I saw a documentary about a guy trying to find a “humane” execution method, he came to the conclusion that suffocation with nitrogen gas probably was the least bad.
It doesn’t trigger a feeling of panic as CO2 poisoning does, you simply drift away in a hypoxic high filled with mild confusion without the dread.
People on both sides of the death penalty issue thought is was barbaric, proponents of the death penalty thought it was wrong to remove the suffering from the person, they felt it would be wrong to let say a serial killer just drift away in a high, while opponents of the death penalty felt it was barbaric as it would lessen the felt impact of taking a life and might cause governments to reinstate the death penalty.
It was an interesting documentary…
That was one of Louis Theroux’s phenomenal docos.
He was super confused at the end when he was met with “but we want to hurt them” it was a bit funny how jarring it was, but also really sad.
I think I found the one I saw, it was this BBC Horizon documentary:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/executions/
https://imdb.com/title/tt1228865/
I am sure I am on a list now for googling
horizon how to kill a human being
Eh, who am I kidding, everyone is on whatever lists the powers that be decide they want us on…
Oh wow that looks interesting, I’ll have to have a watch!
Synopsis:
Former Conservative MP, Michael Portillo pushes his body to the brink of death in an investigation into the science of execution.
As the American Supreme Court examines whether the lethal injection is causing prisoners to die in unnecessary pain Michael sets out to find a solution which is fundamentally humane. To do so he examines the key methods of execution available today: he discovers why convicts can catch on fire in the electric chair, learns how easy it is to botch a hanging and inhales a noxious gas to experience first hand the terror of the gas chamber.
Armed with some startling evidence Michael considers a completely new approach. Will it be the answer? There is only one way of finding out - to experience it himself.
Man if I were the guy this was first being tested on I would probably try and fuck it up in the worst way possible just to screw with the people executing me.
Like as soon as the gas turns on start screaming my ass off like they mixed up nitrogen gas with acid gas instead and produced the worst pain ever until I finally passed out.
One night working late a coworker of mine nearly went that way. He was just tired and said he was spacing out. Meanwhile the alarms were blaring.
Pretty sure I know which one you’re talking about. Was British… BBC or something… But is on YouTube.
I remember the scene where he is in a hypoxic state himself in a chamber and he needs to press a big red button or he dies. They kept telling him “press the button or you die” and he was just so high and goofy laughing about it and not pressing the button.
Very interesting show as you say.
So both sides just wanted some blood eagle shit
We want rehabilitation
If done right, sure.
Alabama tried to kill the person first in line already with lethal injection and failed, so the odds of them doing nitrogen gas right is pretty fucking slim.
They’d have to fuck it up to a truly astonishing degree for it to be anywhere near as bad as a failed execution using the other methods currently in use. Like maybe use chlorine gas instead of nitrogen.
They just need to not have good seals on the mask so non-nitrogen air leaks in which would give the same symptoms as slow suffocation.
Note that they keep fucking up to an astonishing degree, so it is likely to happen with any method they try.
No. It would either work more slowly or it wouldn’t work. There would be no pain.
The feeling of suffocation comes from a buildup of CO2 in the body, not from a lack of oxygen.
Since regular air is pretty close to 80/20 nitrogen and oxygen, simply removing the oxygen results in a painless, odorless death.
It’s actually a concern for people using rebreathers. If the CO2 scrubber keeps working but new oxygen isn’t introduced into the system, the diver will go from feeling fine to passing out without ever knowing it.
Air leaks means that the co2 is not going to be efficiently removed, and your example of a diver is actually supporting the point that the seal needs to be really good for it to be effective. Note that the person drifting off in an execution knows they are dying which is different than just drifting off unknowingly. Painless doesn’t mean it isn’t causing stress from the knowledge of imminent death.
Plus the underlying context of the state fucking up all of their execution methods shows they will fuck this up too. It doesn’t matter how good the method is in theory when they are incompetent.
You really don’t know what you’re talking about here.
A poor mask seal won’t cause them to inhale enough of their exhaled CO2 unless they’re also putting a bag over their head, and the level of atmospheric CO2 doesn’t cause the sensation of suffocation, otherwise you’d feel like you were suffocating at all times.
The death penalty is barbaric, but if you’re going to do it, this is the least-painful method, and one in which botching the execution simply results in nothing happening, as opposed to ther methods where it causes pain and injury.
Yes, the psychological pain/stress isn’t alleviated by nitrogen. I personally think the biggest improvement they could make (aside from abolising the death penalty) would be to do it without a mask in a hyperbaric chamber where the elevated partial pressure of nitrogen would result in nitrogen narcosis and may relieve some of the stress.
A poor seal affects air going in and being pulled out, because the outside air can flow past the air next to the mouth and down the exit tube without going through the person’s lungs. Especially if the faulty seal is on the exit tube connections, which is the kind of fuck up that the state is fully capable of doing.
Without that circulation, they will keep breathing the same air, which will build up CO2.
The system is complex and you apparently assume it is simple and comparable to a room full of nitrogen. The mask is actually more complex.
You clearly don’t know what you are talking about.
would give the same symptoms as slow suffocation
If you don’t understand the science, please STFU.
