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Women and children first


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Well, apart from anything else, the "women and children first" thing is a myth. It happened once on a famous ship, but that was pretty much it, so please, enough with this "it's a universal facet of human nature!" thing.

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Children-first never made sense to me. Children are probably the least equipped to survive the ordeal of being on a life raft with undetermined length of time until rescue as well as unpredictable events from nature. Yes, you can put a child on the life raft, but will s/he live to be rescued? Would it not make more sense to put younger adults with good fitness and outdoors experience on the raft first to maximize the outcome of the rescue? And then for every such adult, we can expect them to carry the weight of 2 children. So on a raft that holds 20 people, you can have 6 adults, 12 children, +2 wildcard spots.

The whole "women are needed for breeding" is so 1820s. We have absolutely no risk of running out of humans to populate this Earth any time soon, and unless the capsized ship holds the entire ethnic population of a small island nation, no ethnic group is going to go extinct if all the women from that country are denied access to a lifeboat.

Which does raise a good point - I think if you're ethnically a small minority of the world, like First Nations, and you're of reproductive age, then you should get first dib. Preserving genetic diversity and all. I'd rather save a 1/4 blood Sioux Indian male of 30 years than a full blooded Caucasian girl of 7 years old, if I have only 1 spot left to give.

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I think for the purposes of the question we can assume that there is ample time to decide who's going and who's dying.

All the "just get to the choppa asap" answers are kinda avoiding the main point here.

In that case, draw lots. If you've got time to sort everything out in a reasonable manner, you've got time to draw up lots for who doesn't get to leave. :p

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I agree with children first, because basically even if that child is not from an ethnically diverse population. It sits all kind of wrong with me to get a 30 year old preference over a 7 year old. Especially if someone has as little as 1/4 of an ethically diverse population, and one that would probably have many more of it's population able to breed still on land. I could see where it become a more interesting and disturbing question if you have two 7 year old children, one of an ethnic minority, one of an ethnic majority.



As for women. I can see giving pregnant women, or women with babies that are still reliant on them preference. But other then that I just see giving a parent, whether male or female preference over an non parent. Being a complete orphan would be neither beneficial to the child nor society. But it doesn't have to be the mother who gets the spot.



After that you take your strongest, and your people most able to survive and provide for said child. At least in my mind this should be how it works.

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I agree with children first, because basically even if that child is not from an ethnically diverse population. It sits all kind of wrong with me to get a 30 year old preference over a 7 year old. Especially if someone has as little as 1/4 of an ethically diverse population, and one that would probably have many more of it's population able to breed still on land. I could see where it become a more interesting and disturbing question if you have two 7 year old children, one of an ethnic minority, one of an ethnic majority.

As for women. I can see giving pregnant women, or women with babies that are still reliant on them preference. But other then that I just see giving a parent, whether male or female preference over an non parent. Being a complete orphan would be neither beneficial to the child nor society. But it doesn't have to be the mother who gets the spot.

After that you take your strongest, and your people most able to survive and provide for said child. At least in my mind this should be how it works.

Wouldn't pregnant women be likely to need too many of the limited resources?

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The assumption is always that once they're on the lifeboat, they're safe.

If we follow that assumption then sure, get the children onto the boats first.

But if we are talking about a real crash, the length of time to rescue can vary greatly, and survivability on the raft must also be considered, imo. Putting 20 of the 1 to 14 year olds on the raft is a recipe for disaster.

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Wouldn't pregnant women be likely to need too many of the limited resources?

I guess it comes down to how you view children. (And I do not want to make this a pro choice/pro life debate). I could see not give someone who is 4 weeks pregnant preference over someone not pregnant. But once a pregnant lady is in her 3rd trimester, I feel like you are actively saving a baby who could if circumstances where different survive outside the womb, and for who the possibility of miscarriage is now very slim. The survival of the baby is what puts the lady in the life boat in my situation. Plus the whole having one parent thing. As for resources, the more people you put in a life boat the less you have to spread around. I don't think a pregnant lady is going to take twice the resources, though you have the possibility of saving twice the number of people.

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That's just because if you pass out due to lack of Oxygen you won't be helping anyone at all.

Isn't that really just an extremely accelerated version of the life boats though? If you don't get on that boat you are not going to cure cancer.

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Genetic diversity for its own sake seems like a weird metric. Is there a particular value to this diversity, like immunity from diseases or something?



I mean if you have one of the people who is immune to HIV then definitely save them in the name of progress.



If we don't do it by IQ or other useful genetic factors, I'd consider doing it by profession. Doctors might get priority if there are no valuable scientists or inventors. Politicians and diplomats might be be important, assuming they're invaluable to some peace process.


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Isn't that really just an extremely accelerated version of the life boats though? If you don't get on that boat you are not going to cure cancer.

Well, the oxygen masks aren't necessarily life or death if you don't put them on immediately. If you lose cabin pressure above a certain altitude, there will likely still be enough oxygen in the air to keep you alive but your body will shut down non-essential functions - like you being conscious - in order to keep brain/heart/lungs functioning in an environment with less oxygen. You have a certain amount of time before you become hypoxic and start acting weird (basically you are awake but don't really have any idea what you are doing) and then you pass out. You probably won't be dead, but you won;t be useful either.

Anyway, once you recognize that you've lost pressure and are becoming oxygen deprived you need to secure your own oxygen supply first and foremost so that there is at least one functioning person on board who can then help everyone else. If you try to help other people first it is actually a greater risk that everyone dies because if everyone on board is passed out the plane will run out of fuel and crash. And this has happened quite a few times in aviation history. I had to do some high altitude training a couple of years ago and they put me in a chamber and did this to me.

In other words, its not quite the same as the ship because securing your oxygen mask first isn't just saving yourself, its potentially saving everyone.

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