In the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror," Captain Kirk and several colleagues were accidentally transported to a mirror universe ruled by evil. The Enterprise was a ship of conquest, promotion within Starfleet was by assassination, and Spock had a beard. It was terrible--except for the beard part, which looked rather nice on Spock.
Every crewman on the Enterprise carried a personal device called an agonizer. When a superior officer gave the order, you must turn on your agonizer, which sends searing pain coursing through your body.
Captain Kirk and the other characters from the home universe were shocked and scandalized by this brutal machine. This is only because they had forgotten that such a device existed in Earth's dark, barbaric past. We have agonizers today, but we call them snooze buttons.