site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26736 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Over a decade ago, the BBC came out with a documentary titled How to Kill a Human Being that went into what the director believed to be the most humane and painless way to execute someone if you really wish to do so. Towards the end of the documentary, they interview someone who believes that death row criminals don’t deserve the most humane death possible because those criminals hardly offered their own victims a humane death. The documentary gives it an air of “Look, we’ve found a humane way to actually do executions, and these barbaric Americans don’t want to do that because to them, bloodthirsty cruelty is the point.”

Well, what do you know, Alabama has now actually implemented this “most humane” form of execution for the first time, and news coverage from the BBC and others have been almost exclusively negative. There’s little to no nuance, just statements that the UN and EU condemns this “particularly cruel and unusual punishment.” Where now is the context that the US is merely doing what it was previously criticized for not doing?

To be sure, the scene of thrashing does seem to be more violent than the documentary insinuated such an execution would be, but that itself appears to be because the inmate tried to forcibly hold their breath for as long as possible instead of allowing themselves to pass out from hypoxia. I wouldn’t pin the blame for voluntary thrashing on the method of execution.

What do you think? Am I wrong in reading this as just another case of “Americans can do nothing right”?

I watched that or something similar quite a while ago, and the major difference between the attempted execution that didn't go to plan and the one proposed is to use a chamber with the atmosphere replaced rather than the mask that failed to achieve the purpose it was meant to.

Somehow the richest and most powerful society in the world, one that executes a hundred million cows a year, can't figure out how to execute humans because uh, it's messy.

AFAIK what happens with animals when butchered is not very nice.

And while it is fine with me in case of animals - I would have higher standards for death penalty.

I mean, a captive bolt pistol with a large caliber seems like a fairly humane way to go. I don't think there's much left when half your brain gets smashed to mush.

But at that point why just not hang people or use a guillotine? Not sure why those are unacceptable.

Not sure why those are unacceptable.

for some people blood is unacceptable while executing people is fine

or managed to stop beheadings without stopping executions

Well for those people we invented hanging, which is more finicky but still fairly reliable provided it's done by a professional.

Basically all non-torture execution methods are probably less painful than the median "natural" death. The idea that a few minutes of writhing is considered unacceptable is laughable. I've got some bad news for y'all. You, yes you, and your parents, and everyone you love, are going to writhe in pain for a lot more than a few minutes at some point before you die. Even if Canada-style MAID becomes the standard everywhere, imagine how much pain you would have to be in before you decided to end it once and for all.

Eh, what about carbon monoxide poisoning, or nitrogen narcosis, or enough morphine to kill a large horse? Or heck, how about general anesthesia followed by a severing of the carotid?

Have we really not figured out how to reliably get a human to go to sleep and never wake up?

Nitrogen narcosis is what they are condemning as inhumane.

As an aside, hunters advance this justification. A rifle bullet through the chest is generally a much less miserable way to go than dying in the wild of starvation after you've broken your leg due to natural age-related muscle wasting. Or natural being-eaten-alive by the resident cougar because you're just not so good at avoiding predators in your senior years.

Assuming the hunters are hunting animals that are old enough (not uncommon if your species is not considered a nuisance species), hunting can be seen as a flavor of mercy.

Now I want to see a documentary about game hunting-as-conservation and the game meat trade, titled “A Flavor Of Mercy”.

Well, what do you know, Alabama has now actually implemented this “most humane” form of execution for the first time, and news coverage from the BBC and others have been almost exclusively negative. There’s little to no nuance, just statements that the UN and EU condemns this “particularly cruel and unusual punishment.” Where now is the context that the US is merely doing what it was previously criticized for not doing?

Obviously it's negative because they are opposed to the concept of a death penalty altogether.

Regarding Canada or other examples or scenarios, waaaay easier to put someone to death who wants to die and will comply compared to someone who does not.

Why don't they just make the OD on opiates? You just fall asleep and stop breathing.

No supplier will sell them the opiates.

I find it deeply ironic that the criminal justice system, which spends a lot of time interdicting illegal shipments of vast quantities of opiates, would have trouble getting its hands on some.

You're not wrong, though, I don't think they could get legitimate suppliers to do so over the table, while at the same time "leave a lethal dose of fentanyl and clean needles, and pretend not to notice the OD" is probably more effective than we'd like to admit, but also wouldn't work in all cases.

Is it ironic that the police confiscate a lot of guns but still have to purchase service weapons?

Seems similar enough to me.

If there was a handgun shortage, and police were going on patrol unarmed as a result, I would consider that quite ironic.

I'm not convinced; the Chinese are more than happy to sell fentanyl in massive quantities into American markets.

The states can’t order from a non DEA licensed source

Do you think the fentanyl crisis is caused by people who are legitimately ordering their fentanyl for medical purposes?

(this comment was dumb and I misread the post I was replying to)

No …

Please forgive me and disregard my post - I misinterpreted your comment and saw it in the wrong context.

Probably because finding a doctor who will assist in this request is both necessary and difficult.

Doesn't a doctor (or a nurse) need only to put needle in convict and actual dose injected by executioner?

The sociological interest lies in watching people fail to join the dots.

The airplane safety card has a section on depressurization and the oxygen masks dropping down. "Put your own mask on first."

The danger being guarded against is that the parent takes too long trying to fit the mask on their frightened child and the parent passes out themselves. But how could that happen? Surely the parent soon suffers respiratory distress that forces them to fit their own mask before resuming helping their child? No. Hypoxia doesn't work like that. It is the carbon dioxide that makes you want to breath and the parent is breathing that out just fine. You can pass out from hypoxia with very little warning. I think this is now widely know, mostly due to the warning on the airplane safety card. The warning retains its place on the terse card because they want every-one to know.

There are other routes to this knowledge. Starving My Brain of Oxygen…For Safety?!? is two minute video on pilot training

Without proper training, pilots may not recognize the symptoms of hypoxia

More on the hypoxia training story I was looking for a much older video, which I think was an upload of a historical film of hypoxia training for pilots, with the low oxygen environment being some kind of Nissen hut. Hypoxia training isn't new.

There is a classic industrial accident involving a storage tank. Workman climbs down inside to do maintenance after the tank has been drained. But the residual chemicals have reacted with the oxygen, so he climbs down into a nitrogen atmosphere and dies. His safety buddy sees that he has passed out and, forgetting his training, climbs inside to do a heroic rescue. He also dies. Do you prefer Deaths from Environmental Hypoxia and Raised Carbon Dioxide or Confined Spaces Deadly Spaces: Preventing Confined Space Accidents? The YouTube video has a cute animation with a plumber with a mustache (Mario?) testing the air in the sewer. This also happens down on the farm Incident Investigation: Worker Loses Consciousness in Manure Spreader Tank | WorkSafeBC.

News coverage pretends to know none of this

In his Guardian interview, Smith said he feared that if Alabama carried out his execution it would put the new killing method of nitrogen hypoxia on the map.

The news coverage makes it seem that you can blunder into a confined space with little oxygen, gasp and struggle, and face the horrifying prospect that if you cannot escape in twenty-two minutes, then the lack of oxygen will kill you. And that this is a new hazard. I would feel more comfortable with agit-prop headlines screaming: Capitalism has been killing workers with nitrogen hypoxia for decades.

