With the world’s population due to hit 7 billion people later this year, the question of how to control a global population spinning wildly out of control, on a planet with limited resources, is finally making its way into public discourse. Solutions to overpopulation range from limiting the number of children people can have, forced sterilization, to a rise in the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement to legalizing euthanasia.
Designer and Royal London College of Art PhD student Julijonas Urbonas has come up with a rather ingenious (although not for the faint of heart,) “euphoric and pleasurable” solution for autonomous active euthanasia. Currently created as more of a conceptual art piece, the Euthanasia Coaster, is a half kilometre roller coaster style ride, filled with loops and turns, specifically designed to result in your hypothetic demise.
“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, explains the designer.
Although having an exhilarating ending to your life may not suit everyone’s idea of a peaceful passing, the artist has engineered the Euthanasia Coaster so that you have time to contemplate the end of your life with the ride gradually increasing in velocity until you are rendered unconscious and eventually killed by oxygen deprivation and the extreme G-force.
“Seated, harnessed with a health monitoring system, and strapped to the seat of a single-seat coaster vehicle, you are slowly towed to the top of the drop-tower,” explains the designer.
After rising to the top of the drop tower peak, you have the choice to voluntarily push a Fall button which would then submit you to a 500m (1,640ft) curved free-fall and a series of tightening loops that subject to a maximum acceleration of 10g. As you are rendered unconscious from the velocity of the ride, the extreme force rushes the blood to the lower extremities of the body, thereby causing oxygen deficiency in the brain while also inducing a sense of euphoria.
“It is exactly this cerebral suffocation, also known as cerebral hypoxia, that is going to kill you,” explains the artist. “The rest of the ride, six or five loops, proceeds with your body being numb, ensuring that the trip ends your life.”
Visit: http://www.julijonasurbonas.lt/
Via FastCoDesign
Show/Hide comment form
