Originally Posted by Strange Famous

Well, obviously its a lot easier to say you'd do it than to do it - which is the point everyone is raising. But 40 seconds for $40,000 would be a lot of money for me.

As unpleasant and horrible as I could imagine it would be, I think that the guy saying he'd rather have his fingers smashed with a hammer is plain wrong, or being misleading. A sensation of torture CANNOT be as bad as physical damage and disability. No one would prefer to never be able to use their hand for 40 years rather than 40 seconds of any kind of agony or horror if it ended and there was no more.