Hacker CinemaHow to Kill a Human Being
How to Kill a Human Being
2008 · Film · documentary
Directed by Diene Petterle
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. Armed with startling new evidence, Michael considers a completely new approach. Will it be the answer? There is only one way to find out - to experience it himself.
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3 comments on Hacker News
> this person will never be useful to society
I'm against the death penalty, but, since the alternative is most likely life in prison, this is very probably true for rightfully convicted.
> My personal guess is that people like to watch for some sort of catharsis which a silent death doesn't give them, but of course I'm not necessarily in a position to judge this well.
There's a very interesting documentary called "how to kill a human being". In it, Michael Portillo explores more humane ways to execute prisoners, but at the end his method is rejected by proponents as the do not want these people to die painless. So you're probably not wrong.
There's a fantastic documentary called 'How to kill a human being', with Michael Portillo (former UK politician), made back in 2008.
It covers this quite nicely - Includes an interview with a death penalty advocate and asks about a 'theoretical painless execution method' and the advocate agrees that if such thing were available it would be ideal.
Then later, after Portillo has done a bunch of investigation, hypoxia (I think) is landed on as an ideal solution. It's put to the advocate, who then squirms and insists that it's not a suitable 'punishment'.
My memory is hazy since I haven't seen it in a decade, but it's a fantastic doco and probably freely available now.
Carbon dioxide is probably "better". There is an interesting (and I think rather controversial) BBC documentary on this presented by a former Conservative MP. I don't have a link to it, but you can search for "Michael Portillo How to kill a human being".