You're being held hostage...

[piiop]

I don't understand how this is possibly this close.

Hmm, what's better...

Not being tortured?

or

BEING ALIVE???

[frankster]

Being alive makes me want to kill myself

[Jeff W]

Can't believe so many people would take the 20%. Maybe they just lack imagination.

Here's an example from Wikipedia.org:

[/ QUOTE ]Scaphism, also known as the boats, is an ancient Persian method of execution designed to inflict torturous death. The name comes from the Greek word skaphe, meaning "scooped (or hollowed) out".

The naked victim would be firmly fastened within a back-to-back pair of narrow rowboats (or in some variations a hollowed out tree trunk), the head, hands, and feet protruding from this improvised container.

The victim was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing severe diarrhea, and more honey would be rubbed on his body so as to attract insects to the exposed appendages. He would then be left to float on a stagnant pond (or alternately, simply exposed to the sun somewhere). The defenseless victim's feces accumulated within the container, attracting more insects, which would eat and breed within his exposed (and increasingly gangrenous) flesh. Death, when it eventually occurred, was probably due to a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock.

In other recorded versions, the insects did not eat the victim; biting and stinging insects such as wasps, which were attracted by honey on the body, acted as the torture.

Death by scaphism is painful, humiliating, and protracted. Historical records suggest that one Mithridates, sentenced to die in this manner for a perceived insult to the king, survived for 17 days before dying.

[/ QUOTE ]

[baumer]

[ QUOTE ]
If you fight back, you have a 20% chance of escape. But if you fail, you'll be tortured to death in the most painful way you can imagine.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Can't believe so many people would take the 20%. Maybe they aren't learned in sophisticated methods of torture.

[/ QUOTE ]


When I first read this thread I thought about the torture sequence in Braveheart.

Since this exercise clearly stated "in the most painful way you could imagine", it obviously couldn't include any crazy torture you haven't thought of.

If the OP was reworded and gave a strict time-frame for the torture, say a day, or a week, the responses would change.

[Jeff W]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can't believe so many people would take the 20%. Maybe they aren't learned in sophisticated methods of torture.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Is being restrained and eaten alive by wild animals really beyond your imagination? That's the basic idea of the "sophisticated" torture method that I quoted, but even something simple like being chained down and eaten by ravenous rats would be pretty [censored] terrible and prolonged.

[Pete H]

[ QUOTE ]
Can't believe so many people would take the 20%. Maybe they just lack imagination.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can assure you that imagination isn't something I lack. I'm aware of dozens of methods of torture, but I'm pretty sure I could come up with things nastier than any commonly known method. I voted for 20%.

Of course in real life calculating the odds would be impossible and I'd first try to talk myself out of it and when it'd become clear that talking doesn't help I'd try to fight my way out.

But let's say that you could roll a ten-sided dice for freedom.
Picking the 20% chance of freedom with 80% chance of torture over 10% chance of freedom with 90% chance of quick death would be one of the easiest choices in my life.

NP: Nihilist - Morbid Devourment

[splashpot]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you fight back, you have a 20% chance of escape. But if you fail, you'll be tortured to death in the most painful way you can imagine.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Can't believe so many people would take the 20%. Maybe they aren't learned in sophisticated methods of torture.

[/ QUOTE ]


When I first read this thread I thought about the torture sequence in Braveheart.

Since this exercise clearly stated "in the most painful way you could imagine", it obviously couldn't include any crazy torture you haven't thought of.

If the OP was reworded and gave a strict time-frame for the torture, say a day, or a week, the responses would change.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yea, I should have said something like 1 week. I didn't fully think it through.

[Tennenbaum]

I would do anything NOT to be tortured. Watching movies like Hostel....good lord! That is the one thing I never want. If I'm going to die, make it quick.

I used to have bad dreams about Freddy Krueger when I was little..and in the dreams I'd figure out ways to not be killed painfully. It wound up me making friends w/ him and offering to kill all my friends so that I would not be killed. I have a real fear of physical suffering.

[CatfishKing]

This [censored] would suck...
[ QUOTE ]
The crocodile shears was an instrument of torture used in late mediaeval Europe and typically reserved for regicides, viz., those who attempted (and, perhaps, succeeded) to assassinate the king. Made of iron, the shears was based upon the concept of a pincers, but—instead of standard jaws or blades—ended in a pair of hemicylindrical blades that, when closed together, formed a long, narrow tube. The insides of the blades were generously lined with teeth or spikes. After being heated red-hot, the crocodile shears was applied to the erect penis, which—once exposed to sufficient tension—was torn from the prisoner's body.



[/ QUOTE ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_shears

[kutuz_off]

[ QUOTE ]
Being alive makes me want to kill myself

[/ QUOTE ]

Good death is so much better than horrible life.