I'm feeling a little lost. Was the execution deliberately botched by pro-death-penalty activists trying to persuade the impalers and the crucifiers that the method is sufficiently cruel? Were the difficulties invented by anti-death-penalty activists trying to persuade us that the method is excessively cruel? I can tell that I'm being lied to, but not why or by whom or which details are false.

I can also see that the lying isn't being called out, perhaps not even noticed. The lies contradict well known stories about how the world works and how to avoid being killed by it, and yet people don't seem to join the dots and complain about the contradictions. That troubles me.

There is a classic industrial accident involving a storage tank.

You may appreciate USCSB's "Hazards of Nitrogen Asphyxiation" video as well.

Was the prisoner a heavy smoker? The details are hazy, but I remember reading that the respiratory system of a smoker is so accustomed to high CO2 levels in the lungs that it uses O2 leves to drive the breathing cycle instead.

No, he's been in prison for 35 years. If he was a heavy smoker beforehand(very plausible) he's been clean for decades.

You can't smoke in American prisons? TIL

Not officially, no. All American prisons are- I think the Russian term is ‘red prisons’, where they’re controlled by the gangs, so some do anyways- but death row inmates are highly monitored and separated from the general population.

It's the other way around. "Black prisons" are those where the wardens let the prisoners manage themselves as long as a semblance of discipline is maintained, "red prisons" are those where the wardens manage everything by the book.

However, smoking isn't banned in Russian prisons no matter their color. It's banned in control units of various kinds, but if your specific punishment type includes a walk, you are allowed to smoke during it.

The "red" ones are cop prisons. Gang prisons are "black".

Oh, then they’re black prisons.

If pop culture has taught me anything, they're too busy using them as currency to actually smoke them.

CO2 is not relevant in this case. Death is due to hypoxia, not CO2 poisoning.

Yes, but the gasping reflex is driven by CO2 levels in healthy humans and O2 levels in smokers.

I found an article with a detailed timeline. It says that the attorney general gave officials the go-ahead for the execution at 7:56. It then says that Smith "began to shake and writhe violently" at 7:58, and that this lasted around 2 minutes. It then says he began taking deep gasping breaths and that his breathing was no longer visible at 8:08 (unclear if it was visible at 8:07 and then stopped, or if that is just when the journalist first noted it was not visible). It quotes the Alabama Corrections Commissioner as saying the nitrogen gas flowed for 15 minutes. So the most obvious possibility, assuming that he held his breath and then began to shake either when they began the gas or after he started running out of oxygen, would be that he lost consciousness in 2-4 minutes and took 10-12 minutes to stop breathing. It is also possible he began to shake before they began administering the gas, in an attempt to get the execution delayed again like had happened previously, in which case the timeline would be less clear.

The BBC article quotes Alabama journalist Lee Hedgepeth as saying that "Kenny just began to gasp for air repeatedly and the execution took about 25 minutes total.". My first thought reading this (and the beginning of the post I was writing before deciding to try finding an actual timeline), was that "total" could include the time before they began administering the gas, the time after he lost consciousness, and the time after he was dead when they still had the mask running or were otherwise doing something that the journalist considered part of the execution process. In classic "The Media Very Rarely Lies" fashion, mentioning "total" execution time after mentioning him gasping for air makes it sound like he was living/conscious/suffering for 25 minutes after they began the gas, but does not actually say so. The timeline confirms it, there was 22 minutes between when they opened the curtains at 7:53 and closed them at 8:15. So the 22 minutes includes before the execution was ordered, after he was unconscious, and after he was dead (and then Hedgepeth rounded up to 25).

The Department of Corrections had required Hood to sign a waiver agreeing to stay 3 feet (0.9 meters) away from Smith’s gas mask in case the hose supplying the nitrogen came loose.

It is a deficiency in the article that it fails to mention the composition of the air that Hood was breathing. It would have clarified why Smith's attempt to avoid hypoxia by holding his breath demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the peril he faced.

I can tell that I'm being lied to, but not why or by whom or which details are false.

Execution being botched is also possible, all reported facts can be true here.

I'd go Hanlon's Razor here, a video of violent thrashing is pretty evocative evidence if you don't bother to do further research, and most people don't.

Also I don't know why this is the most humane method, I would think something like 'detonate large c4 brick under their pillow while they're asleep without prior warning' would be most humane, just more aesthetically upsetting to everyone else.

And sure, rebuilding the cell is probably expensive, but the entire nation does less than 20 executions a year. Compared to the court costs, it's probably a minor expense on the overall system.

People have a hangup where they interpret visible damage to the body as suffering.

Visible damage usually causes suffering. Visible distress, such as this man’s doomed attempt to hold his last breath or George Floyd’s struggles as he died of overdose under an officer’s grip, is the hangup. Distress is easily interpreted as a sign of damage, but the obvious is not always the underlying truth.

I was similarly confused by the media coverage of this execution, but what seemed likely to me was that a couple of outlets whose reporters are already trained to see swastikas in every shadow pattern-matched "asphyxiation by nitrogen" with "gas chambers," told all their friends that "Alabama is doing a Nazi thing," and then they all ran with it.

Regarding humane forms of execution, seeing as two things the US has in excess are fentanyl and guns, I always figured we should dope them up and then shoot them in the head, but that would run afoul of the unwritten rule that execution must be as clean and sanitized as possible so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the executioners. To which I say if we as a society can't stomach the sight of someone's brains splattered against a wall then we may as well abolish the death penalty because we clearly can't handle the weight of the responsibility.

I always figured we should dope them up and then shoot them in the head

Why bother with step 2? Step 1 will accomplish the job on its own.

but that would run afoul of the unwritten rule that execution must be as clean and sanitized as possible so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the executioners

That's not to not offend the sensibilities of the executioners, that's to not offend the sensibilities of death penalty opponents who are trying to nickel and dime the death penalty away.

As ever, there is absolutely no reason to treat objections to specific methods of the death penalty as good-faith disagreements. The overlap between people that insist that another method be used and people that don't want anyone executed is almost complete. For those of us that think there should be at least an order of magnitude more executions, most of us don't actually care about the method; if I thought updating from firing squad to some fake and lame "humane death" would be a compromise that gets people to stop trying to save the lives of vile murderers, I would take the compromise. I do think execution should be done by methods where the executor can't avoid the fact that they're ending a life, but whatever, I'm not that insistent on the point.

While the United States is slow about it and doesn't execute enough people, that it still does it to some of the worst people in the world is a great example of it retaining civilizational superiority over countries that take pride in their weakness.

I, a minarchist, am of the opinion that the elected governor should be the one to throw the lever, turn the knob, or fire one of the guns with a 1/4 chance of having a blank. The denial of an appeal for mercy is basically this, so let her feel the moral weight of the death and the moral hazard of the doubt of “maybe he truly was innocent”.

