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Ulgeguug t1_j36p0c2 wrote

The list of hideous torturous degrading sick ways of killing people devised by human beings is very long.

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LP99 t1_j37g196 wrote

> In the second act, the body was braided into another wooden spoked wheel, which was possible through the broken limbs, or tied to the wheel. The wheel was then erected on a mast or pole, like a crucifixion.

The history of mankind is very, very depraved.

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Africa_versus_NASA t1_j37r2i6 wrote

The elevated breaking wheel is prominently featured in Breughel's "The Triumph of Death"

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brueghel_the_Elder,Pieter-_Triumph_of_Death,detail-_c._1562-1563.jpg

He likely saw it himself, and felt the same way about it as you do now.

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Khelthuzaad t1_j37ord7 wrote

In retrospect the countries with the worst kind of torture were the ones with the most civil unrest or elites fearing the normal people.They were uncanny cruel not because they hated the person,but because they didn't wanted the people to mimic their actions.There were also double standards,with men getting lesser punishment for the death of abuse of women.

China for example has a very very long history of battling itself rather than other regions

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Skythewood t1_j37qjdc wrote

China is too vast during ancient times for most of it's population to fight anyone other then each other.

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ShortOldFatGuy t1_j39aa0e wrote

Amazing how external threats (those wonderful Mongols, et. al.) always manage to bring about brotherly love between fueding families. It can even inspire family projects - like a wall around the middle kingdom. As a footnote, Machevelli counseled rulers in The Prince that if they feared internal foes most - then build walls. If external foes were the greatest danger, then do not build them. (Wonder if Trump was basing his Mexican wall plan on this counsel?)

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Jjex22 t1_j38qtwd wrote

At least this one didn’t require a particularly sick train of thought to come up with I guess? We invented cart wheels, people got run over by them and their bones broke, then when we wanted to torture someone we were like ‘hey remember when Timmy got run over by that cart? That fucking hurt… grab a wheel!’

But yeah, from a modern lens it’s quite hard to really envisage just how horrific we were to each other in the past

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ZerglingBBQ t1_j3ageqr wrote

We're still just as bad if not worse. Saw a video of Mexican cartel flaying a dude and then cutting his heart out of his chest while he was still conscious.

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RedTheDopeKing t1_j382s5i wrote

I mean we’re still depraved it’s not like we’re enlightened in modern times.

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Ulgeguug t1_j39bezm wrote

While this is true, I think that humanity has developed quite a lot.

The idea, for instance, that you should publicly gruesomely execute people, while it still exists in places, has declined dramatically over the past couple centuries. It was only a few decades ago that firebombing civilian populations and burning entire cities alive was just one of those things you do in war.

There's a terrifying race going on between our advancement as human beings and our advancement in the capacity of barbarity.

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RedTheDopeKing t1_j39duz8 wrote

That’s still one of the things you do in war, we just have less war now. It’s not gone forever I promise you. Russia is using rockets to destroy infrastructure in Ukraine, taking their power offline, trying to freeze people in winter.

I think people are the same as we always have been, deep down, and always will be. I don’t think we’re striving towards one day having some utopia, people like to ignore the ugly side of humanity but it’s there.

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Zamasu19 t1_j39il4k wrote

Yeah. Like if the world fell apart tonight, we’re going back to wing fucked up to each other

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[deleted] t1_j36pvzv wrote

Yes, it's really depressing how much effort we've put into torturing our own kind. I suppose we should be thankful we live in more "enlightened" times.

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bystander007 t1_j38zlu6 wrote

The bottomless depths of human depravity which arise from boredom will never cease to amaze and horrifying me.

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INTHEMIDSTOFLIONS t1_j3amkcy wrote

And most of them are fake.

Things like the Iron Maiden and the Judas Cradle weren’t real. They were just meant to scare people. I wouldn’t be surprised if the breaking wheel was also fake.

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BaidenFallwind t1_j392cks wrote

Here's the thing: I agree, along with hundreds of others. But as soon as there's some psychopath who tortured, raped, and murdered children, there will be more who deeply wish we could return to such brutality.

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Ulgeguug t1_j393vxa wrote

I think that there's a brutal impulse that is at odds with our moral aspirations, and certainly our desire to fit into a civilized society. I think that impulse tends to seek out outlets where it's socially acceptable to be brutal or fantasize about it. "Flaying another human being alive while starving rats eat the eyes out of their face is sick, evil, no one should ever fantasize about doing that to anyone EXCEPT Nazis child molesters terrorists rapists enslavers ooh yeah we should torture them mmmm torture the fuck out of them"

Like the deplorable people who exist in the world are used as an excusable outlet for repressed sadism and cruelty. It allows us to conflate those impulses with feelings of righteous vindication. Anyone who's watched the bad guy in a movie die a grisly death of humiliation and pain with any feeling of satisfaction understands this.

