{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6300", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6300, "subject": "The Executioner's Art", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2012-10-15T05:42:59+00:00", "last": "2012-10-15T22:27:14+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<507BA263.6010803@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2012-10-15T05:42:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Executioner's Art", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Found at I, Cringely, a technology blog: \nhttp://www.cringely.com/2012/10/09/off-with-their-heads-why-financial-regulation-stopped-working/\n\n\n\"Thirty years ago, when I was working for a time in Saudi Arabia, I saw \na public execution....\"\n\n\"He was dragged up the steps to a platform and there fell to his knees. \nAnother man whom I quickly came to understand was the executioner \nclimbed to the platform with the prisoner and poked him in the side with \na long curved sword. The prisoner involuntarily jerked up just as the \nsword slashed down and just like that there was a head rolling off the \nplatform, the body falling dead like a sack of flour.\"\n\nI'm having a bit of trouble evnvisioning how the sword can poke and then \nstroke again so quickly, but it seems that this eyewitness account bears \nout the subtle manipulation of the condemned and unhesitating resolve of \nthe headman as depicted in the BOTNS." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1350313960.57734.YahooMailNeo@web84506.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2012-10-15T15:12:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Executioner's Art", "in_reply_to": "<507BA263.6010803@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Jeff Wilson \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Monday, October 15, 2012 1:42 AM\nSubject: (urth) The Executioner's Art\n\nFound at I, Cringely, a technology blog: http://www.cringely.com/2012/10/09/off-with-their-heads-why-financial-regulation-stopped-working/\n\n\n\"Thirty years ago, when I was working for a time in Saudi Arabia, I saw a public execution....\"\n\n\"He was dragged up the steps to a platform and there fell to his knees. Another man whom I quickly came to understand was the executioner climbed to the platform with the prisoner and poked him in the side with a long curved sword. The prisoner involuntarily jerked up just as the sword slashed down and just like that there was a head rolling off the platform, the body falling dead like a sack of flour.\"\n\nI'm having a bit of trouble evnvisioning how the sword can poke and then stroke again so quickly, but it seems that this eyewitness account bears out the subtle manipulation of the condemned and unhesitating resolve of the headman as depicted in the BOTNS.\n\n\n---That's certainly true. In a word (or 2), skill and experience.\n\nThere must be a slightly longer delay between the jab and the response than you'd think, long enough for a skilled executioner to sweep the blade around. Perhaps sharp pain is not going to produce as rapid a response from the whole body as a tap on the knee will receive from the leg. \n\nNot to extend the morbid topic, but on a related note I happened to see the recent video of the trapped car thief who fatally shot himself in the head. I couldn't help but notice that he stood there as though stunned for a long moment before collapsing. If these real-life incidents are taken as generally representative, we're left with an apparent contradiction . . . unless brain-centered autonomous-system muscle-controls account for those moments of suspension, in which case a beheaded body will collapse that much more quickly than a body that has been fatally head-shot. \n\nBut in Hollywood, beheaded bodies remain upright for a dramatic moment with \nsuch frequency that you can't blame yourself for wondering if this is \nmore than just the cliche it appears to be. The above account seems to \nfirmly indicate \"cliche.\" And when Nucky shot Roland in the head in last week's Boardwalk Empire, he fell as though clubbed by a giant. This is typical and appears to be equally a cliche. \n\nIf the above theory is true, directors of HBO shows follow dramatic principles that consistently run counter to reality. It's as though well-performed formal beheadings are so fast that slowing them down makes them more dramatic, while fatal shootings are so slow that speeding them up makes them more dramatic. We need our narrated violence to match the situation, depending on whether it is anticipated or uncertain or completely unexpected, and naturally an execution is more anticipated than not.\n\nPerhaps this is obvious. But I think these examples are interesting for what they say about human neurological biases in processing data---how narrative, by definition, manipulates our response to it by anticipating and shaping itself to those biases. And if narrative reflects our brains' deepest needs, then film reflects them even more closely." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2012-10-15T22:27:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Executioner's Art", "in_reply_to": "<1350313960.57734.YahooMailNeo@web84506.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson wrote:\nit seems that this eyewitness account bears\nout the subtle manipulation of the condemned and unhesitating resolve of\nthe headman as depicted in the BOTNS." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's some historical evidence too. Poised to make the killing\nstroke, Anne Boleyn's executioner is supposed to have said \"Boy, fetch\nmy sword\" to misdirect her at the crucial moment.\n\nHe was a skilled French headsman, brought in especially for the job.\nJudging by the accounts of the last moments of Thomas Cromwell and\nMary Queen of Scots, our own British executioners of the time would\nhave given Master Palaemon a coronary." } ] } ] }