As someone who has been opposed to the death penalty for a long time, I can assure you that people opposed to the death penalty aren't making any arguments that are overly concerned with the specific method. The usual case is that proponents try to sanitize the process as much as possible to avoid bad PR. Capital punishment is a much easier sell if it looks more like putting down a dog rather than a violent, public action. Opponents simply point out that these methods aren't as "humane" as their proponents like to make it seem. I don't know of anyone who has ever argued that they'd be in favor of capital punishment if only we could eliminate the suffering involved. To the contrary, I and several of my friends of the same disposition are of the opinion that if we're going to have capital punishment we should stop pussyfooting around and just do it. Firing squad and hanging are still viable methods of execution in the US, but the authorities in places like Alabama that like to thump their chests about capital punishment are too squeamish to actually implement them, and instead turn to half-assed measures like nitrogen hypoxia in a vain attempt to make people think that the business of killing someone against his will is a perfectly cromulent practice.

I remember back in the 90s Phil Donahue or some other left-leaning talk-show host wanting to show an execution on television in the hopes that it would end public support for capital punishment. I also remember, a few years later, news reports that public opinion for the practice dipped to an all-time low following the heavily publicized execution of Timothy McVeigh (before shooting back up after 9/11). If all of these southern governors so adamant about the necessity of the death penalty are serious, they should have no problem 1.) Using execution by firing squad, 2.) Personally attending an execution, and 3.) Either showing it on TV or livestreaming it. The fact that this is the one part of the penal system that's kept under wraps says a lot. PRisons have no problem bringing in TV crews for reality shows and allowing access to various do-gooders who want to help prisoners. Fines are pretty self-explanatory. Community service is done within the community, and even the oft-criticized "forced labor" of chan gangs is usually done right along a public highway. But when it comes to executions, they don't want to even record the process let alone broadcast it, and we rely on descriptions from a select group of journalists and other witnesses to even know what happens. All I ask is that if death penalty proponents are serious, they stop half-assing the process and let people see it. Public executions were the norm throughout most of human history, and I haven't heard any compelling reasons why, if we're going to keep the death penalty, we have to hide it from the public.

Public executions were the norm throughout most of human history, and I haven't heard any compelling reasons why, if we're going to keep the death penalty, we have to hide it from the public.

This is usually justified by death penalty proponents as giving privacy to a dying man as the only mercy available. The punishment is death, it isn't suffering, it isn't humiliation.

On an additional practical note, public executions in this day and age would be attended by dueling sets of activists and maintaining security can present a potential problem. In the 19th century it was also noted that public executions were sometimes used by deranged condemned to put on a spectacle.

I think deranged it a bit much. Part o& the reason for a public execution is the lack of mass media that is widespread enough to get the message out as the state needs it out there.

The message would be essentially three things: person is found guilty of a crime, the state is able to catch try, and punish people, and the state has decided that the crime is serious enough that a harsh sentence is warranted. In our era, coverage of the crime is pretty solid, and at the time of trial, most of the details are known. You know they’ve been arrested, you hear about the crime, and you hear the sentence. There’s really no need to publicly execute the person on top of that because we have news to tell us. Go back 150 years or more and it might take time to get news to all of the surrounding communities that someone had committed a crime worthy of death. Go back 250 years and getting the same news out gets harder still. But people would gather for the execution and of course talk about it (and the more of a spectacle you make, the better) which makes a public execution a way to leverage a sort of virality to make sure that people don’t do the kinds of crimes that get them executed.

All I ask is that if death penalty proponents are serious, they stop half-assing the process and let people see it.

Once again: this isn't because of proponents. It's because of opponents. This is a constant issue with death penalty arguments. Someone claims that the fact that we don't do X means that we are ashamed of the death penalty. No, "we" don't do X because if we did, the activists who don't like the death penalty regardless of what we do would raise a stink about it. I'd be fine with public executions. But there would be campaigns and boycotts and blacklisting by people who don't really think non-public executions are any better than public ones, but who will do anything they can to make the death penalty harder.

Why aren't executions public? Activists. Why don't we just hang or shoot them? Activists. Why do we make it look medical? Activists. Why do we care so much about making it painless? Activists. Don't blame proponents for any of it.

On this topic, I really smell a meme of, "Just fucking tell me how I'm allowed to execute people." The unfortunate thing for @Rov_Scam is that, even if he is personally willing to tell you how he'll let you execute people, he doesn't speak for all of the other folks who are against whatever variations of capital punishment. And of course, there are some folks who are just against it in general and will jump back and forth between arguments willy-nilly.

I think the proponents of capital punishment would easily be able to rally their ranks around any particular method of execution that was Officially (TM) deemed acceptable by opponents. I don't think any plurality of opponents can be formed to credibly commit to finding any particular method of execution acceptable.

Public executions were the norm throughout most of human history, and I haven't heard any compelling reasons why, if we're going to keep the death penalty, we have to hide it from the public.

Sentiment turned against public executions through scenes like the one Charles Dickens describes from the hanging of Frederick and Maria Manning:

Devonshire Terrace,

Tuesday, Thirteenth November, 1849

Sir,

I was a witness of the execution at Horsemonger Lane this morning. I went there with the intention of observing the crowd gathered to behold it, and I had excellent opportunities of doing so, at intervals all through the night, and continuously from daybreak until after the spectacle was over. I do not address you on the subject with any intention of discussing the abstract question of capital punishment, or any of the arguments of its opponents or advocates. I simply wish to turn this dreadful experience to some account for the general good, by taking the readiest and most public means of adverting to an intimation given by Sir G. Grey in the last session of Parliament, that the Government might be induced to give its support to a measure making the infliction of capital punishment a private solemnity within the prison walls (with such guarantees for the last sentence of the law being inexorably and surely administered as should be satisfactory to the public at large), and of most earnestly beseeching Sir G. Grey, as a solemn duty which he owes to society, and a responsibility which he cannot for ever put away, to originate such a legislative change himself. I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution this morning could be imagined by no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun. The horrors of the gibbet and of the crime which brought the wretched murderers to it faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks, and language of the assembled spectators. When I came upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and howls that were raised from time to time, denoting that they came from a concourse of boys and girls already assembled in the best places, made my blood run cold. As the night went on, screeching, and laughing, and yelling in strong chorus of parodies on negro melodies, with substitutions of “Mrs. Manning” for “Susannah” and the like, were added to these. When the day dawned, thieves, low prostitutes, ruffians, and vagabonds of every kind, flocked on to the ground, with every variety of offensive and foul behaviour. Fightings, faintings, whistlings, imitations of Punch, brutal jokes, tumultuous demonstrations of indecent delight when swooning women were dragged out of the crowd by the police, with their dresses disordered, gave a new zest to the general entertainment. When the sun rose brightly— as it did— it gilded thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth or callousness, that a man had cause to feel ashamed of the shape he wore, and to shrink from himself, as fashioned in the image of the Devil. When the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them were turned quivering into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgement, no more restraint in any of the previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there were no belief among men but that they perished like the beasts.

I have seen, habitually, some of the worst sources of general contamination and corruption in this country, and I think there are not many phases of London life that could surprise me. I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of time, could work such ruin as one public execution, and I stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits. I do not believe that any community can prosper where such a scene of horror and demoralization as was enacted this morning outside Horsemonger Lane Gaol is presented at the very doors of good citizens, and is passed by, unknown or forgotten. And when in our prayers and thanksgivings for the season we are humbly expressing before God our desire to remove the moral evils of the land, I would ask your readers to consider whether it is not a time to think of this one, and to root it out.

