Video of the day -- the good death machine

NOTICE:  Some readers may find this video disturbing.  If you are sensitive to this type of subject matter, you may prefer not to watch it.

A couple of observations:  First, when using the guillotine specifically (as opposed to other forms of decapitation), in most cases the high-energy impact of the weighted blade would send a shock wave through the cerebrospinal fluid and knock the brain unconscious, so even if the brain technically remained alive for a few seconds or tens of seconds, there would be no awareness.  Only in some rare instances, such as are described here, would consciousness persist at all.

Second, it is striking that even in those cited cases, the persistence of consciousness (and therefore of suffering) is far briefer than with any of the modern and more "civilized" forms of execution which Simon lists early in the video.  The "national ethos" noted by judge Kozinski later on seems more a matter of pandering to popular squeamishness than of truly being more humane to the condemned.

One could argue that some criminals' acts are so heinous as to deserve additional suffering during the execution, but the use of actual torture as a punishment (as opposed to the death penalty itself) is universally rejected by civilized countries, and probably rightly so.  This being the case, our modern use of slower and crueler methods is actually a moral step backwards relative to the guillotine.