Whatever wrong a person can do, either genocide or something else, does not matter the intensity. The worse thee can get is capital punishment, aka K.O., aka death. Is not dying an incentive enough not to be a wrongdoer? Can a punishment more severe than death solve this issue or even exist? There were quite a handful of punishments back in the old days, more unbearable than death (some on a personal level and some on a societal level). But are not present anymore because of the pretext of being inhumane. Like slaughtering every relative of the “wrongdoer” (by not following the societal norms or just given the title of wrongdoer by the local authority) spanning three or more generations (done mainly in several regions of China). Or excessive torture by not letting the wrongdoer die “peacefully”. But nowadays, we can’t counter genocide by genocide; it would be inhumane. So, is there something worse than death that still lies within the bounds of being humane? Hmm… is anything worse than death even humane?…
Is closed confinement where every wall/floor is covered in white; no window or anything, just a tiny slit in one of the walls for food and a small hole for excretion and urination. Living in that remote place, not seeing the face of anyone residing in an artificial environment without ever seeing the sunlight and living by what is necessary, nothing more, nothing less. Dying in the end due to excessive boredom. Even worse if that person has claustrophobia and tinnitus. So, is it worse than death? If we think in this way that death is predestined, something along with death can worsen it. Then yes, indeed, it is worse. But giving capital death has much more to it; the feeling that you are going to die; whatever you are feeling, your consciousness, your sense of belonging will soon fade away. Can closed confinement match that feeling? Yes and no; living with nothing but your conscious; slowly getting closer to death is lethal, as homo sapiens who are tuned to figure out patterns, getting out of bounds; we can’t survive this environment, and in my opinion, we’ll rather die of boredom than ageing. But is it even worth doing this much to a wrongdoer; for us, he is just leaching-of of us and will die sooner or later. Maintaining the environment is a difficult task as well. So, is it worth going through all that hassle to make it humane, in my opinion no?
But the next question is, even if we assume this punishment is worse than death, who shall get this judgement; where is the line drawn? This is still a case with today’s limitations in punishments, i.e. if thee kill a few dozen people, thee will die, and if thee mass genocide, then thee will die and even if thee do nothing, thee will die. So, which punishments should be addressed with capital and which should not be; is very much a topic up for debate and depends on societal norms and the context, which is not bad but can be exploited to find loopholes.
But even if we found something worse and could draw out lines, then is it over? No, let’s take the example of closed confinement; after learning out that there exists something worse, terrorists may start giving training on living in that sort of environment, like the way they do now with torture training. Soon it will not be an incentive enough of not to be a wrongdoer. People will start to die of ageing than of boredom. Soon we’ll require something even worse than that. The never-ending cycle of search still remains (after reaching where “infinity” was, it got even further). It is good till it is new. But this is more of a hypothesis than a theory.
But maybe the answer to the very first question was not that far. In my opinion, something worse than death does exist, and it is the fear of death, the realization and fear of reaching death’s door where nothing exists beyond. And maybe that is why sudden death is deadlier than closed confinement. Death is eventual, but the realization that death is not far behind us every time is deadlier.