I am, Sir, your faithful Servant.
Charles Dickens

You can say that this is all just stupid sentimentality and why shouldn't treat executions as public entertainment (if the Coliseum was good enough for the Romans, it's good enough for us!) And indeed, if our society has become coarsened enough, why not? But I think having public executions will be a battleground for two sets:

(1) Anti-capital punishment, who will want to show the degrading and inhumane activity and get it banned. (2) Pro-capital punishment, who are purely about vengeance and would have no problem watching someone dangling from a botched hanging and slowly strangling to death for minutes at a time.

Though I can understand the family members of victims wanting "yes, he should suffer torture and slow death the same way he inflicted it on my loved one", I think a lot of people who think they're tough enough to watch an execution and simply laugh at it might change their minds when faced with the reality. I don't think it is beneficial to society in the long run to coarsen our citizens to the extent that public torture is "eh, the last Saw movie was better, gorier, more enjoyable".

(I'm anti-capital punishment and anti-abortion, if anyone needs to know my positions here).

While the United States is slow about it and doesn't execute enough people, that it still does it to some of the worst people in the world is a great example of it retaining civilizational superiority over countries that take pride in their weakness.

I dunno. some of the worst civilizations/ societies also executed a ton of people. Saudi Arabia, for example, of more executions not leading to a better society. But I think the scope should be expanded to include pedos and the like.

Correct, the death penalty is so historically common and normal that pretty much every society will have had it. Killing the worst criminals is no guarantee of a quality civilization, but not killing them is an indication that the civilization has pathological empathy.

but not killing them is an indication that the civilization has pathological empathy.

or being indicator of being functional enough to keep them in prisons

The continued life of Anders Breivik isn't an indicator of being functional.

I would not optimise for edge cases.

Though if Breivik would be executed I would be fine with it.

But I think the scope should be expanded to include pedos and the like.

Up until 2008 there were people on death row in the United States for pedophilia and several death penalty states maintain laws allowing them to do so, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional during an election cycle. This is an interesting example of the usual dynamic where elite opinion is sharply negative towards the death penalty even as it retains popular support.

I believe Steven Pinker made the point that the death penalty has popular support in many Western nations and that the only reason the US hasn’t fully outlawed it is because (contrary to belief) it’s more democratic.

So, taken through this lens, the reason those other nations are so much less barbaric is because the civilized elites can successfully exert more of their political will.

I think it works as a deterrent (notably against desertion during war) which is why not outlawed outright, and states' rights mean states have discretion to use it. The U.S. philosophy of criminal justice is more about deterrence and retribution than rehabilitation, which I think is the correct one.

Does it work as a deterrent generally, though? There are only six states that actively execute criminals, exclusively for murder. Of those six states, out of all 50 states and DC, Mississippi has the second-highest murder rate, Alabama fourth, Missouri seventh, Oklahoma 19th, Texas 22nd, and Arizona 23rd. They're all in the top half of states (plus DC) for murder rate, and comprise 2 of the top 5 and 3 of the top 10. If we expand our horizons a bit, there's no real correlation on an international level, either.

Mississippi has the second-highest murder rate, Alabama fourth, Missouri seventh, Oklahoma 19th, Texas 22nd, and Arizona 23rd.

Hm..but those states also have among the worst demographics too . Life on death row, even if it does not lead to an execution, is also a deterrent. Nordic countries are known for being lenient about punishing homicide. This may work for their high-trust demographic, but I think it would be a disaster if tried in the US.

Don't we need to establish the way the causal arrow goes? Places with high murder rates may feel especially compelled to keep executing criminals on the table because without them they'd have even higher murder rates.

What do you think? Am I wrong in reading this as just another case of “Americans can do nothing right”?

Maybe, but opposition to the death penalty is a perpetual liberal elite hobby horse. It's extremely predictable that the BBC would switch from "if they wanted a humane method of execution they would do X" to "X is inhumane" when Alabama/Oklahoma/Japan/Singapore started using X as an execution method.

So why this particular hobby horse for the elite?

Pathological reliance on the care/harm moral foundation, the natural result of an echo chamber about the sanctity of human life, a perverse morality which elevates the worst precisely because they are the worst; there are any number of possible explanations, they're all going to be "boo outgroup" (even if, especially if, they seem plausible), and they don't really matter. The fact of it is enough.

What do you think? Am I wrong in reading this as just another case of “Americans can do nothing right”?

Apparently yes. But not in way you meant. Judging by

execution took about 25 minutes total (...) What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life, (...) "appeared that Smith was holding his breath as long as he could."

it seems that they failed to asphyxiate them properly. Suffocation by nitrogen gas should not take so long, unless this guy was experienced freediver.

Judging by

That was all expected and was in the side effects that we've seen or researched on nitrogen hypoxia

it seems that either they are in denial or plan was stupid. (AFAIK asphyxiation should happen faster, so it was incompetence in executing execution)

Disclaimer: I have not fact checked article. Maybe they were lying outright.

Ironic how trying to make it painless just makes it worse

I read an interview with a Swedish expert who, while being negative about death penalties in general, was similarly confused about how long it took and all the reported thrashing, which goes against all experience with industrial accidents where people pass out and die very quickly without they themselves or their nearby colleages realising what's going on.

Something clearly went wrong here.

The usual response is, why not euthanize people in the same way animals are euthanized. Humans have a more advanced nervous system in that they can respond by being aware of the procedure, whereas an animal is not. The condemned ,reasonably, do not wish to die and will do everything possible to delay the process and not comply, with lawyers who will look for any procedural misstep to forestall, adding to the complications. Remove the 'human rights' aspect and putting people to death is trivial.

Half-baked thought: all of those industrial accidents don't involve victims aware that it's happening. I can imagine that, while it can sneak up on you, being told you're going to die invokes all sort of deeply-rooted vestigial instincts. Industrial workers in confined spaces aren't generally trying to hold their breath or escape. This may apply to some of the times lethal injection goes poorly as well.

Sure, but you can't hold your breath for 25 minutes. For most people it's like 2 minutes and then you would get knocked out. It's not just that it sneaks up on you, it happens very quickly.

Something is fishy here. Maybe they had too low a concentration of nitrogen?

An interesting thought that genuinely hadn't occurred to me until you pointed it out. While the ability to voluntarily hold one's breath is typically limited to 2 -3 minutes a reasonably healthy Human body is capable of functioning on limited or no oxygen for a significant amount of time (closer 10 to 15 minutes). Hypoxia is pernicious in that it sneaks up on you, without explicit warnings/training most people will not recognize that they are in trouble until they've already burned 90% of their available time assuming they recognize that they are in trouble at all because by that point cognitive ability has already started to decline.

Accordingly, I'm now wondering if they ought to have sedated the guy or gotten him blackout drunk first. Throw a big party on death row, get everyone plastered and then pump in the nitrogen.

Also, maybe industrial accidents with someone living after minutes do not end in deaths or being noticed more widely?

But being able to survive for 25 minutes without oxygen, holding breath, seems unlikely.

Maybe they fucked up delivery mechanism of nitrogen? Managed to still give access to oxygen?

You'd think they would test it on a sheep or something during commissioning.

I remember this documentary! I watched it only once, when it came out, so it must have left an impression.

