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States Turn To an Unproven Method of Execution: Nitrogen Gas (nytimes.com)
States are reportedly turning to nitrogen gas to carry out the death penalty. "Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi have authorized nitrogen for executions and are developing protocols to use it, which represents a leap into the unknown," reports The New York Times. "There is no scientific data on executing people with nitrogen, leading some experts to question whether states, in trying to solve old problems, may create new ones." Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from a report via The New York Times: What little is known about human death by nitrogen comes from industrial and medical accidents and its use in suicide. In accidents, when people have been exposed to high levels of nitrogen and little air in an enclosed space, they have died quickly. In some cases co-workers who rushed in to rescue them also collapsed and died. Nitrogen itself is not poisonous, but someone who inhales it, with no air, will pass out quickly, probably in less than a minute, and die soon after -- from lack of oxygen. The same is true of other physiologically inert gases, including helium and argon, which kill only by replacing oxygen.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
Just look for any evidence of discomfort or panic.
That word doesn't mean what they think it means.
that's what they're doing.
This has been used on small mammals for decades in labs.
Not a fan of the death penalty but if you're going to check-out, be it by choice or inflicted then this is one of the nicest ways to go (& cheap/simple). Light headed & pass out. Helium balloons work too but you need a mask to keep the thing in place.
What's good for CO2 scrubbing? A simple balloon rebreather & CO2 absorber should do the job if a bit slower while the O2 converts. I guess I'm coming at this problem from the euthanasia angle rather than the "kill our citizens" one... Not speaking from experience realise... ;) [well I think we've all gone light-headed with the Helium thing]
used helium gas to assist his patients who wanted to commit suicide. I believe it is still used by organizations such as Dignitas for the same purpose.
This has been experienced thousands of times in places like Air Force training. They live and talk about passing out as either sudden or quite enjoyable. So yes it works fast and painless. HOWEVER you must still question WHY KILL?
There are many fast and painless methods, a slaughter house probably could give pointers - but people aren't food animals SO WHY KILL?
Using an unproven means is a clear ethics violation. Where are the double-blind clinical trials?.
This story leads me to a very humorous event at work. While working on a A/C system, I noted to an inspector that the dry nitrogen in the system (used to pressure test the pipes) needed to be released into the atmosphere. This A/C was for a temporary building in the middle of a wide open yard for a power company.
Well this idea.....releasing a gas into the atmosphere was enough to trigger multiple phone calls, and eventually a 4 week delay, since there was about 3 very important meetings about this deadly concept.
I noted to the inspector that air contains 78% Nitrogen. But, he was not convinced, and knew that his job was now question.
Finally, the mighty minds, agreed to let me take out the nitrogen, but it needed to be recovered.
This time, I kept my mouth shut, and "recovered" the nitrogen........
All was well, and the power company lives to see another day.... :)
You know what? If I was condemned to death, I'd want a pullet through the head. That's VERY quick and painless.
If a state is callous enough to consider the killing of human beings an acceptable form of punishnment, why is it so fixated on killing them by pumping them full of chemicals or gasses?
If the state officials want to sanitize the act of murdering a human being, all they have to do is stick them into a box with some kind of automated mechanism to fire a bullet through the person's head inside the box. Okay, say three bullets to be extra-sure. Then if they really, REALLY don't want to deal with the mess, they can take out the closed box whole for incineration. See? All they'd have to watch is a guy going into a box, and the guy inside the box would never suffer. No need for all that nitrogen nonsense.
Incidentally, all these talks of gassing prisoners reeks of something else we've seen in the past. I'm surprised our powers-that-be don't try at all costs to steer clear away from the immediate parallel those of us with a memory are certain to draw...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Plus it would make the prisoners last words sound awesome!
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Use helium gas.
Then at least death row inmates could turn their last minutes into a comedy skit, should they wish.
We seek better and better, more and more "clinical" means of state-sanctioned killing. First the electric chair, then gas, then injection, then back to gas, apparently. It's almost as if we don't want to admit what the state is doing in the public's name. Personally, if we're going to keep the death penalty, I'd like to see the judge, jury members, and DA draw straws to be on a firing squad. If people are willing to sentence others to death, they should be willing to put their "money where their mouth" is. Better yet, get rid of capital punishment. Wasteful, expensive for appeals, and too much risk of a wrongful convicting that can't be reversed. See also: Cameron Todd Willingham and the West Memphis Three.
Spam makes Baby Jesus cry.
Yes Industry has determined that it is very deadly and painless. Did the author proof read the Article?
If it was painful then many industrial deaths would have been avoided.
I'm going to sketch out some dots (really close together), and I want you to try to connect them...
1 - you're trying to come up with a way to efficiently off people
2 - you're constantly screeching about how fentanyl is instant death
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
Many a scuba diver knows Nitrogen Narcosis and Nitrogen death.
Nothing misterious about it...
Is a well proven method. And humane at that.
If I ever make my own Kevorkian machine, this is my chosen method.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
you could start with N2O and slowly change to pure N,
and laugh yourself to death.
Go well
I say death by snu snu
Actually a severed human head will respond (eye contact) to you shouting its name. I'd definitely opt for the gas.
Life in prison with no possibility of parole. That is 1/4 the cost, much more humane, and can be reversed if you realize you made a mistake such as crooked forensic scientists getting caught faking the data or police detectives forcing fake confessions. These things happen and it is much easier to say, "oops sorry" when the person is still alive.
The death penalty DOES NOT reduce crime.
I've been talking about this for decades. The problem has always been that people who are about the humanity of execution are campaigning against it, but if we're doing it we need to at least use the least painful methods available. Those are neutral gas or a high caliber, high speed bullet through the cranium.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Can you judge for how long you'd be aware like that then?
Death suck.
If you want to do it with little pain then I guess the ISIS method of blowing up the head is pretty efficient.
Well.. except for a bunch of guys filming you with a strap around your neck or walking around with rocket launchers.
Then again it can't be a great time in a US prison either.
This is the top search result for suicide on the web. The act is painless,inexpensive and generally safe. If you want to pass from this world, you should get acquainted with nitrogen masks.
Our atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% argon. We all breath in nitrogen with no impact. If we have too much carbon dioxide in our air our bodies try to pass the bad air and get rid of the CO2. To much CO2 in our lungs and we panic.
If we don't have oxygen, we get dizzy and pass out in a couple of breaths. Dead in 4 minutes. NO panic, rapid lose of consciousness. Death while unconscious.
I am not a fan of executions, but if the state wants to kill them, this is far more humane then lethal injection, electrocutions, hanging or firing squad.
