing blinding lights in a room with mirrors.
Once in a while, take them and do a few hours of water boarding. Make sure they're constantly sleep deprived and can never get more than a few minutes of sleep.
Then when you do want to inflict physical pain, focus on the feet very slowly. Feet is one of the most sensitive areas. Slowly start peeling the skin or stick nails through the toes, or practice some electroshock therapy.
Honestly torture is terrifying. I recently read a long form article about it. Worst part is, our "civilized" governments still do this with some amount of regularity. Would be more civilized to put a bullet in the head.
Then think about near future where we can read thoughts (like 1984 where the "advanced interrogator" reads the protagonists mind to figure out what his greatest fear is) or even worse implant thoughts. They could implant images of you murdering your family or something. There's a lot of potential for some horrifying stuff.
Where did you get to know this? I want to read about it
That's why in some science fiction, see Warhammer 40K, they have technology that let you keep on feeling that pain long after you should be well and thoroughly dead. Honestly I'm not sure who's better at it, the Imperium or the Dark Eldar.
The cartel kinda did this in Funkytown, they hooked the guy up to an adrenaline IV so he would remain conscious while they skinned him.
So perhaps the most painful death would be just before that threshold.
Someone has certainly died more painfully than anyone else, but they haven't necessarily died in the most painful way possible.
That's true. Fair enough.
I wonder if someone can give any examples of these painful ways to die
The guy that got stuck upside down in a cave for hours is pretty horrifying.
He died via heart attack tho iirc so...not so bad?
It took days and they broke his legs trying to recover him, pretty bad I'd say
Ok but that's not how he died. That's what happened before he died. In terms of the whole experience yeah no bueno
Ok but that's not how he died.
Everybody dies because their brain stops sending signals... The experience is part of it
I feel like the real torture was done to his brother and friends.
"The brazen bull ... was an alleged torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. ... The bull was said to be hollow and made entirely out of bronze with a door in one side. According to legends, the brazen bull was designed in the form and size of an actual bull and had an acoustic apparatus that converted screams into the sound of a bull. The condemned were locked inside the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside was roasted to death.
"Stories allege after finishing construction on the execution device, Perilaus said to Phalaris: "His screams will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings." Perilaus believed he would receive a reward for his invention. Instead, Phalaris, who was disgusted by these words, ordered its horn sound system to be tested by Perilaus himself, tricking him into getting in the bull. When Perilaus entered, he was immediately locked in and the fire was set, so that Phalaris could hear the sound of his screams. Before Perilaus could die, Phalaris opened the door and took him away. After freeing him from the bull, Phalaris is then said to have taken Perilaus to the top of a hill and thrown him off, killing him. Phalaris himself is claimed to have been killed in the brazen bull when he was overthrown by Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron."
I'd have to agree with this one, and the most painful example of this that I can think of is Hisashi Ouchi, otherwise known as the most irradiated man in history.
My bet would be cartel torture with adrenaline to keep the victim awake.
That’s cruel
I would imagine some of the worst are rare conditions that take you from the inside out. I can’t find reference to the name of the disease, but I swear I remember seeing a bone condition that caused spiky growths, almost like crystals, to form from your bones.
It would be slow and excruciating and you would beg for death long before it ever came.
I think thats bone cancer. Its awful... I hope they find a cure or just instantly encourage euthanasia. No one should go trough that ever..
but I swear I remember seeing a bone condition that caused spiky growths, almost like crystals, to form from your bones.
That's what bone cancer is...
Sometimes it's just a lump in one spot. Sometimes it's a whole bunch of tiny growths that push into nerves and flesh.
Proteus Disease is what the Elephant Man had, but that's really just a super specific version of bone cancer.
Warning: hardcore history really earns its name in this episode. And you may wish you could un-hear some of the things you’ll hear in this podcast.
Well I'm not so sure I want to listen now
I don't know. I think we need controlled studies to find out what the actual most painful way possible to die is. How many rapists and murderers do we have? I'm sure we can spare some of those for testing purposes.
Personally, my money is on someone being slowly fed into a wood chipper while on fire and drinking battery acid.
Well, they probably didn't do it very scientifically but if they could think of it and the tools existed, someone in history is likely to have tried it as a method for killing people.