Honestly this seems like a big nothing to me. Even if you consider that the article wasn't really fair (though it seems reasonably balanced) it's not really reasonable to expect the BBC to have a consistent journalistic line on a specific, previously hypothetical execution method. the UN and especially the EU are just straight up against the death penalty - you can't join the EU if you have it - their opinions are not defined by a 15 year old speculative documentary. Also, the implication that Alabama was in any way shape or form concerned with the opinions of Yurop when they adopted this policy is hilarious.

The 'someone' they interviewed in the documentary wasn't some random from a trailer park - it was Professor Robert Blecker, who was (apparently) an extremely prominent figure in the death penalty debate. seems like the documentary made some effort to find a steelman for the pro-death-penalty side, no? Yes, yes, I know, journalists are the enemy, they love to misrepresent. But nobody forced that (probably very media savvy) professor to go on the air and talk about how humane execution is stupid because murderers should suffer. That "bloodthirsty cruelty is the point." was literally his point.

Edit: based on the timeline found by @sodiummuffin I’m going to take back the next paragraph about Alabama fucking it up. The guy actually did hold his breath for about 2 mins, struggled for about 2 mins, then passed out and died.

And as for the execution itself, it's pretty simple. They just fucked it up. the execution took 25 minutes and apparently the execute-ee was struggling for most of that. the 'holding his breath' excuse doesn't pass the smell test. Unless the guy was an olympic freediver he would have been able to hold his breath for, like, three minutes, then pass out and die. you can't survive in a nitrogen-only atmosphere for 20+ minutes, it's just physically impossible. Probably they didn't secure the mask properly or something and left the guy breathing diluted atmosphere.

Anyway, Alabama: Good idea, poor execution, 5/10 do better next time.

I think other commenters have a point in that the "struggling and writhing" for two minutes may have been the condemned trying to dislodge the mask and hold up the execution, as well as instinctive struggling against death that he knew was coming.

"But nobody forced that (probably very media savvy) professor to go on the air and talk about how humane execution is stupid because murderers should suffer. That "bloodthirsty cruelty is the point." was literally his point."

His words may have been taken out of context, as often happens in documentaries and interviews and interviews that are part of documentaries. It happens to people who one would think are media savvy.

Also, the implication that Alabama was in any way shape or form concerned with the opinions of Yurop when they adopted this policy is hilarious.

Is it? They probably adopted it due to its reputation as a humane form of execution, some of which is due to Europe.

It's been a while since I deep-dived on US execution policy, but what I remember is that every state has lethal injection, but sanctions from Europe make it progressively harder to obtain lethal injection drugs. The supreme court isn't friendly to the electric chair, so Alabama had to come up with something they could cast as humane, and some of the reputation for humane is due to Europe, but it's more about keeping the supreme court happy.

It’s not European sanctions that are preventing US states from obtaining lethal injection drugs. Yes I’m aware that some states were getting the drugs from, I think, the Netherlands for a while before they blocked the export, but the idea that the US, a country of 330 million people with the largest pharmaceutical industry on the planet, can’t possibly internally source drugs to kill people is absurd. The point being that it isn’t Europeans causing problems for the American death sentence, it’s other Americans.

I suspect that Alabama moving to nitrogen hypoxia is about 1% to do with humane-ness and 99% to do with the fact that unlike controlled drugs, it’s impossible to prevent Alabama from acquiring Nitrogen.

I dunno, if I'm a drug company, I'd look at "manufacturing drugs that very rarely get used" to be a vestigial-at-best method of generating profit versus "make cool and novel drug and get rich off the patent."

Which, of course, is ridiculous. No one penning the Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment would have regarded hanging as cruel and unusual. To make a legal argument against the Constitutionality of execution basically requires pretending the words don't mean what everyone understood them to mean until approximately last Tuesday.

I'm pretty sure it's 100% outgroup-hatred along standard culture war lines. Executing convicted murderers is a red tribe value, therefore to all blue tribe civilized society, it's savage, uncivilized, and wrong no matter how it's done, and every weapon in the culture war will be brought to bear to oppose it. That explains why a genuine attempt to do it in a more "humane" way has absolutely no effect on the media position. It was never about that, it was about crushing red tribe.

Meanwhile, if somebody wanted to execute Jan 6 convicts, even in the most pointlessly brutal way you could possibly imagine, the same sources would likely cheer on how they were getting exactly what they deserved and lament that the punishment wasn't harsh enough.

I'm blue tribe and nobody I know would cheer on execution of Jan 6 convicts.

I'm against the death penalty for all cases except very rare individuals who are responsible for something on the magnitude of genocide, or if there was somehow someone too dangerous to keep alive (ie, the Joker from Batman fiction). I'm against it for multiple reasons, but prime among them is the terrifyingly high conviction rate if innocents.

Pretty much. I don't have enough faith in the judicial system to give it the power over life and death, even though I don't actually have any principled objection to hanging a murderer.

but prime among them is the terrifyingly high conviction rate if innocents.

Was everyone who died during the Iraq War a terrorist? likely not, some innocents died and it was an acceptable loss. Edge cases does not invalidate the cost/benefit analysis. If a death penalty (or life on death row) is an effective deferent, which I think it is, then it's worth it even if some innocents are caught in the net.

Was everyone who died during the Iraq War a terrorist? likely not, some innocents died and it was an acceptable loss.

An acceptable loss? An acceptable loss for what? The war in Iraq was a massive negative for the world and was responsible for a lot of suffering, all for the sake of failed geopolitical gameplaying and war-profiteering by the American MIC. Not a single one of the innocent deaths in the Iraq war was an "acceptable loss". I really can't understand your point here - the outcomes of the Iraq war were so terrible that I can't think of any of those deaths as being acceptable. "Yeah sure we murdered a bunch of innocents and gave islamic terror groups a huge amount of propaganda fodder, but in exchange we got to have Islamic State show up a few years later."

pick another example then. like space launches. any program has some accepted threshold of false positives

I think war makes for an awkward analogy to the death penalty, but I take your point that cost/benefit analysis is applicable.

However, when I google, all the results I see say that there's no evidence death penalty works as a deterrent.

But on the other hand, all the sources are biased. Murder rates are higher in capital punishment states but I could easily see that being correlation, not causation. I really can't find any good stats here.

I'm changing my stance to "I believe the death penalty is likely bad, but with low confidence, and more research needs to be done on the matter."

However, when I google, all the results I see say that there's no evidence death penalty works as a deterrent.

The primary purpose of the death penalty is retributive justice, not deterrence. If it also functions as a deterrent, that's a fantastic bonus, but whether it has a deterrent effect or not, some people simply deserve to die and it's a miscarriage of justice to allow them to live.

CS Lewis wrote a great article about penalties. This was his general take. The only morally appropriate theory of punishment is just desserts. Any deterrence (or incapacitation) is a nice cherry on top.

This is surprising. From a Christian perspective, and CS Lewis only ever wrote from a Christian perspective, everyone's just desserts is eternal damnation (except Mary, if you're Catholic).

But then, "give every man his deserts, and who should 'scape whipping?"

I think there are murderers who are violent, sick, and dangerous, who have no remorse or no conception of human life (other than their own) being valuable, and who have inflicted horrific suffering on their victims.