They do need protocols. The nitrogen should be medical grade (ie not have any hydrocarbons) so once the act is finished spectators won't be impacted. The gas needs to be applied with a breathing mask, so the CO2 is removed with every breath and replaced with nitrogen to prevent any panic. The mask can be plumbed so the exhalations are removed such that they don't impact the O2 level in the room. There should be O2 level sensors in the room so any system failure would alert attending guards.
The execution can be designed such that the only the execution victim suffers oxygen deprivation. There is no need to remove oxygen from the whole room..
I am not sure anyone should be executed, but if they are going to be executed, I think this is the best way.
machinator omnis sine licentia
It is also the method being pushed by a number of Euthanasia proponents..
Which does kind of imply that it is not the worst method...
Of course people will mix this up with the morality of WHY the state is executing people, however
the two really are separate - trying to block executions by questioning the method is kind of stupid,
is that is the issue then address it directly.
It's no more gas chamber than the room you're currently sitting in is a gas chamber (because it has air - a gas - in it).. Nitrogen just happens to be the gas used because it's the most easily accessible and cheapest. But you could use any other gas as long as it's not oxygen. Even CO2 despite it triggering the short of breath reflex. Loss of consciousness from complete oxygen deprivation happens within about 15 seconds, and death within about a minute. That's why the safety briefing on planes tells you to don your own oxygen mask first before your try to put one on your children. if you put it on your kids first, you'll probably pass out before you finish and can put your own mask on.
So the characteristic that defines the chamber is the lack of oxygen, not that a particular type of gas is used.
I saw a documentary series on PBS years and years ago called "The Body In Question" (which was primarily made by the BBC), hosted by a medical doctor who had gone in to show business, Jonathan Miller. In one episode, Miller wore an apparatus of some kind that removed the carbon dioxide from his breath as he breathed it out, but did not let him get any new oxygen. While wearing this, he was writing things down on a pad and talking about what he was feeling. The writing got worse, and I think he mentioned losing his color vision, and finally, when he was about to pass out, people stepped in to remove the mask and take care of him.
Whenever I read about painful executions, I would think about that episode and wonder, if they're going to do it, why not do it that way?
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
As you read this, you're breathing 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, and 0.04% carbon dioxide. That's not including the roughly 1% water vapor.
So yes, there will definitely be nitrogen in other parts of the building. The air will be 78% nitrogen.
What would be dangerous would be of the nitrogen canister were in a small closet and someone went in, closed the door, and opened the nitrogen valve all the way.
Pressureize the chamber and let them get high as they pass out. It relieves stress and creates a drunk feeling.
It's strange that places that have the highest distrust of government also are cool with the government executing people. Just yesterday, there was a story of a guy who was on death row for 16 years before he was completely exonerated. I would think that just one of those cases would be enough so that anyone with a moral compass would oppose the death penalty. But if there's one thing we know, it's that Americans love seeing people get kilt and they love feeling self-righteous, so that makes for a lethal combination. People in red states seem to love giving their governments the ultimate power over life and death.
Fortunately, there's absolutely nothing in Oklahoma, Alabama, or Mississippi that anyone here would want, so this only affects the poor folks who live there. But it does explain why they're at the bottom of almost every state ranking of quality of life.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There was a claim that veterinarians don't recommend it to euthanize animals.
Lethal injections are probably cheaper and don't present the workplace hazard that nitrogen does. The later being odorless, colorless, you pass out with no warning to its presence, etc.
Put them in a box and attach a hose to the exhaust pipe of a car.
The problem with N2 is that some prisoners are going to hold their breath for 3-4 minutes, then start breathing the N2. While the comments are accurate about people who want to die, or accidentally die via N2 being quick and painless, its going to be pretty ghastly to watch some guy hold his breath until blue, then start gasping for air, then go unconscious and die. Some guy will train himself for a 7+ minute breath hold. Other forms of execution aren't affected by prisoner choice -- seems an obviously cruel method to let people live as long as they can hold their breath.
...still probably the firing squad. 4 or 5 bullets invading the heart should be near-instantaneous, blindingly cheap, least survivable, and quickest. We've had the real solution to this for 100's of years. Don't mess with what works. Just do it.
"Shoot straight, you bastards! Don't make a mess of it!"
Have gnu, will travel.
And we have a limited amount of Helium that we can use - and waste it on party balloons, but Nitrogen don't run out while humanity is around.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Shooting someone in the heart IS oxygen deprivation... that's the purpose of the heart, to pump oxygen throughout your body. You'd have to destroy all 4 chamber at once, and they'd still have oxygen in their brain for a while, and you don't die from oxygen deprivation for up to 5 minutes. Cut out the bullets, and just remove the oxygen. It's a helluva lot cleaner.
My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
You've apparently never been around a pig farm in real life. They make those sounds when their distressed by new things. Unfamiliar locations, being stuck in something. They dont make them from being suffocated by nitrogen. Nitrogen doesn't give any signals to the body there is a problem. You simply pass out. Google OSHA nitrogen accidents to find out how quickly and how dangerous it is.
A CO2 gas chamber is probably one of the worst possible ways to go. Suffocating in CO2 rings pretty much every alarm bell in an animal's head. Hypoxia by CO2 surplus is an incredibly distressing and painful way to go. I have no idea how anyone could refer to that as "humane". Of course those pigs are going crazy!
This is completely unlike Nitrogen displacement, which is found to be incredibly hazardous exactly because it triggers NO pain, panic, or flight response. Your mental capacity goes downhill steadily, imperceptibly, and painlessly, until without even realizing anything is wrong or amiss, you just lose consciousness, with zero chance of waking up before it kills you.
They wouldn't even have to tell you when its happening. You could sit down in a comfy chair, listening to your favorite music, while enjoying your last meal, with no idea when they were going to start changing the air in the room out. At some point you'd faceplant in your mashed potatoes and that'd be it. No pain, no table or chair to strap you to, no needles, it actually is a heck of a lot more humane than lethal injection or any of the other more popular methods. Even a firing squad is more humane than the electric chair or lethal injection!
Bonus: nitrogen is a heck of a lot cheaper than lethal injection drugs. (and they are getting really hard to obtain)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Best idea is that the pilot donned his oxygen, took the plane up to high altitude, and depressurized the plane. As the evidence of the later parts of the flight match it being under autopilot control, he probably took off his supply once he put the plane onto its final course.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Shooting someone in the heart IS oxygen deprivation
Loss of consciousness is caused by the sudden drop in blood pressure in the brain. That happens instantaneously. If you've ever stood up too quickly and started to get light headed, you know the feeling, except it would be quicker and more extreme.
