Euthanasia coaster: assisted suicide by thrills

Julijonas Urbonas, a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London, designed this "Euthanasia Coaster" that will kill its riders with a series of brain-scrambling loops: "a hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely -- with elegance and euphoria -- take the life of a human being. Riding the coaster's track, the rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and, eventually, death."

Euthanasia Coaster (via DVICE)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

I have to wonder about a person who spent a good amount of time thinking about this in this level of detail.
CLamb

Hmmm. Would it be less cruel to use this to kill cattle intended for human consumption instead of the current methods? I can just imagine a roller coaster train full of cows.
- Anonymous
  
  LOVe You :)
Anonymous

Pity the poor bastard that has to hose off the seats (when you die you have no more electrical brain impulses to contain the sphincters on your rectum or bladder) for the next to be exterminated.
Anonymous

Taking time to remove the bodies after each circuit will really cut into hourly capacity.
Anonymous

I’d still prefer death by Snoo-Snoo.
Anonymous

I ain’t skeered o’ no rolly-coaster.
Typhoon

First Marcus Ramius,
then Hannibal Lecter,
and now Julijonas Urbonas.

A tough lot, these Lithuanians.
jimkirk

I’ll stick with the good old Suicide Booth, thank you very much.

http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Suicide_booth
morgonmae

I ain’t afraida no rolly coaster!
The Life Of Bryan

Iâ€™ve never been able to handle roller coasters. Somewhere in the back of my mind (a part that Iâ€™d prefer stay toward the rear, in fact), Iâ€™ve long been convinced that the difference between a regular roller coaster and this one is unacceptably small.
ill lich

This is also a useful way to cure people addicted to riding roller coasters. Unfortunately the cure is worse than the disease.
Anonymous

Put one last little inversion at the end of it so the corpses just fall into a dumpster and you don’t have to pay anyone to shovel them out of the cars.
Anonymous

This is fantastic, even without ‘you spin me right round baby’ playing as you slip away. Any chance of a taster ride?
- millie fink
  
  Right, it’s gotta be THAT song!
  
  I’ll take this version, plz:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDU7klcX_bM
Vanwall

There’s a murder story about a disgruntled coaster designer who makes sure the hated executives take the inaugural, neck-snapping ride.
Kerouac

Build this at Six Flags and there will STILL be ridiculous lines!
- Anonymous
  
  Only for a short while, since the number of people who will take the ride more than once == 0
bsdnazz

My son both likes singing ‘You spin me right round’ and making ‘death coasters’ on the game Roller Coaster Tycoon 3.

He’s 7. Should I be worried or is he PhD material?
Anonymous

Now, THAT is how I want to die!
Edward Cossaboom

Right. What the hell is wrong with people?
- Anonymous
  
  Right?? He had to go ahead and say that it is meant for euthanasia. He couldn’t have just let it be built all over the United States so we could at least get some of these idiots culled out. The nerve some people have.
Anonymous

If you build it, they will come.
millrick

do the cars feed into a crematorium?
it’s really hard to unbuckle and lift dead bodies out of confined spaces
– i’m just saying -
Anonymous

“Rotating knives?”
“Well, normally I design abatoirs.”
Orkney Mutant

What a great sloganeering opportunity though.
Nash Rambler

Your tumor must be this big to ride.
- Anonymous
  
  That is one of the funniest comments I’ve ever read.
  
  While on the subject of death coasters I have an older brother who is a pathological liar. For many years he’s been telling gullible people that the prototype for The Beast, a King’s Island Cincinnati amusement park roller coaster, was originally tested in Germany and that “when the ride stopped they were all dead”.
  
  If you’re reading this Kevin, I’m curious, are you still peddling your bullshit?
  - andyhavens
    
    No.
Anonymous

This is currently on display in the Science Gallery in Dublin as part of the Human+ exhibition.

http://www.sciencegallery.com/
Anonymous

wow, i just hope there’s not a problem with the coaster while i’m on it. i’d hate to accidentally die while i’m trying to die.
Anonymous

I wish my Rollercoaster Tycoon designs could be used to for a PhD. We used to design coasters that would liquefy the internal organs of the riders. The best one put riders through a bunch of loops and turns, some that maxed out at 30G. Coloured it all black and named it “Ebola”.
Anonymous

And, by looking at the schematics of this thing i’m guessing the exact point at which the roller coaster kills you is when the track ends and you’re still moving at 90 mph, correct?

I’d probably rather just bring a gun to Six Flags and use it after riding the Goliath.
rebdav

Just remember that when you are standing in line and have the chance at the snack concession…
Soylent green is PEOPLE!
but
Slurm is slug juice.
Anonymous

This is so me, this should be an option in your health care plan……I LOVE LIFE!!
Anonymous

Will it have seatbelts?
IronEdithKidd

PhD candidate in art, not physics. Just want to make that clear.
- Anonymous
  
  But also an architect, engineer, and former amusement park manager.
Zbohannan

Remember Rollercoaster Tycoon? I’m pretty sure everyone of a certain age was doing this exact thing 12 years ago. It was more space efficient to have the loops ascend around the central drop like a helix though.
- Anonymous
  
  If it’s efficiency you’re after, you can remove everything after the first peak.
bcsizemo

When does this open?
Halloween Jack

Has this been designed with any real knowledge of or basis in human physiology, or did this guy basically submit a cocktail napkin doodle as his doctoral dissertation?
- GaryG
  
  I was wondering the same… Unless you weren’t strapped in properly (broken neck etc.) I just see lots of nausea.
  