It's natural to want to 'pay them back' in the same way, to make them suffer. But that achieves nothing other than satisfying revenge, and handing over the power of vengeance to the state instead of taking private revenge should put us past that. Indulging in sadistic impulses, even if 'justified', doesn't help anyone in the end and is worse for society in the long run, because if we all get to let our baser impulses out in certain circumstances, then I do think that has an effect which ends up with a society that is crueller and harsher and less desirable to live in, in the long run. For instance, people like to complain about bureaucracy and unhelpful government employees and the like, but imagine if someone in the Department of Certificates deliberately screws you around for the laughs, because they'll go back to their desk and joke with their colleagues about "what an idiot, he's going to lose his house because he was too dumb to check that I gave him form 4-A instead of form 4-B which is the one needed, some people are too stupid to live" and everyone laughs because "oh hey, you going to the drawing and quartering on Tuesday, it should be a good one, Executioner Brownley is doing it and he can drag it out for hours".

Ehh I haven’t murdered, raped, assaulted, or materially injured someone. Hell, I haven’t even done boring things like steal with mens rea (I almost certainly have accidentally taken things that aren’t mine).

Am I perfect? No. I’ve done some bad things. But I’m quite sure that this is not a “there but for the Grace of God goes me” situation.

With all of that said, what do you think is the proper role of the state?

But that achieves nothing other than satisfying revenge, and handing over the power of vengeance to the state instead of taking private revenge should put us past that.

No, the point of handing the power of vengeance to the state is to assure that the vengeance is carried out justly and impartially, not to "put us past that".

all the results I see say that there's no evidence death penalty works as a deterrent.

Important part: compared to what?

I would really look into details how it was calculated, I expect a lot of bad psychology. And yes, effective catching criminals is better than extreme penalties, yes - criminals are often stupid, but it works at least on margin.

If you would introduce death penalty for say speeding and would keep law and actually execute people (rather than change or ignore law) then I bet that speeding would be deterred.

See also cases where death penalty is needed as criminal cannot be put into prison or will escape anyway (not applicable to USA, admittedly but your claim was broader).

Well, reports on 18th century public executions, where people could be hanged for stealing a handkerchief, attracted the same kind of boisterous crowds as Dickens describes, and while the poor wretch on the gallows was being hanged for pick-pocketing, the thieves in the crowd were busy performing the same crimes. So deterrent effects aren't very strong when people are hardened to seeing executions.

The Golden Age of murders in Britain were often domestic poisonings because, ironically, divorce was seen as more scandalous than murder by the perpetrators. A lot of people commit crimes in the heat of the moment and unpremeditated, and those who do plan out their crimes imagine they'll never be caught. So I think execution or life imprisonment are both equally good deterrents, and maybe life in jail until you're old and feeble is a worse deterrent than a quick execution? I don't know. I think there is a deterrent effect, and there should be deterrent effects for all punishment, but that the deterrent isn't strong enough for capital punishment to justify it, and it is mostly about revenge and satisfying vindictiveness. I've felt the impulse myself, reading terrible crimes, that the perpetrators should be burned alive or tortured to death - but that's not good. That makes me just as much ready and eager to murder, and murder horribly, as they are.

I think there is a deterrent effect, and there should be deterrent effects for all punishment, but that the deterrent isn't strong enough for capital punishment to justify it, and it is mostly about revenge and satisfying vindictiveness.

I think the "anti-revenge" argument proves too much. It ultimately depends far too much on how much deterrent effect there is.

Most acts of violence are done in heat of the moment or otherwise irrational decisions: thus deterrence effect must be small, as the people who are committing illegal violence are not weighing their options and consequences rationally. And in fact, despite the all might of the (Western, developed) judicial system, most (Western, developed) countries have still some amounts of criminality. I acknowledge it is a point of contention, but let's assume for the sake of the argument that deterrence effect is small-to-negligible. Thus, any punishment worth its name is unjustified as deterrence, as deterrence doesn't happen to meaningful extent.

If there is no meaningful deterrence, and the idea of revenge is verboten, what reason remains to administer any punishment at all? If we are talking about a criminal who is a high-risk repeat offender, there is still argument that we should incapacitate to prevent them committing further crimes. However, not all people are like that. Some want to commit one, specific murder. Or some goody-shoes comes and argues they have a very good method to "rehabilitate" them (or prevent committing any more crimes, which is functionally same thing), and it involves electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, perhaps sniffing their internet traffic, and perhaps soon, AI. (Thus, they'd have a system of no other punishment than what is necessary to monitor they won't do it again.)

Thinking about this, I came to conclusion that justice as a concept must involve retributive elements, that is, a form of revenge, or it is not justice. A method that prevents the perpetrator from committing more crimes does nothing to the victim of their previous crimes. It is fully defenseless in the face of fait accompli: when crime has been committed, it can no longer be prevented. There either can be retribution or no retribution: admittedly is retribution is weak of ghost of justice as it can not make the crime undone, but it is still more than nothing, because acknowledges the pain of the victim (as it is administered in relation of the crime) whereas preventive methods won't ( as they focus on the future of the perpetrator), neither do deterrent methods (because they are concerned only with deterring other people, and the method of deterring crimes may turn out to be unrelated to the crime itself).

Finally, the system of no justice that I outlined is not fantasy, but the Nordic model slightly exaggerated. Yet it is proving impossible. According to their stated principles, Norwegians should let Anders Behring Breivik out as soon as their relevant officials are reasonably sure he is no longer danger to society or rendered harmless, as he has already sit the 10 year mandatory sentence they had in the books. Practically, by their stated philosophy, they should: after a hypothetical release, Breivik would be under constant monitoring, probably would not have chance to commit nor organize any further acts of terrorist violence, and he is getting pretty old. Yet they can't bear themselves to do it, and twist themselves into all kinds of legal knots that are not very believable as written but taken seriously because everyone involved deep-down knows it would act of injustice to let him walk free again. (I agree that he should sit for life, or should have faced capital punishment long ago. The Norwegian unwillingness to administer their law according to its written intentions shows they apparently also think their chosen system is illegitimate, in this case. And if it doesn't fit in this case, why not the other cases?)

What I mean about revenge are the people saying "hell yeah they should suffer, I'd be fine with it if they were tortured to death" and the likes. That has nothing to do with deterrence or even punishment. And it's people who have no relationship to the murder or the offender saying it. I understand a parent or spouse or close family member wanting to tear the offender limb from limb. Someone sitting in their chair miles away with no connection going "put it on TV and I'll pay to view" is not healthy for society in the long run, is what I'm saying.

More comments

I'm blue tribe and nobody I know would cheer on execution of Jan 6 convicts.

Did any of them cheer over Babbit getting shot on the day itself?

No. Although I admit this is just anecdotal and I can't speak for the whole tribe of course.

In my circle, no. There are people who think she was foolish and the shooting was justified, but I don't know anyone who celebrated her death in the "fucking MAGA got what she deserved" sense you're implying.

I don't doubt that such people exist, but I think you'll find more hypocrisy among Blue Tribers when it comes to prison abolition and rehabilitation ("We should give everyone a second chance, except conservatives who might once have used the n-word") than the death penalty. Genuine opponents of the death penalty really do believe that it's always immoral, full stop.