I think nitrous oxide would be a better choice. They might not die quickly, but they wouldn't care.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
OK. I'm going to repeat my suggestion that they use nitrous oxide. I suppose it could be mixed with enough nitrogen to ensure that it was fatal. (I heard once that people could survive on pure nitrous oxide, but I didn't believe it, however, just in case...add enough nitrogen.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Seems that letting them see to corpses might be a bit disturbing
This is mostly BS.. There is a huge amount of Helium, it just stays mixed with methane when we burn it, and release it to the atmosphere. The US does have some rich sources of He, while these are around helium will be cheap. Afterwards it will be more expensive, but were not looking at running out this century.
And we have a limited amount of Helium that we can use - and waste it on party balloons
A negligible amount of helium is used on "party balloons". Less than 5% of consumption, and it is usually low grade gas, contaminated with Argon, N2, H2, etc. that would otherwise likely be vented.
The biggest consumer of helium is cryogenics, followed by pressure testing and purging, followed by welding.
Applications of Helium
There's another problem with nitrogen. It's too humane.
If the objective was to simply kill painlessly, all it would need is a couple of bullets to the head. People, though, are bastards. They may talk about 'justice,' but what they really mean is 'vengeance.' The public want a show. The family of any victim want a show. Politicians want a show. Many people will feel physically sickened if they believe the condemned died peacefully, as if the scales remain somehow unbalanced. This is why nitrogen was not introduced as a mean of execution years ago. Not many people are bold enough to openly say they want to see just a little bit of torture first, but it's a very common sentiment.
Lead is more effective, quicker too. Just saying.
Personally I'm staunchly against the so-called, "Death Penalty," for a number of reasons, and not necessarily those you'd think, on account of I don't think quite like most people, but that all said, the idea that the 'state' has a problem figuring out how to murder those among its own citizenry whom they've decided to murder, suggests their government is being done by utter incompetent morons. Killing people, and doing so quickly and reliably, is one of the easier things there is to do...far simpler a task than say, ensuring there's a roof over every head, or food in every belly, etc. A high-powered bullet fired into the back of the head at point-blank range would be very effective, and reasonably humane if for some reason you wanted to murder people judicially, AND cared about that sort of thing. It'd also be cheap, and in this country, not hard to come-by.
If you like, call it death by lethal plumbum injection. Hell, that even sounds funny because to someone who doesn't know how to say "lead" in other languages, it sounds like death is being accomplished by shoving a stonefruit up someone's ass. (Plum-bum, get it?)
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
I think they would die just as quickly, as long as O2 was completely displaced. The difference is they would know they are about to die and passing out that way, even though "high", could still be distressing. With just N2 you don't realize it's coming.
J
[...] the idea that the 'state' has a problem figuring out how to murder those among its own citizenry whom they've decided to murder, suggests their government is being done by utter incompetent morons. Killing people, and doing so quickly and reliably, is one of the easier things there is to do...
Of course. The United States is not short of ways to deliberately murder people. It's just short of ways to do it that involve convincing themselves that they are not deliberately murdering people.
It has to feel like a clinical procedure, otherwise you may as well just be chopping off heads with a sword in the public square.
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A story in 2018 on how to kill people more efficiently. God bless America.
I think there are a few seconds before brain function ceases. However it's not a widely researched situation for some reason.
The problem is not that it's all around so we're "used to it".
The problem is that it's pretty unreactive. As such, there's nothing in our body that's able to detect it. It's one of the reasons it's used in fire suppression, in lightbulb gas (normally something incredibly inert but nitrogen is also used for the same reasons), aircraft fuel systems, sports car tyres, etc.
Nitrogen is only dangerous when it's the only thing left, because it doesn't really do anything useful. You use it in crisp (potato chip) packets to stop things going stale, because nothing biological really uses it.
The problem with nitrogen is that it's dangerously easy to have an accident. No, you cannot ride in a lift with a nitrogen tank. One knock and you'll die and never know. There are protocols for just such things anywhere that uses it (e.g. hospitals, labs, etc.).
The same reason that helium et al also don't provoke a response. Nothing biological really requires them, or nothing reacts with them, so they end up passing unnoticed. That's why you don't feel distress - there is no cell or membrane set up to react with it and provoke any kind of response, because it doesn't perform any useful function.
However, it's silly to think that nitrogen is any different to other gases in this regard. Carbon monoxide is also incredibly unreactive in human biology, biologically indetectable, and actually replaces the oxygen atoms (meaning your blood binds to the carbon monoxide and doesn't release it to pick up oxygen). That's why so many people die from stupid accidents when doing things like putting their barbecue inside their tent-porch, not servicing their gas heater, etc.
Of all the things to use, nitrogen isn't particularly brilliant. At least CO leaks you can detect with a cheap sensor from a hardware store. Nitrogen leaks? You will be hard pushed to spot that in a nitrogen-rich atmosphere without expensive sensors that are slow to react.
The question is not one of "how to kill people humanely". There are millions of ways to do that. It's how to do so safely. The guys setting up the equipment to do this are your concern here, and transporting and maintaining the equipment to do so.
Nitrogen is a fairly stupid idea because, as you point out, it's indiscriminate, hard to detect, and fast-acting. None of those are really necessary for execution.
This has been the obvious way to put people down for decades.
For those concerned about discomfort... two examples:
1. They've done tests where a feed bin emits nitrogen gas. Pigs will go up to it, stick their faces in the bin to eat, not notice that they can't breath, and basically eat normally until due to lack of oxygen they pass out and fall over. Where upon they can breath normally, regain consciousness, and are fine. The point is, the pigs can't tell they can't breath. There've no clue. No instinctual panic reaction to nitrogen.
2. Military pilots are trained in how to deal with hypoxia. They are put in a chamber, given a child's cognitive toy (put square block in square hole, etc), and then the air is replaced with nitrogen. The pilots during this training do not notice the lack of oxygen or that all the air has been replaced with nitrogen. They simply get stupid, act a bit drunk... giggle, and then pass out.
Point is, you can't argue this is a cruel way to put someone down because you can't feel it. The fact that the pigs will literally eat until they pass out for lack of oxygen and the pilots have to be trained to recognize the symptoms makes the matter pretty conclusive.
Doubtless there are those that will object to this on the basis that they just don't like execution. Which "IF THAT" is your stated objection is fine. However, I suspect more than a few people are going to misrepresent their concerns as something else. This is one of those "issues" where people have a tendency to lack integrity when it comes to arguing.
IF you're going to execute someone, then this is the way to do it.
Cheap, certain, painless, no trauma to the body... the sentenced to death simply gets stupid, giggles a bit, passes out, and dies.
No toxic chemicals. No need for doctors with their Hippocratic oaths. No need for drugs special or common. No expensive maintenance costs. Cheap to operate. The only thing that has to be disposed of is the body.
IF you're going to execute someone, this method is from what I can tell... Ideal.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"nitrogen is a heck of a lot cheaper than lethal injection drugs"
Thousands of tons of it ("waste nitrogen") is vented every day in the air separation process.
it actually isnt unproven and is one of the least painful ways to die......