Impaled people, for instance, could allegedly take days to die. Being slowly eaten by ants or rats sounds pretty painful too
There's one called "life" that is pretty cruel too. It might take anywhere from seconds to more than a hundred years for it to eventually kill you and some.people get to experience a lot of pain throughout the experience.
Dude I've had depression since I was in first grade, so you're preaching to the choir on that last one. But no I was speaking of scientific method here.
Shit, I'm sorry, it was insensitive of me to make that joke (well, half-joke)
Joke? It's the straight up truth.
Don't feel sorry for people wanting to experiment on living humans to find the most gruesome form of death...
He mentions rapists and murderers. I choose to think that they don't deserve to be given a gruesome death (or a death sentence at all for that matter) but I'd be lying if I said I have never felt that way when reading about some f-ed up stuff on the news.
Maybe I'm also higher on the Hitler scale than I thought I was.
If you can support the death penalty for them, then you can also support the irreversible traumatization of them.
However, if you cannot be confident enough in your justice system, just don't do it. A wrongful conviction would have no possible restitution for death or torture.
I agree with you, and that's what I choose to think when I feel like the "best" version of me.
But there are moments (or a part of me) that has a way more violent disposition and feels differently about people who do terrible thing.
I'm a very calm person and not at all violent so please don't report me to the police on the base of these posts... That violent part of me is small and weak, but I just think it's important to acknowledge it because it's also the part that makes me recognize that a rapist or a murderer is a person like me and that it might be me, with the wrong set of circumstances, life choices and frame of mind.
I understand, and the point of punishment is to well... punish the offender for the offence they committed, and to deter others who might not be at the 'best' version of themselves from thinking of committing the same offence.
Punishment and deterrence. It is something that my country of Singapore has no end of pride in when talking about the low crime. It helps that some subset of the population of Singapore do serve for a time in the Singapore Police Force as part of HomeTeamNS, which helps assure the people that the police are accountable, lest an NSman whistleblow upon the issues that they face or some other systemic problem.
Now, our justice system isn't perfect, and some scandals over the years regarding the legal system's favoritism towards the affluent, and the high performing students have made the news. But the things that attract the death penalty are things that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, with objective measures on the evidence like the presence and amount of drugs that indicate dealing and trafficking, being a partner to or as an offender in the use of firearms in service to a crime, and intentioned murder.
We put these hard and very provable requirements on the sentencing of the death penalty because it is no joke, that the courts have to be as infallible as possible in handing out these judgements.
We support the existence of death penalty in our justice system because we find it necessary to safeguard us from these heinous crimes in a way that best minimizes damage to our society, and we trust our courts to be impartial and discerning in each case they hear where it is in the cards.
Can yoir country achieve the same? That is the question you must ask before you consider implementing the death penalty. Your institutions must be strong, competent, and incorruptible before you can do these things. It is a hallmark of good governance that we can do all of these terrible punishments (including caning!) without regret.
That being said, it is extremely sad what happened to that 14 year old girl in India. May those rapist-murderers find their due justice in the questionable institutions of India. It is because of poor deterrence, corrupt institutions, and the poor attitude of the populace that this goes on unfettered in India. I hope you agree that they anger you as well as they did me.
At the end of it all, it is our choices of action that define us, not our thoughts. May you find it within you to accept yourself and all of your thoughts as your own.
To add to that thought: Before THAT person died, someone ELSE had died in the previously most painful way possible, and at some point in the future someone else will probably find an even MORE painful way to die that we can't even imagine.
At some point it will probably reach a limit where one needs to be unusually susceptible to pain to die an even more painful death.
That's assuming all the pain happens within a given span of time. As long as we can keep lengthening human lifespans, the length of a painful death can keep stretching out.
To be clear, I'm not happy about this thought, I've just thought about the worst ways to die a lot more than is healthy.
Well, the topic is horrible but since we are already at it why not just get it done with?
Would a too prolonged suffering count as a painful death if the person is not dying for most of it? Many people live with chronic pains but I wouldn't count that.
If you're intentionally torturing them to death the entire time, I think it'd count.
But for that they would need to be increasingly weakened without the chance to recover, and there is only so far that can be pushed. If it's just prolonged torture that doesn't make the person any closer to death, then it's just torture.
Who's to say they couldn't be allowed to partially recover? What is somebody sanded off 2mm of skin, rotating locations such that they only hit the same spot every 3 days, for instance? This type of permanently damaging long-term torture could be made to drag on for years and steadily march the victim towards death.