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shaving99 t1_j3a2tul wrote

Yeah imagine having to hear Nickelback everyday

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[deleted] t1_j3bbetg wrote

Even just the outlawing of cruel punishment makes the US Constitution an amazing thing

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Ulgeguug t1_j3bc7t9 wrote

With limited success, unfortunately, but yes

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[deleted] t1_j3bd27g wrote

You think the USA still has torture like the breaking wheel?

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Ulgeguug t1_j3bdk1c wrote

I think you either don't understand the difference between "limited success" and "no success at all", or you do understand and you're responding in bad faith.

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[deleted] t1_j3bfdxs wrote

I think the constitution is wildly successful - cruel punishment being one. Criminals are in prisons with HVAC, gyms, TV , 3 meals a day …

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Ulgeguug t1_j3bhg2q wrote

>Criminals are in prisons with HVAC, gyms, TV , 3 meals a day …

Except when they're in prisons without HVAC being subjected to heat, or being regularly subjected to extended solitary confinement, or beatings and other abuses, or put in deliberate danger including of sexual assault, or in the case of those that are abducted from other countries and deprived the dubious rights and protections granted prisoners and subjected to torture, either euphemized or not.

Like the idea that prisoners getting "3 meals" means it's not cruel simply because you're not literally starving them, even if that food is unfit for human consumption and is often unsafe for human consumption, is pretty callous.

I'm a big fan of the constitution, like, I have a favorite Federalist paper big fan, but in terms of how successful we've been at upholding it, either in letter or spirit, we are sorely lacking.

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DoctorBocker t1_j36okvm wrote

Not gonna lie, I always thought the wheel was more involved in the 'breaking' part.

Now I know it's just pageantry.

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neoplastic_pleonasm t1_j370oqb wrote

It was done a lot of different ways, but in some cases they'd put the limbs up on wooden blocks and use the wheel to smash them.

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Black_Moons t1_j37gv00 wrote

I feel like that is what happened when they where told that 'using the wheel' was a method of torture/execution, but nobody really asked how it was done until it came time to do it to somebody.

"Dunno man.... get some wooden blocks and run him over with it? I heard we're supposed to break his bones or something"

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ValhallaGo t1_j37tzad wrote

The idea was to put a limb across the spokes and then hit it between the spokes.

Broken on the wheel. That’s more or less what it meant.

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_hic-sunt-dracones_ t1_j378r9p wrote

It was in a way. The person was straped to a wheel laying on the ground. Then they used another wheel (vertical) and smashed in the gaps between the spokes to break the limbs. Then the wattled those limbs through the spokes, errected the wheel again and let nature do the rest.

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Ineedtwocats t1_j37bn84 wrote

I suggest reading The Faithful Executioner

it goes into explicit detail about these things and you're not far off, sometimes the bones would be smashed with the wheel.

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Forgotten_Gravitas t1_j37ix7b wrote

Excellent book, and also throw in the diary of Franz Schmidt and the memoirs of Henry Sanson

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DrProfDoommuffinsPhD t1_j38tq0w wrote

Isn't The Faithful Executioner the title of Franz Schmidt's journal or am I mistaken?

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Forgotten_Gravitas t1_j38xfsc wrote

The one I'm referring to is "A Hangman's Diary: The Journal of Master Franz Schmidt, Public Executioner of Nuremberg, 1573-1617"

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FatWombat99 t1_j38rzja wrote

I remember one where they would tie you to the wheel and then they would actually roll you down the hill

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SuicidalGuidedog t1_j36usm7 wrote

It feels a lot like the wheel is superfluous to this execution. My final words would probably be "sure, I mean it hurts, but why call it a Breaking Wheel? You could have broken my limbs and tied them to just about anything... hey, come back, I'm not done berating you."

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deaddonkey t1_j3apl0g wrote

Perhaps it came from an older tradition where the wheel was a little more relevant.

Or a wheel was just the most common spoked object you can wrap someone around.

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Proper-Emu1558 t1_j36w4f1 wrote

Imagine what advances we could have made in other areas if we just stopped working so hard to torture and kill each other.

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khansian t1_j3877de wrote

To the contrary, we should wonder why so many societies felt it necessary to torture people in such terrible ways.

We look back on this now from our relatively peaceful, safe, and wealthy lives. But these things happened at a time when something as simple as a band of thieves operating on a highway could mean death for those who get robbed, starvation of those victims’ families, and a mini-recession for the towns whose main trade route was disrupted.