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
They're on death row for a reason. They're going to die anyway. Why this obsession over clean needles and painless death for a person who potentially gave their victims a very painful torturous death? Protection of criminals needs to stop.
Is this my voice? Is THIS my VOICE? Oh well.
For some reason people find the method you mention messy.
I'd personally prefer an honest bullet. Men should at least be able to die with some kind of dignity... I don't understand all this hand wringing about "suffering". I'd suffer more with some patronizing group around me pretending they are doing something humane.
Loss of consciousness is caused by the sudden drop in blood pressure in the brain.
Blood brings oxygen to the brain, and oxygen is what allows the brain to maintain consciousness, so the loss of blood pressure leads to oxygen deprivation. You're talking about one step farther up the chain than GP is.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
And why not simply use carbon monoxide (CO), instead? It's even cheaper to make, there is no panic nor suffocation, but you just fall asleep, to never wake up again. And if injections are too costly, why not just inject air into the bloodstream (that would probably be a horrible death, but electrocution is not exactly euthanasia either), or cut some arteries and let them bleed to death?
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Hammurabi was a hack. Who can call "an eye for an eye" justice?
Human society needs to face the fact that they aren't fit to enact "justice". No system on Earth does anything except punish and harm. There's no understanding of rehabilitation, cause and effect, or other social influences that lead people down the road of crime in the first place. No legal system on this planet is capable of reducing crime because they're too busy deciding on punishments to consider the *cause* behind a person's choices. When someone commits a heinous crime, it is a sign that society has failed that person. Something fucked up in that person's life and they were robbed of a normal life, with opportunities, friends, and meaning.
But you won't hear or read that in any court room. They don't give a fuck about anything except re-election.
Hammurabi a hack? What are you talking about? This shit seems SUPER fair:
"If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death."
"If a son strikes his father, they shall cut off his fingers."
"If any one brings an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death."
"If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death."
it's called ' hypoxis ' ... oxygen deprivation .. and is a disgusting method for 'legal' (read: imoral) executions!
Other names for it might include:
strangulation
lynching
'pillow over the face'
all of which are proved by 100's of years of experience to be effective ....
tkjtkj, M.D.
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
Had an experience with this, I'll tell you, I got lucky
I stuck me head in a chamber that was full of N2 - and the next thing I knew, I woke up on the floor. Never knew what happened, but luckily I fell OUT, not in (design of chamber was intentional for that)
You do NOT feel a thing, everything just goes black - you never know it is coming
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
coming soon to a street corner near you.
Personally I'm staunchly against the so-called, "Death Penalty," for a number of reasons
I'm working on a Constitutional Amendment:
The purpose of law being to establish Justice and insure domestic Tranquility, the execution of law against an offense shall be to redress and rehabilitate.
To this purpose, and to the purpose of a fair and speedy trial, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except as necessary for the security of the public, and any such action shall to the greatest extent achievable respect the dignity of the person as human beings and ensure their individual needs are met and rights protected; and no bail shall be required except where other means are insufficient to the same purpose; and civil damages shall not be imposed in excess of those necessary to redress.
This prohibits punitive action in our justice system, requiring each judgment to impose only so far as is necessary for redress, rehabilitation, and the safety of the public. That might actually make the death penalty unconstitutional.
This is part of a larger "fair government" amendment.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Yes and is that wrong? People generally do not like to kill other people - even when their own survival depends on it. There have been a lot of research done how to get people to kill others in the context of war. That have lead to modern training methods that in most cases are targeted at making the killing an automatic reflex so that the conscious process isn't involved (simplified).
So the state - that is the people - have decided that some criminals have no right to live. So the servants of the people have to make this a reality. So they want to make the actual act of killing another being less of a problem. As you say, fake it to feel more like a medical procedure, disconnect the activation of the killing mechanism from the actual application of the lethal drug etc.
Most people don't like to see others suffer even if the individual have committed horrible acts. The law also forbids cruel punishments so the death have to be as cruelty free as possible.
So what you are complaining about is that the people involved in the punishment the people want to be used are ordinary human beings. I for one am glad that they aren't assumed to be psychopaths without any empathy and that the procedure tries to lessen the psychological impact on the executioners and the executed.
If you want to complain about something complain about the absurdity of killing other people because they have killed others.
Nitrogen is cheaper and have the same effect.
Maybe they were tipped of by Trump who remembered what Nitrogen is called in German, Stickstoff.
Stickstoff translates in English to Suffocating material.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
If someone is watching outside that room then in case of an accident they are easily rescued. Just Just turn on the fans meant to suck the nitrogen out of the room after the execution. They should wake up quickly.
This is mostly BS.. There is a huge amount of Helium, it just stays mixed with methane when we burn it, and release it to the atmosphere.
You are confusing Helium with Hydrogen. Helium doesn't burn and has no relationship to methane.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
N2 at normal pressure isn't soluble enough in blood, so it won't reach the nerves in enough quantity and won't have any effect.
The single effect it has, is that by putting more than the normal fraction of N2 in the air, you give less remain room for O2. And the body doesn't pay attention to O2 levels (otherwise you couldn't go in a mountain without feeling painful suffocation. Instead you only feel tiredness), so the victim will run out of O2 without noticing.
(Body only pays attention to build-up of CO2)
N2 is only soluble at high pressure that's why it's dangerous for divers (normal fraction of N2 times the increased pressures = pressure high enough to get soluble in the blood in significant quantity, divers gets high on N2) (also, divers goes up to fast without decompression steps, N2 decompresses, suddenly isn't soluble anymore at that lower pressure, this excendant N2 forms bubbles, these bubbles cause damage).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You missed the important part where GP claims this process would take 5 minutes, where I said it would be instantaneous.
Um, most of the He is reclaimed from Methane wells, the posters point is that currently we only capture a small percentage of all of the He present in all of the wells we tap because it is not economical to do so and so most of it goes through the natural gas distribution system and escapes when the natural gas is burned.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Why use it on animals? What'd they do? Use it on murderers, child molesters, and rapists. See how they respond.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
you may as well just be chopping off heads with a sword in the public square.
Considering the death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent, this sounds like a much more effective approach...
...they've proved they're not capable of conforming to the most basic of human behaviors.
I like the idea of using gravity. Take them to the top of a 10 story building, push them off. Let the crows and coyotes clean up the mess.
- it's free
- it's simple
- it's foolproof enough (if they survive, just bring them up and do it again)
- it's environmentally friendly
- we have some assurance that their last few seconds on earth may at least a little approximate the fear, terror, and misery they inflicted on someone else.