Meanwhile, if somebody wanted to execute Jan 6 convicts, even in the most pointlessly brutal way you could possibly imagine, the same sources would likely cheer on how they were getting exactly what they deserved and lament that the punishment wasn't harsh enough

I don't believe this for one second. Any evidence of such sentiment (i.e. people saying they should get it/it would justified if they did)?

Well, what do you know, Alabama has now actually implemented this “most humane” form of execution for the first time, and news coverage from the BBC and others have been almost exclusively negative.

It's not like every critic of the death penalty comes in fully versed on the history of this one documentary.

Criticism seems like the price you pay when you try something new and it doesn't go right. I don't know the history here, but I wonder what was so wrong with the old forms of execution. I'm vaguely aware that a few years ago there was a deliberate shortage of the chemicals Southern states had been using for executions up to that point. But besides that, at this point, I take most activist criticisms of the death penalty in bad faith: they don't want a humane death penalty, they want no death penalty.

From reading news reports, it seems that the execution did not use sedation in conjunction with the nitrogen hypoxia, which is the recommended method when euthanising large animals by this method.

I think if they did use sedation, that would do away with the thrashing/attempts to hold breath. On the other hand, they did have the guy in prison for 35 years already, and I don't see what the problem is with keeping him locked up for another 20 or 30 years. If you're going to execute someone, you should do it within a year or two of the sentence being passed. I know appeals drag it out, but if everyone knows this is how it works, then it's pointless to go through the rigmarole of keeping someone in jail for 30 or 40 years until you can execute them. At that point, you may as well convert the sentence to life in jail without parole.

On the other hand, they did have the guy in prison for 35 years already, and I don't see what the problem is with keeping him locked up for another 20 or 30 years.

Likewise, I don't see the problem with providing justice for the victim's families by killing him within a few weeks of conviction. This wasn't exactly historically uncommon and due process doesn't suggest providing endless avenues for dishonest attorneys to drag out proceedings and waste time and money.

That's like saying "if you were going to let the Nazis occupy France, you may as well let them occupy England too". The fact that the death penalty takes decades to apply is the result of action by its opponents, defended against mostly unsuccessfully by its proponents.

  1. What concerns me about the death penalty is the finality of it all. What if you made a mistake and new evidence comes to light?

  2. Given that, I’m not a big fan of rushing execution.

Do you think there are examples where this isn't much of a concern? A recent example that comes to mind is the 2022 Buffalo shooting. This was a straightforward massacre of innocents, livestreamed by the perpetrator. My perspective is that any system that has left him alive in 2024 has become unmoored from the purpose of a justice system.

Yeah — something like that or certain political leaders too dangerous to leave alive (eg I would’ve executed Hitler in short order)

Am I wrong in reading this as just another case of “Americans can do nothing right”?

They're just against the death penalty, and will object to any method as a means of expressing that. Therefore, the fact of their objection provides no information and should be ignored.

The kinds of people on death row usually deserve a fate worse than death. I don't think they should be tortured, but not because they don't deserve it. I am not especially concerned with minimizing their suffering beyond a point. When I hear about a botched execution where the executed has a couple of minutes extra pain and suffering, I just don't give a shit. They're the kind of people who make me hope hell actually exists (a common sentiment among both the faithful and faithless). Why should I care about them suffering for 60 seconds before death when I'd sleep soundly knowing they are suffering for an eternity in hell? Articles like this are largely just culture war.

I've never understood why the guillotine isn't the most humane way. Big enough/fast enough pneumatic press with a big enough blade and there's few things plausibly more consistent.

It is debated if the death is instantaneous . It's also a spectacle and carries too much political historical baggage. Being put to death by guillotine adds more allure or notoriety than being gassed. Bugs get gassed by exterminators, being gassed strips one of any humanity in the process.

The problem is that any efficient and humane way of executing people inevitably ends up associated with death, and no method of doing anything works cleanly 100% of the time. Meanwhile, bleeding heart fervor to tear down the unjust tyranny of how things are done today to replace them with a bold, progressive, new, modern thing that has no visible downsides yet springs eternal.

The problem is that any efficient and humane way of executing people inevitably ends up associated with death,...

I advocate using lethal injection of alcohol as the means of execution. Injection? It is not that toxic, so it probably needs a big IV bag. Given the enthusiastic recreational use of alcohol, no-one can argue that it is a cruel method of execution. And to return to your point about the association with death, using alcohol sends a valuable public health message about the dangers of binge drinking. In the UK acute alcohol poisoning causes 500 or 600 deaths each year (out of about 6000 alcohol specific deaths, of which 78% are due to alcoholic liver disease). Some of those deaths might be avoided if people had a background awareness that alcohol is what is used for executions by lethal injection, which hints that heroic drinking might not be entirely safe.

The guillotine is one of the most humane ways for sure, it’s just tied up with the political context of its most famous use and with the gore of the viewer’s experience.

At least some of the people complaining are too squeamish to handle such violent scenes of death, much like with suicide and slaughterhouses. Death must be nice and clean so they aren't traumatized by it.

Theoretically, a press that is big enough and fast enough should work even better without a blade. I guess no one would want to clean up after the execution.

Ooh boy yeah no thanks. I guess you could automate a pressure wash system to blast everything down asap after the press, but at some point some poor chap is going to have to go over it with a chisel and a toothbrush once the detritus the pressure wash misses starts to build up.

I don't see why it would be any worse than the clean-up staff in a hospital has to deal with.

True, I was thinking of one poor guy whose job is keeping the press clean, but it would probably be a part of custodial work and one amongst many miserable jobs needing done.

The people in charge of things have no training in traditional philosophy or morality, so it’s no surprise that they have botched the whole notion of a good execution.

Any method in which an inmate can fight against their execution and save themselves some seconds of life is going to be more dreadful than otherwise. This is obvious. This should be obvious. The feeling of dread from the slow experience of death and the knowledge that you can temporarily avoid it from, say, holding your breath, increases the torment manifold. We’ve known this forever, which is why the the worst criminals were crucified, and why the civilized method of execution back when we were enlightened was a quick hanging (death by breaking neck actually) or a quick beheading. These executions were done with dignity, relatively soon after their crime. Some dumb modernite had the bright idea that a prisoner deserves execution but also deserves to be kept in prison for years, allowed or made to continually gamble his life through the process of appealing his sentence to the courts. Horrible.

I don't understand how this can even be a question. Isn't Canada offering these humane and progressive 'treatments' out like candy? What does the BBC reporting look like on that front?

The companies that make those drugs have policies against selling the drugs for use in executions. The perfect execution method exists, but "medical" """""ethics""""" "committees" prevent it from being actualized.

It’s mainly that (a) many of them are based in countries that have outlawed the death penalty and local legislators have threatened them if they provide those drugs, and that (b) many large institutional investors (including eg. pension funds in countries that have outlawed the death penalty) have said they’ll divest if they supply the drugs. Given the low number of executions and this the small size of the business, it’s not worth even minor reputation loss or business risk.

The perfect method is probably the guillotine or something similar, because it has near zero room for error and because death is near enough instant.

Instructions unclear. Started compassionately guillotining terminally ill cancer patients.

