Nitschke's 'suicide machine' draws crowds at Amsterdam funeral fair

[de officiis]

Nitschke's 'suicide machine' draws crowds at Amsterdam funeral fair

A controversial suicide pod that enables its occupant to kill themselves at the press of a button went on display at an Amsterdam funeral show on Saturday.

Called the “Sarco”, short for sarcophagus, the 3D-printed machine invented by Australian euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke and Dutch designer Alexander Bannink comes with a detachable coffin, mounted on a stand that contains a nitrogen canister.

“The person who wants to die presses the button and the capsule is filled with nitrogen. He or she will feel a bit dizzy but will then rapidly lose consciousness and die,” said Nitschke. The Sarco was a device “to provide people with a death when they wish to die,” Nitschke said.

The inventors put a model of the device on display, together with a set of virtual reality glasses to give visitors a true-to-life experience of what it would be like to sit in the pod, before ultimately pressing the button.

Nitschke said he aimed to build the first fully functioning pod before the end of the year.

After that, the design will be put online as an open-source document for people to download. “That means that anybody who wants to build the machine can download the plans and 3D-print their own device,” Nitschke said.

... the Sarco drew large crowds, many curious to try out the device’s chair and virtual reality glasses. iet Verstraaten, 52, from the eastern Dutch city of Venray, said: “It was really an experience and a strange thing to see. But very pretty and calm. You see the moon, you see the sea. It’s very calm.”

[Fife]

Is there room for a sex doll?

[Speaker to Animals]

Californians just buy a few gallons of gas and a candle lighter. Does this compete on that price point?

[Fife]

I expect Nitrogen is pretty eco-friendly.

Some Nord rules might be amended slightly in order to ethically dispose of the carbon-based carcasses. They would make good chicken feed.

[doc_loliday]

A funeral fair?

[Kath]

I like it!

[Ex-California]

Normal people use this

[Speaker to Animals]

Normal people just endure the misery all the way till the end while trying to drag everybody else into the sadness with them. Or maybe that's just the Irish part of me. Not sure.

[de officiis]

I expect Nitrogen is pretty eco-friendly.

Some Nord rules might be amended slightly in order to ethically dispose of the carbon-based carcasses. They would make good chicken feed.

They use nitrogen because it doesn't cause the person to feel like they are suffocating. There were some people running around in the U.S. a few years ago helping people off themselves by putting bags over their head filled with nitrogen. Same idea.

[Smitty-48]

If it came to that, I would just prefer to die with my boots on and put a bullet in my brain, but on other hand I wouldn't want to leave it to my wife to have to deal with that, if my wife was gone I wouldn't hesitate, but if not, I'd have to think about it some more when I came to that bridge.