-Styopa
"Bonus: nitrogen is a heck of a lot cheaper than lethal injection drugs. (and they are getting really hard to obtain)"
lol Nah, there will be a dedicated contracter who is the only one approved and regulated by the state to provide execution gas as some outlandish rate... because of the extra checks for purity, compliance, chain of custody, etc. By the time they get done it will be $150,000 for a 20lb tank of execution gas.
Bleeding to death is painful. The terrible deaths have to be minimized because of the rules against cruel and unusual punishment. Lethal injection is the biggest joke of all, paralyzing someone while, as far as the best can tell, giving a sensation of being on fire from the inside.
"It has to feel like a clinical procedure, otherwise you may as well just be chopping off heads with a sword in the public square."
If you sell tickets you could offset the cost of giving them all those appeals... which is a bit much but since more than half the people we convict are likely innocent it seems like a necessary step.
Loss of consciousness is caused by the sudden drop in blood pressure in the brain. That happens instantaneously.
When GP said,
you don't die from oxygen deprivation for up to 5 minutes
Loss of consciousness != death.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
By prohibiting punitive damages you've just made gross, negligent, and willful unjust and illegal action on the part of business entities almost universally profitable. Punitive damages are needed or else that one time you got caught will never result in a penalty greater than the profit you made doing something you knew you weren't supposed to do.
That isn't going to rehabilitate anything, that is going to encourage more bad behavior. If you want to fix something, fix it so medical device and drug companies have to follow FDA requirements for safe production but are granted no legal immunity from suit by FDA compliance. The FDA should be a screen for the public, it should still be on the company to actually make sure they selling something safe.
Also has the probable benefit (in beef, at least) of pre-treating the meat so it stays red and looks "fresh" longer. Re: exsanguination, the kosher/halal way of slaughter might have some merits to them, especially over CO2 suffocation. They both appear to prescribe quickly severing the airway and major blood vessels.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
This poster knows it correctly. We have seen workers in transformer repairs become victim to nitrogen gas pockets die and never knew what hit them.
If only the USA had, at its disposal, some sort of efficient, economical and widely available way of killing people... I don't know, guns for example?
Seems pretty simple to me: either (a) decide that the death penalty is morally wrong and don't do it or (b) if you must have a death penalty, just stick the victims up against the wall and shoot them - which will be by far the most effective way of satisfying the lust for "retribution" that is the real motive behind the death penalty.
Sure, don't go out of your way to torture people slowly to death but if you're trying too hard to make it less painful than a trip to the dentist that's probably because you're in denial over why you are killing people (clue: the voters want retribution!) - and the more elaborate your execution method, the more there is to go horribly wrong. A couple of well-placed bullets is probably a better end than most law-abiding people can look forward to when their number comes up. "Medical" methods of execution founder because good doctors tend to have views about deliberately killing people - but you have thousands of troops trained to shoot-to-kill... and killing evil criminals who threaten society from within is just as important and good for the country as shooting foreign bad guys (= probably just kids who've been indoctrinated by their leaders) ....right?
Anyway, the victim is going to be pretty comprehensively traumatised by the rigmarole leading up to a ritual execution anyway - the coup de grace is a fairly small part of it. Now, what would be really "cruel and unusual" would be to condemn someone to death, then keep them alive in a hell-hole prison for decades while lawyers re-enact the death penalty debate just for them (probably at their families' expense) - finally executing them after years of raising and lowering hopes of a reprieve... but then, no country would be that ridiculous.
TLDNR: there's no 'nice' way of killing people that can't potentially go wrong and turn into torture - don't pretend there is. Plus, justice is fallible so accept that you're going to kill a few innocent people (they'd have rotted in prison for years anyway, they might prefer a swift conclusion). Don't like them apples? Simple: don't have a death penalty (lots of countries manage without).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Also relevant is aggressively dehumanizing your enemy; if you can convince your soldiers that what they're killing isn't quite human, it'll be a lot easier on them.
Hypoxia by CO2 surplus is an incredibly distressing and painful way to go. I have no idea how anyone could refer to that as "humane".
By a gradual surplus yes, distressing and painful (just try holding your breath for as long as you can). But what if you are being dropped in a 100% CO2 environment? I would imagine it would have the same knock-out time as Nitrogen, since it isn't the gas that is present that knocks you out, but rather the gas that isn't there. And that knock-out time is significantly shorter than the length of time that people can generally hold their breath. Now, I could be completely wrong about my reasoning here. But until and unless I learn differently, that is why in theory I would consider it humane. Obviously in practice any CO2 gas chamber could have problems with displacing all of the O2 quickly enough. And yes, were I looking to die I would be willing to test this hypothesis, as long as I could cancel the test if it turned out that I was wrong (and it should go without saying that I would certainly change my stance on it then, yet I still feel the need to say it).
Fast displacement with CO2 causes distress as well.
Long ago part of my job was to euthanize rats, and CO2 was used because it was safer for working with (because humans would detect leaks and get out) in an enclosed building.
The rats _were_ distressed by it in a way that would be similar to drowning.
Of course. The United States is not short of ways to deliberately murder people. It's just short of ways to do it that involve convincing themselves that they are not deliberately murdering people.
Murder means the death is immoral or unwarranted. Even bad guys might be convicted of "man slaughter" instead of "murder". We deliberately kill people found guilty of certain crimes; we don't deliberately murder them. We are short on ways to humanely end a life.
There are three ethical sticky points on capital punishment. Mistakes do happen, so any execution must take place after sufficient time has elapsed to discover such grave mistakes. Secondly, the execution must be as humane as humanly possible. We will not do death by a thousand cuts, for example, because that would be too cruel. Thirdly, some people argue that any execution is immoral.
you may as well just be chopping off heads with a sword in the public square.
Considering the death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent, this sounds like a much more effective approach...
Punishment should prevent the guilty from repeat offenses as well as serve as a deterrent for others. Some executions are because the criminal poses too great a risk to let live.
My understanding is that we did away with firing squad out of sympathy for the executioners, not sympathy for the condemned.
Though, I recall reading that in a firing squad, one of the rifles is loaded with blanks, so that the shooters can take some solace in being not sure if they killed the person.
I really can't believe people say stuff like this. Well, I can, mainly because people are unbelievably self-centered. Just because it won't run out in your lifetime doesn't mean anything. Helium NEVER gets replenished. When it's released, it goes out into space and is gone FOREVER. Forever is much longer than your lifetime. If you don't care about things just because they don't affect you personally, or within your lifetime, you have NO RIGHT to participant in any conversation regarding the future. Use of resources is fundamentally a discussion about the future.
What's "unproven" about it? Yes, in that situation, it will kill you. That's a fact.
And about pain, etc? It's perfectly easy to have someone pass out with the setup, then supply oxygen and wake them up, and *ask* them how it felt.
I read a note from a FoaF years ago, there was an He leak from an MRI, and they got dizzy, and nearly passed out, no pain involved.
