I've heard that being burned alive is one of the most painful ways to die. However freezing to death just slows everything down and you would become unconscious first.
But the two extremes should be somewhat equal. Either instant on both ends of the spectrum, or slow. Otherwise you're asking if you want to die quick and painful, or slow and uncomfortable.
Freezing "seems" better but is far worse, and much slower.
When you burn however, the nerve endings are destroyed very quickly. So you stop feeling pain and go completely into shock. Only if you survive being burnt is there going to be a lot of pain, in recovery.
It's the image (burning is more gruesome) in ones head that makes them choose freezing, not their logic.
I disagree that it's worse, although we can only speculate based on evidence.
If we're to assume they occur over equal time, then slowly freezing is preferable to slowly burning.
Slowly freezing is comparatively painless, it's thawing that is excruciating - and if you're dead, that bit doesn't matter. Slowly burning, on the other hand, would involve constant pain until you either pass out or die - there are a lot of nerve endings to burn away and if the process is slow, the pain will be sustained. Also, the sheer terror as you burn to death would be horrendous. With freezing to death, your brain is reduced to a crawl, you end up delusional, often unaware or apathetic to your situation, you hallucinate, you forget what is happening - I'd choose that over constant terror and pain.
This is a great article / short story about freezing, very well written. It gives you an insight into a typical experience for someone caught in lethally cold conditions:
<a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/As-Freezing-Persons-Recollect-the-Snow--First-Chill--Then-Stupor--Then-the-Letting-Go.html?page=all" rel="nofollow">http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/...</a>
The link messed up, here it is again:
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/As-Freezing-Persons-Recollect-the-Snow--First-Chill--Then-Stupor--Then-the-Letting-Go.html
I'm not saying fire doesn't destroy nerves quickly, I'm saying there are a lot of nerves to destroy, and if you are SLOWLY burning to death, that means it'll take a long time before you cease to feel excruciating pain. Compare that to freezing, where there isn't a great deal of pain involved and it's probably far less psychologically traumatic, I think there's a clear winner.
Would you rather burn or freeze to death?
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I would prefer to freeze.
I've heard that being burned alive is one of the most painful ways to die. However freezing to death just slows everything down and you would become unconscious first.
But the two extremes should be somewhat equal. Either instant on both ends of the spectrum, or slow. Otherwise you're asking if you want to die quick and painful, or slow and uncomfortable.
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[Old Memory]
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Actually it's the dead opposite.
Freezing "seems" better but is far worse, and much slower.
When you burn however, the nerve endings are destroyed very quickly. So you stop feeling pain and go completely into shock. Only if you survive being burnt is there going to be a lot of pain, in recovery.
It's the image (burning is more gruesome) in ones head that makes them choose freezing, not their logic.
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disthing
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wigsplitz
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I disagree that it's worse, although we can only speculate based on evidence.
If we're to assume they occur over equal time, then slowly freezing is preferable to slowly burning.
Slowly freezing is comparatively painless, it's thawing that is excruciating - and if you're dead, that bit doesn't matter. Slowly burning, on the other hand, would involve constant pain until you either pass out or die - there are a lot of nerve endings to burn away and if the process is slow, the pain will be sustained. Also, the sheer terror as you burn to death would be horrendous. With freezing to death, your brain is reduced to a crawl, you end up delusional, often unaware or apathetic to your situation, you hallucinate, you forget what is happening - I'd choose that over constant terror and pain.
This is a great article / short story about freezing, very well written. It gives you an insight into a typical experience for someone caught in lethally cold conditions:
<a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/As-Freezing-Persons-Recollect-the-Snow--First-Chill--Then-Stupor--Then-the-Letting-Go.html?page=all" rel="nofollow">http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/...</a>
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disthing
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The link messed up, here it is again:
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/As-Freezing-Persons-Recollect-the-Snow--First-Chill--Then-Stupor--Then-the-Letting-Go.html
It does destroy the nerves quickly, stopping pain. It's not speculation, it's fact lol.
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disthing
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I'm not saying fire doesn't destroy nerves quickly, I'm saying there are a lot of nerves to destroy, and if you are SLOWLY burning to death, that means it'll take a long time before you cease to feel excruciating pain. Compare that to freezing, where there isn't a great deal of pain involved and it's probably far less psychologically traumatic, I think there's a clear winner.
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The ones dat R close to da surface are vat da humans use to feel many pains, they be all da ways dead by fire real fast an shit.
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disthing
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See More Comments =>
...Nevermind.
And I'm sure the many who have both frozen AND burned to death can confirm this.
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Lol, the nerves being destroyed is a fact you sillys. And yeah it has been confirmed, that's how I knew about it!
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wigsplitz
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What we need to do is find some hypothermia survivors and light them on fire to get to the bottom of this.
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Is seperate choices, so no point in for to combine them senor.