The "not invented here" syndrome

You are the biggest asshole in this group! Seems you have nothing else to do the hole day long except thinking how you can provocate a new OT-discussion.

Get a job!

Nick

Certainly it's just my opinion, but I think it's because of the dismemberment. Humans seem to have a strange fixation on keeping the body intact----probably some religious reason----resurrection, perhaps? (No, I don't subscribe to that notion, but I imagine some do).

Not suggesting it doesn't work well, Iggy. I'm sure it does. If you want to win this door prize, come up with a method that kills instantly and leaves no evidence of violence.

Harold

I remember reading about Thomas Edison and the development of the electric chair (although I don't remember where now). At the time the US authorities were looking for a new method of capital punishment. The guillotine was ruled out for being too French, the garrote for being too Spanish and hanging for being too unimaginative and old-fashioned. So in the 1890s you were probably right.

But today I think it has more to do with the guillotine being visually horrific. Today the authorities want to make execution look like a clean, clinical procedure in order to hide what they're actually doing and lessen their feelings of guilt.

Best wishes,

Chris

There's some evidence the brain can continue to function up to 2-4 minutes after decapitation occurs, with at least one report of one person's eyes focusing on a man who called his name immediately after the event and a few of lipreading curses from the severed heads' lips.

(Not that I consider Wikipedia a definitive source for anything, but here it does have one of the accounts I mentioned)

Maybe it could be done after the prisoner was anesthetized, but what's the difference then between it and lethal injection?

Check: The Ballad Of James A. Moon

Since nobody's come back to critique the method of their killing, all bets are off about what's more humane.

It _is_ messy.:)

Edison toured the country with his "chair" as the result of intense competetion between AC and DC power generation. He was scare mongering for his baby by demonstration the danger posed by the competetion.

I recall a book about Nikola Tesla, and if I recall correctly, it mentions that Edison (who had vested interest in promoting DC power transmission) invented electric chair powered by AC, mostly to scare people and instill a thought in their minds that AC is dangerous.

i

Precisely. BTW, if you are on the East Coast, you can still see Tesla's original installation at Niagra Falls. Should you have the opportunity to see it, PBS has an excellent documentary film about the falls and it includes the Tesla - Edison battles.

I've dated girls that can do that with one look!

He used to say that the victims had been "Westinghoused"

You may be describing Lavoisier's last experiment; he said he would continue blinking for as long as he could, and he had his servant make the observations.

I haven't found anyone yet who likes my idea, but, maybe in this group. I think outright execution is a total waste. Instead, I suggest harvesting organs while keeping the person on life support until nothing usable is left.

For some thoughts on what that would do to society, read some of the "Known Space" stories written by Larry Niven, particularly the ones that deal with the time after execution was carried out by organ donation, and before artificially-grown organs were invented.

And as I recall, he didn't blink.

Actual cell death does not start occurring in the brain for maybe two to four minutes, but AFAIK there has never been any credible evidence that the victim remains conscious.

With a catastrophic loss of blood pressure, unconsciousness is almost instantaneous.

Dave

Really?

I thought he went for about 15 seconds.

I am pretty sure that the AC/DC battles were between Westinghouse and Edison. I think Tesla kind of wandered around in his own world at the time these battles were going on.

Bob

Yeah but he had the goods. Shit Happens is a construct.

Good idea! We can do experiments on the ones with bad organs, too. The Germans got a lot of work done that way a while back.

Oh, Dr. Mengele! Dr. Mengele! Come back, we need you!...

-- Ed Huntress

Odd..Ive killed many bad guys, and havent felt much guilt. Well..tagging the 14yr old kid carrying the satchel charge and hitting the detonator was a bit much when watching though a rifle scope..but there was more relief than anything else. Relief that he hadnt made it to me before he blew up. Joy actually. However..I did aim at the detonator..so perhaps I should feel guilt?

Gunner

"Deep in her heart, every moslem woman yearns to show us her t*ts" John Griffin