Feels like that going against the spirit of the thing. If they are recovering, it isn't a dying process.
Morbid curiosity piqued, has a person ever been spaced? (Not just vacuumed)
The closest would be the Soyuz 11 disaster. A seal on the re-entry vehicle was damaged when the capsule detached prior to re-entry. Terrible way to go I imagine.
Cant be too far from drowning in a ship.
More pleasant, probably. Drowning takes a bit. Zero pressure results in a near instant blackout.
Presumably there could have been a point where someone drifted gently off to wherever it is we all go, comfortable and surrounded by loved ones, and in their naivety everyone present thought "oh how awful".
I've been on the Internet for a while now and I can safely assure you that the those even more painful ways of dying may not have happened yet, but someone certainly thought then up already.
They died in the most painful way possible so far
Oh, I'm hearing some cereal killer aspirations.
*No one is going to convince me it's spelt any differently
Fortunately, when pain gets too extreme, it flips a breaker of sorts in your brain and you stop feeling it so much. Happens during really catastrophic trauma, presumably to keep the pain from distracting you too much from your (at that point probably necessary) fight or flight reactions.
Adrenaline is part of it, but I don't think it's solely responsible, as its not always present in accounts. Sometimes people can be very calm.
That's why psychological torture is preferred by a lot of "advanced interrogators".
Keep someone locked in the same uncomfortable position for days while you're blasting aggressive disorienting sounds and randomly flashing blinding lights in a room with mirrors.
Once in a while, take them and do a few hours of water boarding. Make sure they're constantly sleep deprived and can never get more than a few minutes of sleep.
Then when you do want to inflict physical pain, focus on the feet very slowly. Feet is one of the most sensitive areas. Slowly start peeling the skin or stick nails through the toes, or practice some electroshock therapy.
Honestly torture is terrifying. I recently read a long form article about it. Worst part is, our "civilized" governments still do this with some amount of regularity. Would be more civilized to put a bullet in the head.
Then think about near future where we can read thoughts (like 1984 where the "advanced interrogator" reads the protagonists mind to figure out what his greatest fear is) or even worse implant thoughts. They could implant images of you murdering your family or something. There's a lot of potential for some horrifying stuff.
Where did you get to know this? I want to read about it
That's why in some science fiction, see Warhammer 40K, they have technology that let you keep on feeling that pain long after you should be well and thoroughly dead. Honestly I'm not sure who's better at it, the Imperium or the Dark Eldar.
The cartel kinda did this in Funkytown, they hooked the guy up to an adrenaline IV so he would remain conscious while they skinned him.
So perhaps the most painful death would be just before that threshold.
Someone has certainly died more painfully than anyone else, but they haven't necessarily died in the most painful way possible.
That's true. Fair enough.
I wonder if someone can give any examples of these painful ways to die
The guy that got stuck upside down in a cave for hours is pretty horrifying.
He died via heart attack tho iirc so...not so bad?
It took days and they broke his legs trying to recover him, pretty bad I'd say
Ok but that's not how he died. That's what happened before he died. In terms of the whole experience yeah no bueno
Everybody dies because their brain stops sending signals... The experience is part of it
I feel like the real torture was done to his brother and friends.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull
How about acute radiation sickness?
I'd have to agree with this one, and the most painful example of this that I can think of is Hisashi Ouchi, otherwise known as the most irradiated man in history.
My bet would be cartel torture with adrenaline to keep the victim awake.
That’s cruel
I would imagine some of the worst are rare conditions that take you from the inside out. I can’t find reference to the name of the disease, but I swear I remember seeing a bone condition that caused spiky growths, almost like crystals, to form from your bones.
It would be slow and excruciating and you would beg for death long before it ever came.
I think thats bone cancer. Its awful... I hope they find a cure or just instantly encourage euthanasia. No one should go trough that ever..
That's what bone cancer is...
Sometimes it's just a lump in one spot. Sometimes it's a whole bunch of tiny growths that push into nerves and flesh.
Proteus Disease is what the Elephant Man had, but that's really just a super specific version of bone cancer.
And it could happen to you!
The way they dealt with the 'rulers' in the mustard uprising in Europe come to mind.
