Well, I believe there was a case in England where a woman was sentenced to death by hanging for killing her child. She was hanged and appeared dead, but when they cut her down after some time she came back to life. In her case it was considered she had endured her punishment and she was released. Public called her half hanged Mary(?). Not sure about her name anymore. But I’m sure long common law history is only employed when convenient.

I had that moment with the flash back in Captain Marvel. I believe it was a “20 years earlier” and the sound track changes to Garbage/Only happy when it rains… The sound track of my friend group in the last years of school. Damn did I feel old…

I don’t even think that’s the ultimate argument. Executions are final. There is nothing you can do when you find out someone wasn’t guilty after all. And that happens way too often.

Don’t forget what I think is the most important reason for elaborate “humane” execution methods. Those ordering or tasked with the executions don’t want to think of themselves as the “bad guys”. Historically what that means has varied strongly. But in our societies we have very little official appetite for being bad or cruel in a physical manner.

And then it’s a matter of required competency. It seems to require real skill to decapitate a person with a sword cleanly. Hanging cleanly is much less simple than it seems. Killing is fairly simple. Killing in a socially acceptable manner much less so.

But that something else I don’t understand. Even DIY executions really should, scientifically, be a solved problem. Potassiumiodide as a leathal agent is essentially a stock compound that should easily be sourceable, even be made by oneself. Sure, pharmaceutical grade will be more difficult, but the goal is to kill someone. Afaik it’s quite an unpleasant experience, so for the executioners to feel better it’s proceeded by some sedative and perhaps a muscle relaxant. Both of those should be available as some generic noname drug. And even if not, those have been around for decades and are a solved problem that could be made in-state. If you consider how much money is thrown at the military-industrial complex and even at law enforcement with rubbish like tanks and heavy weapons for “law enforcement” the money for in-state manufacture of the required drugs should be available. Maybe they can’t find enough chemists/pharmacists without a conscience? But even so I suspect the real reason is simply them wanting to be cheapskates.

And if they want it cheap, they should man up and use one of those in old non-industrial methods. But I guess that makes them too obviously the bad guys.

Tldr: being so incompetent almost has to be a conscious choice.

That’s what is complicated with Heinlein. You can see it as him promoting fascism, as Verhoeven has.

But you also can read it as something promoting more healthy politics. Only people willing to put themselves on the line or at least endure some hardships were eligible to participate in politics. Johnny Rico’s parents didn’t want him to enlist as it was not necessary to have political rights if all you wanted was a good life.

If nothing else this policy would have not only prevented CPT Bonespurs from taking office but even that someone like him got a vote.

I do think though Heinlein was unrealistically idealistic with his book. And the movie took an even more pessimistic view than that.

Reich ME, considering how competent they run things.

No, really in large groups too.

What I believe is rather, the larger the group, the larger the chance to get a few psychopaths in there that screw things up for everyone. Psychopathy seems to have a prevailance of about 1% in the population.

Btw the division of labour economy we all live in is cooperative in nature. You might compete for roles in it, but the output of those roles is supposed to be cooperative. Anyone who’s work is purely competitive is basically someone who works solely to take something away from someone else. So essentially something akin to a thief in function. I consider that part of the problem, not part of the normal economy.

Sounds like they are reinventing the main frame, just without the specialized hardware support that guarantees things go right.

Any IT device can be hacked. We completely missed the evolutionary opportunity to have secure computing devices. Proper object capability machines would make it possible. But quick and dirty and by Friday is what we got instead.

I’m confused this was an issue. I thought history was pretty clear on Europeans introducing smallpox to the Americas. And thus caused an incredible death toll among the indigenous population.

I mean it’s a neat biochemical feat to have stumbled over proof. But I was under the impression it was never in doubt.

Most of this entire discussion is missing the point. On the one hand a variety of views and/or options for political representation are needed. This is where first past the post utterly fails. It devolves mostly to a two choice system, as is becoming painfully obvious in the US. Or it might become unstable/unpredictable as seen in the UK where alternative parties are emerging, but probably to the detriment of the old parties. In the end it might well devolve back to a two party system, just two other parties. This is where some form of proportional representation system comes in. More than two parties are viable. But at the cost of stability. Back in schooly politics teacher liked to present Italy as the poster child for why (simple) PR doesn’t work well. Though in recent years the Italian government has proven quite stable. Also, in Italys Case I’d love to run the experiment how they did with nothing changed except for organized crime being eradicated. Alas, in humanities controlled experiments like that aren’t possible. But I’d not be surprised if spectacular corruption wasn’t the bigger problem.

So what could the solution be? First I’d like to see corruption stomped out completely. I know, that’s almost like wishing for world peace, and come to think about it, it’s mostly the same characters that are in the way. Second, the solution is likely to be neither a simple majority system nor a simple proportional system. Ranked choice? My teacher was taken by the German system (a mixture of both), but that has it’s own problems. Or something entirely different, like completely independent publicly funded media. Print, audio and audiovisual. And that media could run regular polls to publicly show which topics are important to people.

I think our problems stem more from the influence on populations rather than the actual modality in which our representation is formed. In Israel you have the corruptive influence of ultra-orthodox and nationalist hardliners mixed with some run if the mill corruption, in Italy you have a gigantic organized crime problem, with some rich people problem, in Germany the Springer group is trying to set up a Fox news situation and in the US you have the Fox/Heritage Foundation/billionaires and general corruption through money problem.

More combined starches: Verheiratete (German, something like “married couple”) are a kind of dumplings with potatoes together with diced fried bacon. One of my favourite local foods.

I don’t think it’s about being able to afford it. More that he is loath to let her have anything at all on principle.

It’s not about whether a perpetrator deserves to live or not. It’s about the reliabilty of the judicial system. Even this day and age with our amazing forensic techniques, plenty of innocent people get indicted instead of the actual perpetrators. It’s also about what executing people does to the society doing the executions. Honestly, I have tons of sympathy for the character Hawkeye in Avengers: Endgame. However in this sort of fiction the people getting killed absolutely certainly are guilty. Reality is much more messy than that.

We were talking office suites, but yeah. Though M$ should have lost the OS wars not against Linux (it was a fledgling OS at the time) but other systems of the day. OS/2 was what a stable win3 should have been. VMS or true64 Unix could do stuff windows server could only dream of. Yet marketing to pointy haired bosses brought MS the victory, not technical merit.

I upvoted you, because by and large you are right. As a caveat though some people do have office tied up in automated workflows with scripting in some sort of M$-language. In that case you would have technical hurdles in addition to lobbying and politics.

Exactly! There is even still defense equipment in use that uses 8inch floppies!

That’s fine, as long as the corporation does so without the aid of any other entity.

That last part is essential. People learn much more habits from observing people than from being told. Best one can do is be a good role model.