Lethal injections are pretty much a non-option due to EU laws and the fact that almost all pharmaceutical companies are multinational.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I think it's the same for any execution. Someone has to pull the switch, drip the pill, pull the lever on the gallows, charge the needle even if it is done later by machine, etc. With 1 empty rifle, those doing the firing are probably in a better situation than a lot of other sorts of execution.
The idea that the death penalty is a deterrent is ill-conceived. It assumes that people who commit murder are rational and consider the long-term consequences of their actions, and that they think they are likely to get caught. But the reality is most murders are committed in the heat of a moment, by people with poor impulse control and little forethought. And when it's not in the heat of the moment, the killer generally thinks that they will get away with the crime. The severity of the penalty has absolutely no bearing on the murderer's thinking (or lack thereof) in either case.
Seems like the "redress" portion of his wording addresses that. Any profit made off of illegal or negligent activity could be transferred to those harmed, or their next of kin, and not run afoul of it.
By prohibiting punitive damages you've just made gross, negligent, and willful unjust and illegal action on the part of business entities almost universally profitable. Punitive damages are needed or else that one time you got caught will never result in a penalty greater than the profit you made doing something you knew you weren't supposed to do.
Punitive damages are actually illegal in many nations, such as Japan.
Businesses are run by people, who are accountable for their negligent actions. As well, businesses often don't redress; they are fined or sued for a lesser judgment, which is why businesses cause $20 billion in damage and pay $875 million of restitution--a customer loses hundreds of dollars and is compensated $50, from which $35 goes to the lawyer.
Profit isn't the damage you've done; it's often actually less: you might get $50 from someone while providing an unfit product or service, causing $100 in damages--the total redress is $150, and your profit is $50. The only possible way for your profit to be equal to the actual damage is for your actions to be no-harm-no-foul.
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There have been fatalities in labs and paint facilities where people have hooked their respirator into a N2 line rather than the fresh air line. They don't notice. Just a few breaths, and they pass out and die. Most places have non-interchangeable connectors, but there are some old facilities out there where this is still possible.
I don't think that's the problem at all. In my home state, the government murder capital of the world, people actually argue that it is good and proper to watch the condemned suffer and scream in agony. More entertaining, I guess. Of course they claim some nonsense about justice for the families of the victims and whatnot.
Nevermind the fact that we have falsely convicted hundreds of murder here. Of course, we exonerate a record number, too, but that's cold comfort to the families of the already-executed.
Use helium gas.
Then at least death row inmates could turn their last minutes into a comedy skit, should they wish.
I'd much prefer sulfur hexaflouride... Much better for making last-minute threats.
Hi tried it himself with a guy asking him questions. His maths ability went down the pan but he didn't even notice. 'i thought I was doing rather well ' he said afterwards (quoting from memory). He was very close to death and would have died (since he didn't know what was happening dispite being fully aware of what they were doing beforehand) had they not put an oxygen mask over hus face.
I really can't believe people say stuff like this. ... Helium NEVER gets replenished.
Maybe 20 years ago I felt just as you do, and got equally incensed. However I was wrong!
Perhaps you've heard of Alpha Particles in the context of radioactivity before and not really thought about what they actually are. I'll give you perhaps the most relevant quote from the linked article:
"Approximately 99% of the helium produced on Earth is the result of the alpha decay of underground deposits of minerals containing uranium or thorium. The helium is brought to the surface as a by-product of natural gas production."
Until all the heavy radioactive elements in the Earth's core have decayed we're not going to 'run out' of Helium, and by that stage we'll either have moved onwards and upwards or have far more pressing issues to worry about.
nitrogen is tasteless, colorless, and odorless. CO is detectable and tends to give you a headache at lower doses. Other gases will make you start coughing or have strong odor. Pure natural gas is hard (impossible?) to smell, and that's why public utilities add in a warning scent to the gas. When you "smell gas", you aren't smelling the gas, you're smelling the warning additive. It will make you cough though.
(though CO does have the same drowsy effect, I suspect that's true of most oxygen-displacing gasses)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Undoing moderation to say this, but it has to be said. Unless you are naive enough to believe that the U.S. justice system works 100% of the time in capitol cases and always gets the right man, a death penalty by necessity kills innocent people some percentage of the time. Killing innocents is immoral and unwarranted, and by your own terms, murder.
Now some people may be ok with a "small" number of innocent people being killed for no reason, I am not. Supposedly about 1 in 20, subject to locality. I wish I could find a link but I saw an interview with the former pro-death penalty D.A. of chicago who's mind was changed when a DNA evidence review law was passed and almost half of death row inmates were exonerated. (I hope I am not mis remembering details there).
In any case, a country that concerns itself with justice would never take from one single man that which it can not return without just cause.
Where is the penalty? You dumped toxic waste in the backyard of an orphanage for 20 years and told the nuns who run it that it was good for them. Without punitive damages the most you can be sued for isn't even the money you saved versus proper disposal it's the actual cost the orphanage paid for the cleanup (if they didn't or couldn't pay it, it could be argued they weren't damages). And the actual medical bills of those who got sick and could pay them and who can also get enough evidence to win a lawsuit (almost none of them). That means 99% of the sick people will get nothing and you'll probably be ahead by millions while they are literally dying.
There should be no circumstance under which a company engaging in illegal, unethical, or gross negligence or misconduct is ever allowed to pay less than every estimable or accountable profit/savings/or other gain they made from the activity in addition to compensating for the tangible damages they caused. At a minimum you need the old treble damages standard. Make $100 billion on anti-competitive practices or price fixing, pay at least $300 billion in damages and if the company doesn't have it a federal adjudicator should assume control, the board and executives be sacked, and the stock of the largest 10% of shareholders seized so that control of the company can be transferred to new parties, restructuring can occur, and ownership transferred to the plaintiff. That way you target those who gained the most from the activity and discourage anyone else from ever engaging in the same again but without nearly as much disruption as bankrupting the entity. As a bonus, you avoid those top shareholders/board members from polymorphing into a new company and folding up the old paper entity.
They don't really don't care about it being humane for the condemned. They are more concerned about it being humane for the people watching or carrying out the sentence. Like you said, lethal injection is clinical and can be highly automated. Electrocution, beheading, firing squad can be messy which would affect everyone involved and make it harder to support. Personally, if I were to be executed, I would prefer firing squad. Best option would be a chair that I'm strapped into with a bolt gun or .22 against my temple, with a button I can push to trigger it and a backup randomly timed trigger in case I can't do it. Quick, clean, dignified, and at least gives me the chance to do it myself.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Dang you got there first. Argon and you could use high frequency RF to turn the death chamber into a light show as they exit. Or have them lay back on a couch with a cobalt 60 source under the headrest. Strap them in, leave the heavily shielded room, slide the shutter mechanically to expose the source. (Dark humor: of course this has the risk of creating radiation based super villains)
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
A bullet to the head is _messy_ though, and it tends to leave an ugly corpse. Being humane when killing a prisoner also involves dealing with their body afterward, including the fact that the family probably doesn't want to see a massive exploded pile of flesh where a head should be.