Dan Carlin did a whole hours long pod cast on it.
*Münster uprising
I was extremely confused trying to remember if Dan did an episode about mustard. But yeah that ep was brutal and entertaining!
Oh... I... I just assumed it was spelt mustard. Figured the word is like 6000 years old...
Cheers.
Complete proton reversal?
His name was Stan and it was documented in the movie Volcano
Cheers bro, I'll drink to that
Yes they did. And here’s their story: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-48-prophets-of-doom/
Warning: hardcore history really earns its name in this episode. And you may wish you could un-hear some of the things you’ll hear in this podcast.
Well I'm not so sure I want to listen now
I don't know. I think we need controlled studies to find out what the actual most painful way possible to die is. How many rapists and murderers do we have? I'm sure we can spare some of those for testing purposes.
Personally, my money is on someone being slowly fed into a wood chipper while on fire and drinking battery acid.
Well, they probably didn't do it very scientifically but if they could think of it and the tools existed, someone in history is likely to have tried it as a method for killing people.
Impaled people, for instance, could allegedly take days to die. Being slowly eaten by ants or rats sounds pretty painful too
There's one called "life" that is pretty cruel too. It might take anywhere from seconds to more than a hundred years for it to eventually kill you and some.people get to experience a lot of pain throughout the experience.
Dude I've had depression since I was in first grade, so you're preaching to the choir on that last one. But no I was speaking of scientific method here.
Shit, I'm sorry, it was insensitive of me to make that joke (well, half-joke)
Joke? It's the straight up truth.
Don't feel sorry for people wanting to experiment on living humans to find the most gruesome form of death...
He mentions rapists and murderers. I choose to think that they don't deserve to be given a gruesome death (or a death sentence at all for that matter) but I'd be lying if I said I have never felt that way when reading about some f-ed up stuff on the news. Maybe I'm also higher on the Hitler scale than I thought I was.
If you can support the death penalty for them, then you can also support the irreversible traumatization of them.
However, if you cannot be confident enough in your justice system, just don't do it. A wrongful conviction would have no possible restitution for death or torture.
I agree with you, and that's what I choose to think when I feel like the "best" version of me.
But there are moments (or a part of me) that has a way more violent disposition and feels differently about people who do terrible thing.
I'm a very calm person and not at all violent so please don't report me to the police on the base of these posts... That violent part of me is small and weak, but I just think it's important to acknowledge it because it's also the part that makes me recognize that a rapist or a murderer is a person like me and that it might be me, with the wrong set of circumstances, life choices and frame of mind.
I understand, and the point of punishment is to well... punish the offender for the offence they committed, and to deter others who might not be at the 'best' version of themselves from thinking of committing the same offence.
Punishment and deterrence. It is something that my country of Singapore has no end of pride in when talking about the low crime. It helps that some subset of the population of Singapore do serve for a time in the Singapore Police Force as part of HomeTeamNS, which helps assure the people that the police are accountable, lest an NSman whistleblow upon the issues that they face or some other systemic problem.
Now, our justice system isn't perfect, and some scandals over the years regarding the legal system's favoritism towards the affluent, and the high performing students have made the news. But the things that attract the death penalty are things that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, with objective measures on the evidence like the presence and amount of drugs that indicate dealing and trafficking, being a partner to or as an offender in the use of firearms in service to a crime, and intentioned murder.
We put these hard and very provable requirements on the sentencing of the death penalty because it is no joke, that the courts have to be as infallible as possible in handing out these judgements.
We support the existence of death penalty in our justice system because we find it necessary to safeguard us from these heinous crimes in a way that best minimizes damage to our society, and we trust our courts to be impartial and discerning in each case they hear where it is in the cards.
Can yoir country achieve the same? That is the question you must ask before you consider implementing the death penalty. Your institutions must be strong, competent, and incorruptible before you can do these things. It is a hallmark of good governance that we can do all of these terrible punishments (including caning!) without regret.
That being said, it is extremely sad what happened to that 14 year old girl in India. May those rapist-murderers find their due justice in the questionable institutions of India. It is because of poor deterrence, corrupt institutions, and the poor attitude of the populace that this goes on unfettered in India. I hope you agree that they anger you as well as they did me.
At the end of it all, it is our choices of action that define us, not our thoughts. May you find it within you to accept yourself and all of your thoughts as your own.