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alanpardewchristmas t1_j38lw91 wrote

These people, who imagined these devices, and commissioned their uses, you think they wanted progress?

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kkyonko t1_j391tgf wrote

I mean, a ton of technological strides have been made during times of war.

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rubemechanical t1_j37sos7 wrote

There was a Dan Carlin podcast about the Münster Rebellion (I think), and one of the things I learned was that when you were sentenced to an hour of torture…it was an hour of TORTURE - the clock stopped when you fell unconscious, so they’d wait until you revived before setting in again.

Deplorable.

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yurk23 t1_j39pgxc wrote

Maybe the “Painfotainment” episode? YouTube

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rubemechanical t1_j39xapp wrote

I’m pretty sure it was “Prophets of Doom.” I don’t have a link, unfortunately - seems to be behind a paywall, now.

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yurk23 t1_j39yxll wrote

I think you’re right. Been a while since I listened to the older episodes.

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SOUR_PATCH_NIPS t1_j37g84n wrote

Bonewheel skeleton! https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Dark-Souls-3/skeleton-wheel-enemies-dark-souls-3-wiki-guide.jpg

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thatonedudeguyman t1_j37zs5w wrote

First thing I thought of was Mozgus from Berserk(the inspiration for Dark Souls) and his field of people broken on the wheel.

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phirebird t1_j37vnse wrote

It's a good thing this form of torture was saved for only the most heinous of cringes, like pirating software

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badbubbahotep t1_j37h4il wrote

Buddhism has thought up some pretty creative ways to kill people without people having to do the dirty work. Sewing people up in wet yak skins and then laying them out in the sun to dry and slowly shrink, squeezing the person sewn inside to death is pretty macabre.

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Kalappianer t1_j36q5ay wrote

Oh... my... god. I've used "radbrækket" without actually knowing the origin!

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CrueltyJuggernaut t1_j36ueum wrote

Medieval people were brutal bro, there is a long list of sick torture methods they liked to do.

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neslo024 t1_j37nvmu wrote

I learned the process of impaling watching season two of Rise Of Empires and I was definitely happier not knowing that information.

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Halvus_I t1_j39qf82 wrote

We are STILL brutal. Executions in the USA could absolutely be painless, but States that carry them out actually assert that their justice system is retributive and intend for the condemned to suffer.

If not for the national prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, i assure you States in the US would resort to death torture.

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at-m6b t1_j36ojhb wrote

so prometheus

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ElfMage83 t1_j36s0no wrote

TIL that the Catherine wheel has another name.

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ErdTheBird99 t1_j37t5y5 wrote

Now that one enemy in persona makes sense.

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coyote-1 t1_j375t8s wrote

The opening scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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drew1010101 t1_j37o7km wrote

I saw one of these at the museum of torture in Heidelberg Germany.

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CinnnaBunn t1_j381zmj wrote

I know I'll regret asking this... But does anyone have an example of what braiding limbs looks like?

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BiscuitCrumbsInBed t1_j39rt86 wrote

The people who first invented these methods of torture/murder were some serious sickos!!

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Susefreak t1_j377pq8 wrote

So did the surname Wheeler come from the surviving ones or the people who delivered the Breaking Wheel torture?

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InstanceDelicious987 t1_j38426j wrote

Dan Carlins hardcore history had a very large breakdown of this, as I recall there was many different versions

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lostan t1_j3875c6 wrote

And... there's my daily dose of horrifying atrocities.

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honeytimer t1_j39djmx wrote

To all of you decrying the sick nature of humanity, you clicked on it lol

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oldskool2202 t1_j39uxaj wrote

Should be used for crimes committed like Brian K

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Son_of_Plato t1_j3a23el wrote

So the pinwheel skeletons From Dark Souls must be people that died on breaking wheels...

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Joshew90 t1_j3aax3g wrote

Did you listen to hardcore history?

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SonofBeckett t1_j3acgqj wrote

I know, right? Meanwhile, Microsoft just reduced their monthly reward bonus from 1000 to 500 points for the Completionist reward. Life's tough in every era.

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jigga19 t1_j3b171w wrote

Check out scaphism for truly gnarly method.

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Sgt_Fox t1_j3b6wsw wrote

I knew about the 2nd part, but I always thought they tied the person to the perimeter of a heavy wheel and then rolled the wheel across a track to break the bones

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Holdem88 t1_j3es3qk wrote

Train stations makes a good choice.

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c2srq t1_j36otza wrote

The original Breaking Bad.

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WinkyTheFrog t1_j37r5b6 wrote

We should bring this back

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tatertot225 t1_j37coat wrote

Sounds like a good method for chomos AKA pedophiles aka woodchipper food

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