• Carlos Solís@communities.azkware.net
      3·
      1 year ago

      What about total cumulative pain suffered? If somebody particularly nasty managed to find a way to continuously torture a person while staying just below the threshold of complete organ failure, and the victim was artificially kept alive and suffering for several years, that would tick both your criteria at the same time

  • Harpsist@lemmy.world
    5·
    1 year ago

    The way they dealt with the ‘rulers’ in the mustard uprising in Europe come to mind.

    Dan Carlin did a whole hours long pod cast on it.

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
    26·
    1 year ago

    I don’t know. I think we need controlled studies to find out what the actual most painful way possible to die is. How many rapists and murderers do we have? I’m sure we can spare some of those for testing purposes.

    Personally, my money is on someone being slowly fed into a wood chipper while on fire and drinking battery acid.

    • andallthat@lemmy.world
      6·
      1 year ago

      Well, they probably didn’t do it very scientifically but if they could think of it and the tools existed, someone in history is likely to have tried it as a method for killing people.

      Impaled people, for instance, could allegedly take days to die. Being slowly eaten by ants or rats sounds pretty painful too

      There’s one called “life” that is pretty cruel too. It might take anywhere from seconds to more than a hundred years for it to eventually kill you and some.people get to experience a lot of pain throughout the experience.

  • Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    1 year ago

    Fortunately, when pain gets too extreme, it flips a breaker of sorts in your brain and you stop feeling it so much. Happens during really catastrophic trauma, presumably to keep the pain from distracting you too much from your (at that point probably necessary) fight or flight reactions.

    Adrenaline is part of it, but I don’t think it’s solely responsible, as its not always present in accounts. Sometimes people can be very calm.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Calm is just a shock response to stop you from spurting out all your blood. It’s the exact opposite of an adrenal reaction

      That’s also different than your brain dumping a bunch of neurotransmitters as you’re dying. There’s no advantage to that, it’s just what happens as your brain dies.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
      6·
      1 year ago

      That’s why in some science fiction, see Warhammer 40K, they have technology that let you keep on feeling that pain long after you should be well and thoroughly dead. Honestly I’m not sure who’s better at it, the Imperium or the Dark Eldar.

    • anonono@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      I’ve seen some nasty videos I’d rather forget where they scream and cry all the way through it.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
    33·
    1 year ago

    To add to that thought: Before THAT person died, someone ELSE had died in the previously most painful way possible, and at some point in the future someone else will probably find an even MORE painful way to die that we can’t even imagine.

      • BlackOak@mander.xyzEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        The closest would be the Soyuz 11 disaster. A seal on the re-entry vehicle was damaged when the capsule detached prior to re-entry. Terrible way to go I imagine.

    • ThisIsMySecretAccount@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      I’ve been on the Internet for a while now and I can safely assure you that the those even more painful ways of dying may not have happened yet, but someone certainly thought then up already.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
      3·
      1 year ago

      Presumably there could have been a point where someone drifted gently off to wherever it is we all go, comfortable and surrounded by loved ones, and in their naivety everyone present thought “oh how awful”.

  • Darkassassin07@lemmy.caEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    Someone has certainly died more painfully than anyone else, but they haven’t necessarily died in the most painful way possible.

    • Wolf Link 🐺@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      Lingchi (wikipedia) …also known as “Death by a thousand cuts”

      Warning: there is a very graphic photograph halfway through the article, uncensored and without an extra warning on wikipedia itself. Only read that article / look at the pictures if you’re not planning to sleep tonight anyway.

      • Jackolantern@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        Oh my god. First time I heard of this. Gruesome. And it’s sad that most of the ones killed are because of honor.

    • TheMoose@lemm.ee
      7·
      1 year ago

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull

      "The brazen bull … was an alleged torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. … The bull was said to be hollow and made entirely out of bronze with a door in one side. According to legends, the brazen bull was designed in the form and size of an actual bull and had an acoustic apparatus that converted screams into the sound of a bull. The condemned were locked inside the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside was roasted to death.

      “Stories allege after finishing construction on the execution device, Perilaus said to Phalaris: “His screams will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings.” Perilaus believed he would receive a reward for his invention. Instead, Phalaris, who was disgusted by these words, ordered its horn sound system to be tested by Perilaus himself, tricking him into getting in the bull. When Perilaus entered, he was immediately locked in and the fire was set, so that Phalaris could hear the sound of his screams. Before Perilaus could die, Phalaris opened the door and took him away. After freeing him from the bull, Phalaris is then said to have taken Perilaus to the top of a hill and thrown him off, killing him. Phalaris himself is claimed to have been killed in the brazen bull when he was overthrown by Telemachus, the ancestor of Theron.”

    • anolemmi@lemmi.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      I would imagine some of the worst are rare conditions that take you from the inside out. I can’t find reference to the name of the disease, but I swear I remember seeing a bone condition that caused spiky growths, almost like crystals, to form from your bones.

      It would be slow and excruciating and you would beg for death long before it ever came.

      • zazaserty@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        1 year ago

        I think thats bone cancer. Its awful… I hope they find a cure or just instantly encourage euthanasia. No one should go trough that ever…

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        but I swear I remember seeing a bone condition that caused spiky growths, almost like crystals, to form from your bones.

        That’s what bone cancer is…

        Sometimes it’s just a lump in one spot. Sometimes it’s a whole bunch of tiny growths that push into nerves and flesh.

        Proteus Disease is what the Elephant Man had, but that’s really just a super specific version of bone cancer.

          • XYZinferno@lemmy.basedcount.com
            3·
            1 year ago

            I don’t see the Tokaimura nuclear accidents (which led to the aforementioned death of Hisashi Ouchi) as a reason to dismiss nuclear energy. Even if this is bait as @CADmonkey@lemmy.world mentioned, I want to make it clear that wasn’t my intention behind bringing up Ouchi’s death, and shouldn’t be twisted into a case against nuclear energy as a whole.

            The Tokaimura accident of 1999 was the result of improper safety, due to the facility failing to install the necessary alarms should criticality occur, and cost-cutting by having workers mix uranium in steel drums instead of proper vats that would control the rate at which it’s mixed (which would have prevented criticality). In essence, had the proper safety measures been followed, the incident would not have occurred. The same can be said for most nuclear disasters, especially the famous Chernobyl disaster.

            A compiled list of nuclear incidents (which also includes events aside from nuclear reactors) can be found here:

            It’s evident that nuclear incidents, especially those pertaining to reactors, are incredibly uncommon, and this is the result of strict safety protocols that cannot be shirked, as well as an extreme number of fail-safes in the event of a malfunction. The most recent major nuclear event- The Fukushima Disaster, required an earthquake, tsunami, compounded with human error- extraordinary circumstances that not only are extremely rare, but have been learned from too.

            If the reason to ban nuclear energy is due to a small handful of disasters like these, then logic dictates that this should be expanded to a myriad of products. How about pesticides, due to the Bhopal Disaster? How about getting rid of dams, due to the1975 Banqiao Dam Failure, that led to thousands of deaths?

            The truth of the matter is that much of the large scale infrastructure that we rely on, especially in industry and energy production, can fail on extremely rare occasions, and lead to tremendous loss of life. But through strict safety measures, training, and human ingenuity, the threat of disaster is minuscule.

            TL;DR: Singling out nuclear energy as a problem when the same concerns can be raised for any industry is hypocritical, and just the result of fear-mongering. It is safe.