In any case, a country that concerns itself with justice would never take from one single man that which it can not return without just cause.
Unfortunately even imprisonment kind of falls in that category -- you can't return time to a person's life either.
The only thing they can return should an inmate be exonerated is their honor and standing in society.. and unfortunately we're moving away from that as well. For example, many applications and other forms that used to ask "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" now ask "have you ever been arrested?" -- so false arrests, crimes for which you were found not guilty, crimes for which you were exonerated.. all of those now get punished in addition to the already questionable practice of discriminating against people who have finished paying their debt to society and are supposed to be treated like free men and women again.
Exactly. That's why I always argued against the death penalty for murders but FOR the death penalty on speeding. Speeding is a premeditated crime where the perpetrator has made a cost/benefit analysis weighing the risk of getting caught vs the value of getting home 5 minutes faster. The death penalty would be a very effective deterrent and people would probably stop speeding over night. I bet people would even require cars to have built in automatic speed control and all road signs to be machine readable. In total, it would probably save a lot of lives every year.
In my home state, the government murder capital of the world, people actually argue that it is good and proper to watch the condemned suffer and scream in agony. More entertaining, I guess.
I don't know what is going through their minds, but I absolutely agree that this is more honest. Brutally honest, indeed.
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[...] the idea that the 'state' has a problem figuring out how to murder those among its own citizenry whom they've decided to murder, suggests their government is being done by utter incompetent morons. Killing people, and doing so quickly and reliably, is one of the easier things there is to do...
Of course. The United States is not short of ways to deliberately murder people. It's just short of ways to do it that involve convincing themselves that they are not deliberately murdering people. It has to feel like a clinical procedure, otherwise you may as well just be chopping off heads with a sword in the public square.
I have sometimes wondered how it is that people who live in a country like the US that allows "capital punishment," and are not actively trying to abolish the practice, can label a country in which people are sometimes beheaded barbaric, and not see the hypocrisy. To such people, the MEANS are more important than the end. I wonder if murder is the only case in which they exhibit this phenomenon.
For example: if someone breaks into a house and steals a diamond ring worth thousands of dollars, most people would condemn the thief. However, what if the thief opened the door not with his hand, or by kicking it down, but by wrapping his tongue around the door handle, and turning it that way, and didn't walk into the bedroom where the ring was kept, but instead crawled like an inchworm, and didn't use any digits to pick the ring up, but did so instead with his ass. So to recapitulate, the thief did not use either hand nor foot in the entire commission of the crime, and moreover, though I've neglected to mention it, he didn't have either eye open throughout, instead relying on his sense of smell. Would he be allowed to get away with the crime because of the FASHION in which he committed it? Of course not. The courtroom stenographer's transcript would be an entertaining read, I suspect, but the elements of the crime have little to do with the means, except in terms of reliability of evidence. HOW one steals isn't important in American law, it's WHAT one steals and whether or not it was a deliberate taking. Similarly, it should be THAT one kills, not HOW that matters, provided the degree to which it constitutes torment is the same. Indeed, beheading could be more humane (though perhaps messier) than other methods, like electrocution, because with a CLEAN beheading, (where the head is parted from the body neatly, with a single, rapid, powerful stroke, loss of consciousness is or should be more or less instantaneous, compared to lethal injection, electrocution, etc., which in some cases can be lingering, tortuous deaths.
Electrocution COULD actually be the most humane, IF sufficiently large amounts of power, (high voltage AND high available current) were passed through the body over a short period of time. If the person being executed were turned instantly into a pile of glowing, white-hot ash, he or she would more than likely never know it happened. In fact, you could guarantee it, provided that the body were destroyed in less time than it takes a nervous impulse to travel to the spinal cord from the body, or from one part of the brain to any other part. It would be over before any realization or understanding of pain COULD occur. Now... I confess I have NO IDEA how much power that would take, but I'm pretty sure if we can produce enough electrical power to illuminate a city, that we could use that power instead to vaporize or sublime a person, and maybe if we had to shut power off to an entire city for a few seconds to do that, perhaps that might be a good thing, to make people understand in a concrete way that someone was just murdered on their behalf. When the whole city goes dark, they might observe, at say, exactly 9 PM, for several seconds, it was because the authorities there diverted ALL of the city's power to the place of execution, where the state took someone's life on their behalf. It would make it r
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Maybe, maybe not. Some Americans seem to be okay with wealth distribution if it's in the form of crony capitalism and trickle-down economics...
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(though perhaps messier) than other methods, like electrocution, because with a CLEAN beheading, (where the head is parted from the body neatly, with a single, rapid, powerful stroke, loss of consciousness is or should be more or less instantaneous, compared to lethal injection, electrocution, etc., which in some cases can be lingering, tortuous deaths.
Actually no, read the part of the living heads at wikipedias Guillotine page. There are many documented cases that it seems that the people are conscious and horrified for an unexpected long time.
---
Anyone who has worked around liquid gasses knows that something like Nitrogen can displace all the Oxygen and CO2 in an enclosed place. It kills painlessly, and quickly. No sensation at all. This is a good idea. I wish I'd thought of it!
" there is no panic nor suffocation, but you just fall asleep, to never wake up again."
You're not a paramedic, or you'd never say that. About 10% of CO cases attended show signs of exactly that (panic and violent reactions), along with violent projectile vomiting and diahorrea.
H2S is a more reliable poison if you want to do things that way.
Air embolisms in the blood stream are also not painless, nor is it particularly effective. Air microbubbles are actually injected in some medical diagnostic procedures.
The USA's fixation with "revenge" and "retribution" is really out on show with the methods and displays of its executions or of its other methods of punishments which have almost zero intent to rehabilitate or reconcile or reintegrate damaged individuals into society. Justice is not served by these and it is little wonder it has the highest crime and incarceration rates in the developed world along with the highest recidivism rates.
Keep me informed... this is my chosen method outa this planet. Maybe with a few Es first. I don't want the feet going black or years of pain I've seen friends and family suffer.
Undoing moderation to say this, but it has to be said. Unless you are naive enough to believe that the U.S. justice system works 100% of the time in capitol cases and always gets the right man, a death penalty by necessity kills innocent people some percentage of the time. Killing innocents is immoral and unwarranted, and by your own terms, murder.