A bad seal means that the co2 is not being removed properly and not being replaced with nitrogen as designed. Plus the person knows they are being killed, which makes the smallest physical symptoms more noticeable since people do notice things they are expecting.
Being hostile while defending the state that keeps fucking up executions makes you look like an ass.
This is a dilemma.
On the merits of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution:
Nitrogen hypoxia is one of the most peaceful, least painful deaths available, and the concerns of a tortuous death are pretty unrealistic.The air we breathe is 80% nitrogen 20% oxygen, so the body has no adverse reaction to nitrogen. Remove the oxygen, so the person breathes 100% nitrogen 0% oxygen, and the air will feel normal, there is no feeling of suffocation or shortness of breath. However without oxygen one will lose consciousness within a minute or two, and be dead in 5-10 minutes.
For reference, airplanes are pressurized at high altitudes because the less dense air contains fewer molecules of oxygen per lung volume. Past about 11,000’ above sea level, there’s not enough oxygen in the air to sustain full consciousness. Here’s a video of that- the alarm is going off in that guy’s airplane because the pressurization system failed. But in an oxygen-deprived state, he happily reports to the controller with a smile that he’s totally unable to control his aircraft but other than that everything is peachy. You’ll note he is totally unbothered by his condition.
When the controller orders him to descend to 11,000 feet, air density increases, his brain starts working normally again, and he starts making coherent radio calls.The point of this isn’t to be funny, it’s to illustrate that in a hypoxic state he was totally calm and happy and not in any distress at all, even though his aircraft was out of control. So if anything, nitrogen hypoxia might be the most peaceful way to die, as in their final moments the condemned may be less concerned about the fact that they are being executed.
The only possible ‘botch’ I can imagine, is if either the condemned isn’t breathing 100% nitrogen, or the nitrogen is shut off before breathing stops, that could leave the condemned in a state of hypoxic brain damage. That could leave him a vegetable, or alive and awake but brain damaged (low IQ, cognitive problems, etc). That’s the sort of state most places consider ‘unfit to stand trial’ and he gets remanded to a care facility probably for life. And that would require a pretty bad botching to create that situation.
But I still hope the complaint stalls things:
On the other hand, I think execution is a barbaric punishment, and I think we should do all we can to abolish it anywhere it still exists. So I support this group, even though their concerns are unscientific to the point of ridicule.I also suspect I’m very much not alone here. I’m not a doctor, but I am a private pilot and a scuba diver, so I understand what a body needs in terms of breathing gas a bit more than average. I know for a fact I could write a totally bulletproof execution protocol that would provide a reliable, quick, humane, pain-free death. But if I was asked to, I’d refuse, even if it meant giving the condemned a less painful death. Because if such a protocol existed, if the legal system as a whole recognized nitrogen hypoxia as a quick and painless method of execution, that then removes a hurdle for pro-death-penalty states to start executing people.
I suspect I’m not alone because the knowledge I have is far from uncommon. Ask any pilot or astronaut or person involved with breathing gas systems and they’ll tell you the same thing. Yet, few if any seem to be stepping up to ‘solve’ the problem of a humane execution protocol.Gives me hope for the future of humanity.
Yeah, I haven’t and won’t make a plan but have often thought to myself that if I ever do kill myself that’s how I’m gonna do it. Literally just like falling asleep. I’d much much much rather take that than lethal injection
That’s the way I am going to most likely go. One day get some medical test result that doesn’t look good, login remotely to one of the many industrial sites I help manage, set off an alarm for the weekend, come in to the nitrogen storage room, replace the gasket on a valve with a worn out one, then go to sleep for the last time.
Family gets a huge out of court settlement and I don’t spend months of pointless medical torture.
Yes, nitrogen hypoxia is untried as a method of intentional execution.
But it’s well-understood as a method of suicide, and as a way of accidentally dying.
It’s just about the most pleasant, least awful way to die. Your body is wired to detect dangerously high blood levels of CO2, not dangerously low blood levels of O2. So you breathe out CO2, breathe in pure nitrogen, and you get none of that panic feeling that you would normally get if your airway was cut off. It’s like breathing in helium from a balloon; you feel short of breath and get light headed. If it continues, you quickly pass out. IIRC, this was the method of suicide advocated by the former Hemlock Society, back in the bad old days before even Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
I ain’t sayin’ that Alabama uses the death penalty appropriately. (Yes, I support the death penalty, but not in the overwhelming majority of the cases where it’s used now.) But if you’re going to execute people, this is probably one of the most humane ways to do it.
… Alabama is now asking for volunteers to try it out on first. UN experts are yet to sign up.
‘Well, we gon’ try it!’
This is honestly stupid.
They spent insane amount of cash to kill the guy, yet even then they keep failing to do just that.
Either just give him the heavily tested (on animals) and scientifically supported nitrogen, if you really need to kill him that bad or just send him to a damn prison and forget about him.
? They ARE giving him the nitrogen. I’m guessing these experts didn’t want to jump into the Israel fight so found something else to focus on.
Or these experts have no expertise on Israel, so they are smart enough not to do that as experts.
I can’t think of a more current hotbed for torture than Israel or Russia at the moment, can you?
How about the United States? 🤔