  Exisiting heart conditions, weak brain plumbing etc etc excepted.
  - Anonymous
    
    It’s a physics/biological certainty that with enough g-force the brain will be denied oxygen and you will die. Just ask NASA and the USAF. To some degree, g-tolerance can be trainable, and there is also considerable variation in innate ability between individuals.
    
    G force has been considered as a form of euthanasia or execution before.
    
    This page claims the coaster would cause a rider to experience 10gs for 60 seconds. That would probably kill you. I don’t know how euphoric it would be though. Negative g is generally unpleasant and can cause damage. Blood vessels in the eyes or brain may swell or burst under the increased blood pressure
    - peejaybee
      
      #39: It’s not negative G, it’s positive — negative G pulls toward your head, positive G pulls blood out of your head.
      
      The physiology of G-induced loss of consciousness has been studied extensively, and since it’s not immediately fatal, we know a lot about it from people who’ve experienced it.
      
      This article has an interesting graph about the phenomenon:
      http://aeromedical.org/Articles/g-loc.html
- AndrewF
  
  I wondered that too. The linked page does credit Dr. Michael Gresty, Spatial Disorientation Lab, Imperial College, London. His page is here. So it seems there’s some knowledge of physiology considered.
  - Symbiote
    
    Note that the Royal College of Art is over the road from Imperial College London, so it’s entirely possible that the art student just asked the scientist over a beer in the Queen’s Arms.
    
    (There’s a note about tilting trains on the scientist’s page. He presumably does know what he’s talking about.)
Anonymous

PhD candidate in art that talks about “cross-disciplinary research in aeronautics/space medicine, mechanical engineering, material technologies and, of course, gravity”. Just saying.

tl;dr – rtfa
duncan

Anybody know which side do you start riding on?

I was thinking you start on the right side with the multiple loops, then you die halfway down from the tallest peak. If you start from the wrong side, you might not die?
kmoser

Wait, all the stress this puts your body through is supposed to be a humane way to die? Why not just loosen a few bolts on the wheels and have the car fly off the track?
Anonymous

@Halloween Jack: in the description it says Health issues: Dr. Michael Gresty, Spatial Disorientation Lab, Imperial College, London. So I assume, yes, it’s going to work properly :)
Anonymous

Proceedings of the national society for euthenasia devices.

Letters to the editor

Dear Sir/Madame

Having investigated the rollercoaster method in the March ’11 issue I have found an error in the acceleration term and resistance coefficients used for the final loop sequence. The lower G forces and durations calculated with my methods predict the ride wouldn’t quite put an end to some quadraplegics, instead further entombing them with retinal detachment and burst ear drums.

Regards

Prof. Norman Fairview

Aerospace Modelling, Alton Towers
halfpress

Might I just say that it’s articles like these that bring out the best dry wit in the BB community. I can’t tell you how often I see a headline, enjoy the subject matter but know from the outset that the comments are going to leave me laughing my ass off.

Granted, I have a pretty dark sense of humor… but so do many of my fellow BB’ers, apparently.
Stefan Jones

There’s an automatic camera on the second to last loop that snaps a picture that will be offered to the survivors.
Anonymous

Jack Vance would have loved this contraption…
blueelm

Does anyone else think this sounds more like a torture device?

This is the stuff of nightmares here. FFS, just shoot me in the head!
timebinder

The assumption is that death would be painless? How do you test this?

If you also know how to bring riders back to life to collect data, there are two risks:

1. It did not perform as advertised and the pain was horrific – leaving you open to lawsuits.

2. It was such a thrilling experience riders will want to do it again and again – everyone will want to do it, demand will be so great the price of dying repeatedly will be out of the reach of any but the most wealthy thrill seeker and those most in need of euthanasis cannot afford it. Sounds like real life to me.
Anonymous

That would be an AWFUL way to die. You would plummet downwards then go, at a rapid pace, into a set of loops that not only accelerate you extremely rapidly but also crush you into the floor.

“rapid acceleration” and “crushing” are not things I associate with a peaceful and humane death.
Anonymous

While it does credit someone at the Disorientation Lab, I think that it’s exceedingly improbable that a roller coaster designed to carefully and gradually induce various sensations, culminating with a painless death, would just-so-happen to form a huge initial hill followed by an elegant series of reducing loops.

I’m not denying that you could build a coaster which could cause people to black out (even gently black out) and then continue to restrict blood flow so as to kill them. I just think it’s very improbable that one would look like this.

I suspect that the concept was vetted by someone at the Disorientation Lab, and the execution (pun intended) was an artistic expression.
robcat2075

I’m doubtful that any physical motion that causes “brain scrambling” will pleasant or “euphoric”.
Ted Sallis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU14VqcPIDo

Devastator!
Lyle Hopwood

Julijonas sounds like he’s a bundle of laughs. I bet he’s a crack-up at parties.
Crashproof

Much better than a stupid carousel.
- Felton / Moderator
  
  Heh! I clicked on your link expecting this.