Now some people may be ok with a "small" number of innocent people being killed for no reason, I am not. Supposedly about 1 in 20, subject to locality. I wish I could find a link but I saw an interview with the former pro-death penalty D.A. of chicago who's mind was changed when a DNA evidence review law was passed and almost half of death row inmates were exonerated. (I hope I am not mis remembering details there).
In any case, a country that concerns itself with justice would never take from one single man that which it can not return without just cause.
As I said, mistakes are made. I don't know what percentage of death-row inmates are eventually cleared. You realize it normally takes decades between a conviction and an execution to allow proper appeals? A conviction in the US does not mean 100% absolute certainty, just "beyond a reasonable doubt." I have not argued for or against capital punishment in this thread because it is too nuanced. The lawful execution of someone convicted of a capital offense but posthumously found not guilty is classified as "wrongful death" and not "murder".
According to DeathPenalty.info, 162 death row inmates have been acquitted, had their charges dropped, or received a "complete pardon based on evidence of innocence" since 1973. DNA was a factor in 20 of these cases.
A report from 2014 which looked at convicted death row inmates from 1973 to 2004 found that 1.6% were exonerated; another 35% were "spared from capital punishment, but remained incarcerated".
And how long, exactly, does that process take to work? We're mining millions of years worth of trapped Helium in a very short period of time. Maybe it will replenish on a cosmic timeline, but that's useless to humans.
Nobody wants death by dutch oven!
~~~ Trust me, I'm a professional! ~~~
The death penalty would be a very effective deterrent and people would probably stop speeding over night.
It would be even more effective against people who change lanes without using their turn signals.
Of course, that would be the end of Bavarian Motor Works.
The problem with using nitrogen is that it is incredibly dangerous by virtue of being undetectable by those exposed. If a gas is used for asphyxiation, then it should have an odor just for the safety of bystanders.
Really? Why not just bring back crucifixion. That's the worst, especially if it's done correctly.
Here we go again with, "We're going to kill a punishment for a crime! Now lets find a way to be as humane about the killing as possible. We don't want the person convicted of killing 100 people after raping them in front of their loved ones to suffer in their last moments. I know, lets use this new method of execution."
It's the same thing over and over again. Society often deems crimes like murder as evil and inhumane and punishable by death. Never mind that the criminal taking a life is considered inhuman, when society deals out the death penalty which also has the same end result of taking a life, there's this double-standard that says we must be humane about it because society is supposed to be better than the criminal getting executed.
I really don't know if the death penalty is worth having since there are sound arguments for and against it, but regardless of which side of the fence you're on, I do think that too much time is spent on finding a way to be humane about executing criminals. If you really feel the need to force a way to be higher than the criminal while ending their life, then maybe you shouldn't be killing them in the first place and find some other punishment to fit the crime. If their death is your idea of justice for the crimes they committed then stop wasting time, get the job done, and move on. If you can't do it then you should probably rethink your idea of 'justice'.
Well I can’t say I’m particularly surprised by your reaction, after all no-one likes being told they were wrong no matter how ‘politely’ it was phrased, though I might have preferred a “Thanks, I didn’t know that / I hadn’t thought of it like that” rather than your ‘confrontational’ response.
You do raise an interesting question however:
And how long, exactly, does that process take to work? We're mining millions of years worth of trapped Helium in a very short period of time.
To be honest that’s rather a tricky question to answer, and is going to rely on some serious guess work
I’ll start with a few basic ‘facts’, as I currently understand them:
[1] The Inner Core (of Earth) is a solid sphere of nickel iron, and is roughly 1,100 km thick.
[2] The Outer Core (of Earth) is about 2,200 km thick, and it’s made mostly of a combination of iron and nickel, along with small amounts of other dense elements like gold, platinum, and uranium.
[3] The Mantle (of Earth) is roughly 2,800 km thick, and the thickness of the Crust (the only bit we’ve ever mined – and that only to a ‘trivial’ depth) averages 40 km.
[4] If the Primordial and mostly fluid (still forming) Earth contained any significant mass(es) of elements denser that iron and nickel then these would have necessarily sunk into the core by planetary differentiation.
And, to simplify things, I’m going to make a couple of assumptions:
Any uranium in the Crust (i.e. the stuff we can actually get at to mine) arrived after the formation of the Earth, via meteorites or similar, otherwise it wouldn’t be in the Crust it would have sunk further towards the centre of the Earth. Hence when considering how much uranium there is in the Earth we can ignore any estimates of ‘profitable reserves’, as it’s simply not possible to mine anything deeper than a fraction of the way into the Earth’s Crust.
All uranium is U(238). This is not an unreasonable assumption as this makes up roughly 99% of all naturally occurring uranium on Earth anyway. I say this to simplify half life calculations. The half life of U(238) is roughly 4.5 billion years, so let’s call it 5 billion years.
Coincidentally, the age of the Earth, post cooling to solid, is also roughly 4.5 billion years. Hence half the uranium that was present when the Earth formed has now decayed. However, this isn’t ‘important’ as such for the calculations that follow, just interesting.
I’m going to ignore other radioactives, such as thorium.
The proportion of uranium in the Outer Core is 0.001%. This is probably a bit too high, but I have a pick a number and I’m not actually sure what to base this on. I’m also ignoring any that exists in the, much larger, Mantle, and further decay products so, for my part, I’ll accept the compromise until someone more knowledgeable provides a more realistic and reasoned estimate.
The density of uranium is 20g/cm^3. This is a slight overestimate, but I like round numbers.
Finally I’m going to ignore the quantum nature of half life, and just treat this is an ‘absolute’.
So: The volume of the Outer Core is 1,125,287,295,000 km^3 or, roughly, 1 x10^21 m^3.
Hence the volume of uranium in it is roughly 1x10^16 m^3 or 1x10^22 cm^3.
Hence the mass of uranium in it is roughly 2x10^23 g, which is equivalent to 1x10^47 atoms of uranium.
With a half life of 5 billion years this means that 2x10^37 atoms of uranium will decay in a year, providing the same number of atoms of helium.
This gives us 3x10^13 moles of helium, or 7x10^11 m^3 are being produced each year.
Global ‘consumption’ (though much of this is not actually consumed, but remains in use) was estimated to be (in 2014) 34 million cubic metres, i.e. 3.4x10^7 cubic metres.
In other words, based on my estimates signi
Seriously? For fucks sake - people learned this lesson well over a century ago when piped welding gas and oxidiser gas started to become common. Common connectors - big boom, new factory and staff needed.
Any manager and owner of a place where this happens should be doing first-degree murder time, and should have been doing it for every death like this for a half a century. There is no excuse for this apart from gross negligence, and that is no excuse.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I suppose that not murdering people just isn't an option? No, probably not - it is America after all.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Yup, it will need to be medically pure N2 certified for whatever nonsense.
Never mind a tank of N2 from an industrial supplier would work exactly the same...
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.