Comment Re:The Optimistic viewpoint hade a source (Score 1) 233
Feel free to submit to a gentle, peaceful decapitation. Be sure to let us know how that works out for you.
I see what you did there.
Actually, decapitation historically was considered about the most humane and dignified means of execution there was. Commoners were hanged, royalty was decapitated. The guillotine was invented to make the process even more humane by making decapitation less likely to be botched.
Decapitation and hanging weren't always human forms. However as society progressed they learned that breaking the neck at the base of the spine was the least painful way to kill someone. Eventually they refined it that hanging would break the neck rather than strangle someone. Society went backwards when someone thought electrocution was a good idea but advanced when lethal injection became common and even further when we realised death penalties are abhorrent and ineffective.