Surely the indignity of the guillotine is that it turns someone's execution into a humiliating blood spraying spectacle? You can almost look cool standing in front of a firing squad, blind folded (obligatory: smoking a cigarette). Nobody looks cool on their knees with their head in a guillotine stockade, even with a cigarette.

OTOH, with a firing squad, you probably look much less cool suffocating to death from all of the holes ripped through your lungs; not sure what I'd pick.

The gore is a feature, a token of our respect for life. We’re not “putting people to sleep” here. Each juror should get a splash when the blade falls. They shouldn’t eat meat if they can’t kill the animal.

I like your avoiding the Nietzsche last man vibe.

But, this is going to be a problematic jury selection, no? “Would you be able to vote to convict this man if his head might bounce into your lap during his execution?”

Might be really bad to have a jury made up exclusively of people who say yes to that.

Would you demand that someone not rent to gay people, or otherwise profit off of gays, if they can't bear to watch gay sex? If they can't bear to watch an operation, do we forbid them from being operated on?

Squeamishness is not a source of morality.

Squeamishness fails to be a robust source of morality, but it is an excellent trigger for introspection. If someone is squeamish about a decision, they should ask themselves why - the response isn't being called for no particular reason, it's because something is happening that evokes danger, threat, or disgust. In the case of an operation, we would find that the squeamishness is not a product of an immoral action, but a product of the danger associated with open wounds and body integrity violations. Even though operations are often incredibly strong net value, it is worth considering for a moment what exactly you're signing up for - your bodily integrity will be violated, you will have an open wound, and this carries risk. It's not trivial and shouldn't be treated as trivial.

I think in cases like war and executions, it’s a decent requirement simply because I think that if what you’re voting for is the death of a human being, you ought to be willing to face that directly. I wouldn’t want someone to vote for a war and never be willing to face the full extent of what voting for war actually means. It’s death, you’re voting to kill, you should face the full horror of what that means.

How could the same argument not be made about everything that people feel disgust about? "If you're willing to hire gay people but you're not willing to face the full extent of what gay actually means...."

More comments

Squeamishness often covers a lie. We tell children that their beloved pets have gone to a happy farm. The meat comes from the store. The death row criminal humanely goes to sleep. Extreme squeamishness requires euphemisms which compromise the truth, our model of the world.

Unlike igi, I do think there are other sources of morality, but still the emotional punch associated with death and violence is morally helpful, and should not be easily sidestepped. Or one day we could find ourselves processing units when we are in fact murdering people.

Squeanmishness is not a source of morality.

Except it literally is. Morality isn't some abstract platonic idea, it's a taste or feeling people evolved, and the sick feeling you get when you drench yourself in the gore of your fellow man is part of it.

I'll go as far as to say that things are immoral because they feel distasteful and for no other reason. Any rationale you can name is a post-hoc rationalization. When surveyed people act according to taste, not to some Kantian formalized system of ethics. We may wish it otherwise, but morality as an actual real world phenomenon is not a pure reason object.

Understanding this means understanding that people act immorally when they are not confronted directly enough with the consequences of their actions (or are themselves deficient). And thus recommending they be brought closer is fitting.

I'll go as far as to say that things are immoral because they feel distasteful and for no other reason

Is gay sex immoral? Plenty of people find it distasteful.

More comments

Understanding this means understanding that people act immorally when they are not confronted directly enough with the consequences of their actions (or are themselves deficient). And thus recommending they be brought closer is fitting.

If that goes for the jury, it goes for the criminal as well, which is a good reason to put him to death (I assume Alabama's been killing murderers, not jaywalkers). Demanding each juror "get a splash" is just attempting to gratuitously heighten the disgust impulse.

There are some interesting stories about severed heads looking around for a few minutes before going completely inert.

Canada doesn't use the new nitrogen hypoxia method. Canada uses the "old" lethal injection protocol that has been horribly cruel for decades, at least since it has been adopted in the US for capital punishment. Prior to adoption by the US for capital punishment, lethal injection was the "new" humane way of killing someone, and it was only the barbarous Americans who were still killing people via electric chair, which was the "old" protocol. At least, the electric chair was the "old", barbarous method only after the US adopted it for capital punishment. Before that, it was the "new" humane way of killing someone, and it was only the barbarous Americans who were still killing people via firing squad, which was the "old" protocol. Before that, ....

To be sure, the scene of thrashing does seem to be more violent than the documentary insinuated such an execution would be, but that itself appears to be because the inmate tried to forcibly hold their breath for as long as possible instead of allowing themselves to pass out from hypoxia. I wouldn’t pin the blame for voluntary thrashing on the method of execution.

Why did they do this when the inmate was awake and aware of the procedures? At the very least, they could've told him that at some point during the next two hours the mixture coming through the mask would imperceptibly switch from air to pure nitrogen. This way holding the breath to stay alive for a minute longer would have been futile.

Not telling them the exact time has been ruled to be inhumane even though it’s certainly the exact opposite, at least within reason.

That set off a mini lightbulb for me.

"The Law" is generally obsessed with attention to minute detail and specificity so that it can best approximate the "truth" or, at least, some sort of clean delineation in a case etc.

Your example does a good job of pointing out that hyper specificity - if only for specificity's case - can actually create an obvious and completely cruel situation.

Related: I love when people (usually around beach campfires after many margaritas) drop into the sophomoric philosophy questions that always include "what would you do if you knew it was the last day of your life?" Cue poetic soliloquies about spending time with loved ones and recognizing the simple things.

No, dude. You'd spend all damn day hyperventilating and freaking out over your impending death and probably rotating through feverish repentance to Christ, Allah, Jewish God, and Tom Cruise

Why don’t they just have a firing squad shoot them in the head or use a guillotine? Those would both seem far more immediate and so far more humane.

Because of trauma , or something like that, even though military and occasionally police kill people for a profession. Yet for death penalty it's different. Never made sense.

Utah uses the firing squad, so it's not entirely out of bounds.

Both are unnecessarily messy

as if killing terrorists is not messy, yet the US has no problem with that? It's a stupid excuse

Floor drains and hoses aren't that expensive.

The former is too personal, both the former and the latter too dramatic to stomach.

You don't need a human to pull the trigger

Too messy.

It seems like a non sequitur to try to tie a BBC documentary to this. The burden of knowing what you’re doing is an order of magnitude higher for state actually using it to execute people than it is for some guy making a documentary.

So when an execution that was expected to result in loss of consciousness in seconds actually takes minutes (that’s probably worth mentioning in your comment), it seems completely kosher to criticize the institution that just put somebody to death in a terrible way — a BBC documentary from 10 years ago is not a valid shield.

If someone holding their breath transforms your humane execution method into something that results in minutes of suffering, that’s a black mark on the method and people are allowed to criticize you for not knowing or not caring.

But yes, I agree if this happened in California the response would probably be different.

It's because it was done in Alabama. If it had happened in a California it would've been "a botched execution, a tragic accident." But it happened in a red state, so those fuckers probably wanted him to suffer. It's just banal cultural war spin.

The banal culture war spin is just elite posturing against the death penalty. If California had done this(they haven’t used their death penalty in like 20 years), it would still have gotten outrage because the existence of the death penalty is a thing euros like to posture about.

California has in practice abolished the death penalty since 2006. In general it’s only red states who execute people now, and the federal government under Trump.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats