Women and children first

[The BlackBear]

This whole Korean thing seems more like incompetence on the half of the crew. If most of the lifeboats (if not all) are still attached, it implys there were no selfish people putting themselves first, as the lifeboats could not actually be launched. They just did the sensible thing and got off as best they could. The critical thing was the extreme delay (and possible oversight) of informing the passengers, and ordering an evacuation. They were told to stay put, but once the list gets too bad, navigating the ship becomes hard.

You make it sound like there was some scrum, with women and children being trampled, I've only been briefly reading about the disaster, but do you have any sources for this?

The problem with the Women and Children first mentality, is the delay it would cause. And as has been shown by this event delays are deadly.

[SeanF]

Like it was on Titanic. Do you agree with this?

Like it was on Titanic. Do you agree with this?

Somerset Maugham always preferred to travel on Italian liners as there was "none of this nonsense about women and children first".

[aceluby]

Let's put it in other words.

Single guys, you all die first.

Guys with children... coinflip on whether you die.

Single ladies... you may have a chance at not dying, but it's not guaranteed.

Mothers and children... ok... you're cool to keep living.

Sounds fair.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

You're all beating around the bush. Make it an issue of weight, do it by pounds and flip a coin to decide if the order goes from small to large or from large to small.

[Tellus Explorer]

You're all beating around the bush. Make it an issue of weight, do it by pounds and flip a coin to decide if the order goes from small to large or from large to small.

but even the smallest of people will add up over some pounds....

[Serious Callers Only]

cut as many legs as required. Problem solved

[The BlackBear]

Surely you want some fat people around, if you need to start eating folk, you wouldn't want a boat full of stringy buggers.

[Tellus Explorer]

That's gross BB :p

[Phaing]

...

You make it sound like there was some scrum, with women and children being trampled, I've only been briefly reading about the disaster, but do you have any sources for this?

The problem with the Women and Children first mentality, is the delay it would cause. And as has been shown by this event delays are deadly.

The kids were ordered to stay put, where they died.

The way I see it, people are using the whole "we have too many people on the planet!" arguemnt to save their own skins.

God help anyone I see trying to push a women & her baby out of the way in that kind of situation, and God had better be quick.

I'm sorry, but that's just too riduculous and disgusting for me to even engage the discusion anymore.

[Castel]

Surely you want some fat people around, if you need to start eating folk, you wouldn't want a boat full of stringy buggers.

Meh, you want meat, not blubber.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

The kids were ordered to stay put, where they died.

The way I see it, poeple are using the whole "we have too many people on the planet!" arguemnt to save their own skins.

God help anyone I see trying to push a women & her baby out of the way in that kind of situation, and God had better be quick.

I'm sorry, but that's just too riduculous and disgusting for me to even engage the discusion anymore.

No one's defending the action of the captain and crew, but pinning it on a the decline of traditional male chivalrous duty to defend woman and children or a demise of traditional gender roles and virtue is a huge stretch. Especially considering everybody involved is Korean and may not have had those cultural traditions to begin with.

[Castel]

The kids were ordered to stay put, where they died.

The way I see it, people are using the whole "we have too many people on the planet!" arguemnt to save their own skins.

God help anyone I see trying to push a women & her baby out of the way in that kind of situation, and God had better be quick.

I'm sorry, but that's just too riduculous and disgusting for me to even engage the discusion anymore.

If population has been used as an argument it's to defend putting women and children first, much to my chagrin. So I'm not sure that such an argument is as useful for this case as you want it to be.

IMHO, most of you would do the right thing when the time came.

Those that would not, those are in the minorty because they tend to Darwin themsevles out of existance, simple as that.

Just to be clear: not giving your seat to a pregnant woman and dying is "Darwining yourself out of existence"?

[Gneisenau]

Just to be clear: not giving your seat to a pregnant woman and dying is "Darwining yourself out of existence"?

It seems like not giving up your seat does the exact opposite (assuming you get to have sex afterwards)

[Phaing]

Just to be clear: not giving your seat to a pregnant woman and dying is "Darwining yourself out of existence"?

Of course.

In almost all of the time you are spending on this earth, you are sharing space with people of your own cultural//national variety. Or to make it more basic; you tribe/clan/ethnicity and general outlook.

No, not always the case, but the overwhelming amount of the time, you don't spend it with people of a diametrically opposed variety. Most people just find it unpleasant to always be argueing (might be different here with the bloggers :P ) all the time and so on.

So, if your line or the line of your community goes dry, that's Darwin putting you out of busieness.

And just do we're on track here, let me remind you; it might not be you that is there at all.

It might be your wife & kids there without you, or your sister or cousins or so on.

You might be off to summer camp and the whole rest of your family is out there.

Are the standards of behavior seeming a little more important now?

(btw, why isn't spell checker working here?)

[Castel]

So, if your line or the line of your community goes dry, that's Darwin putting you out of busieness.

We're not hunter-gatherers. We don't have a tribe. We have a larger community in which one can survive despite being despised by a certain amount of people. You can totally get away and live after refusing to let women take your seat. Your community can likewise survive after losing a few pregnant women.

And then there is the issue of it not simply being in a society where people die for that sort of thing. I doubt anyone was lynched for running off the Titanic, and that was a far more conservative time.

And just do we're on track here, let me remind you; it might not be you that is there at all.

It might be your wife & kids there without you, or your sister or cousins or so on.

You might be off to summer camp and the whole rest of your familty is out there.

Are the standards of behavior seeming a little more important now?

First of all: you mean "are my standards of behavior seeming a little more important now?". Anything else is moral grandstanding.

As for how I would feel if it was my family: depends.

If people were trampled when there wasn't a good organized system in place then life sucks, whatever. Appealing to emotion does nothing for me there.

As for whether someone should give their seat to my family member because of their genitals? Absurd, surely? Am I supposed to be pissed that that didn't happen?

[Phaing]

We're not hunter-gatherers. We don't have a tribe. We have a larger community in which one can survive despite being despised by a certain amount of people. You can totally get away and live after refusing to let women take your seat. Your community can likewise survive after losing a few pregnant women.

And then there is the issue of it not simply being in a society where people die for that sort of thing. I doubt anyone was lynched for running off the Titanic, and that was a far more conservative time.

First of all: you mean "are my standards of behavior seeming a little more important now?". Anything else is moral grandstanding.

As for how I would feel if it was my family: depends.

If people were trampled when there wasn't a good organized system in place then life sucks, whatever. Appealing to emotion does nothing for me there.

As for whether someone should give their seat to my family member because of their genitals? Absurd, surely? Am I supposed to be pissed that that didn't happen?

1- What we have now, where the cavalier attitude towards Pregnant women being expendable, would be unthinkable in any other era in history. Only now do we have such a glut of humanity that certain pundits and self-described experts can talk about this sort of thing, to encourage people to think of themsevles first in a last distch survival situation, and ignore even the protective insitincts that come from deep down inside.

2- Bruce Ismay was lynched in the court of public opinion for simply taking a seat. He was the CEO of the White Star line. There are very few instances of what you are talking about from that sinking.

And it certainly went down differently from the Korean Ferry disaster.

3- Yours first of course, but there is a guiding principle here; the world is what we make of it, all of us as individuals do affect the shape of things, as a whole. We are responsible, no matter if we think so or not. We can't pawn everything off about how our society is on the "big people".

4- "whatever"... okay then, never mind.

5- If.... no, when something like this actually happens, you may come away from it with a different point of view.

Or not,takes all kinds, I guess.

But I believe* that people that would kick a pregnant woman to the curb to stay alive would make a shitty parent, it that person ever could ever be bothered to be anything besides an annonymous sperm donor... if that much.

In the last 100 years the world has been built up to be the most luxurious and easy-going civilization in all history. Its also more fragile than most people understand. If the most basic, most natural and most kindly impulses are to be denied then the collapse into something much more primitive is not only deserved, but it is inevitable once what I see being advocated on these pages becomes the norm.

* not a jundgemnt on anyone here, its my thoughts about this round & round we have going here.

[Castel]

1- What we have now, where the cavalier attitude towards Pregnant women being expendable, would be unthinkable in any other era in history. Only now do we have such a glut of humanity that certain pundits and self-described experts can talk about this sort of thing, to encourage people to think of themsevles first in a last distch survival situation, and ignore even the protective insitincts that come from deep down inside.

Not sure what I'm supposed to do with this. You seem to be gloomily accepting what many people have pointed out; that the appeals to evolutionary theory and the trite 99 women/1 man defense are not particularly strong arguments. I may not agree with how you got there or how you're painting it but this seems to be your point.

2- Bruce Ismay was lynched in the court of public opinion for simply taking a seat. He was the CEO of the White Star line. There are very few instances of what you are talking about from that sinking.

And it certainly went down differently from the Korean Ferry disaster.

I didn't say lynched in the court of public opinion did I? I said lynched. Your argument was that people would die if they did something selfish like keep their seats, not that people would dislike them. Was he killed? Because, if not, you're proving my point, society is fractured enough and runs on different incentives so that someone can survive these sorts of actions. And again, this was years ago, in a different time.

3- Yours first of course, but there is a guiding principle here; the world is what we make of it, all of us as individuals do affect the shape of things, as a whole. We are responsible, no matter if we think so or not. We can't pawn everything off about how our society is on the "big people".

I have no idea what pawning off you're talking about here.

4- "whatever"... okay then, never mind.

5- If.... no, when something like this actually happens, you may come away from it with a different point of view.

Or not,takes all kinds, I guess.

Maybe, maybe not. Your appeal to emotion is irrelevant either way. Either my argument is weak in which case I should not believe as I do (you could do what people usually do in arguments like this and try to prove it) or my argument is acceptable and feelings have little to do with it. If the argument is then ignored because I felt something in the future all that means is that Future!Me is being irrational.

It's not even that there aren't strong arguments for certain behaviors in crisis situations (I've put forth some myself), you've just decided to box yourself into a corner with this extreme "give your seat to a pregnant woman" scenario followed by these emotional appeals instead of using them.

But I believe* that people that would kick a pregnant woman to the curb to stay alive would make a shitty parent, it that person ever could ever be bothered to be anything besides an annonymous sperm donor... if that much.

Yes. As you've shown with the strange claim that not giving your seat to someone carrying another man's baby will lead to one leaving the gene pool, you are very interested in having your moral instincts validated by real world metrics. The problem is of course that life is more complex.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. Not giving your life for someone else's child in a rare crisis doesn't seem like a definitive mark against one's ability to adequately care for children, no matter how convenient it would be for some if that were true.

In the last 100 years the world has been built up to be the most luxurious and easy-going civilization in all history. Its also more fragile than most people understand. If the most basic, most natural and most kindly impulses are to be denied then the collapse into something much more primitive is not only deserved, but it is inevitable once what I see being advocated on these pages becomes the norm.

Natural is not necessarily good. Not that these evolutionary arguments don't cut both ways and how natural it is for me to want to care about the offspring of some other man, and a stranger who contributes nothing to me or my sub-community at that.

And then of course there is the issue of whether not giving your seat to a pregnant woman is a sign of some great moral collapse, and whether that moral failing or the collapse is at all meaningful on a societal.

* not a jundgemnt on anyone here, its my thoughts about this round & round we have going here.

Of course it is a judgement.

[Phaing]

I didn't say lynched in the court of public opinion did I? I said lynched. Your argument was that people would die if they did something selfish like keep their seats, not that people would dislike them. Was he killed? Because, if not, you're proving my point, society is fractured enough and runs on different incentives so that someone can survive these sorts of actions. And again, this was years ago, in a different time.

Yes. As you've shown with the strange claim that not giving your seat to someone carrying another man's baby will lead to one leaving the gene pool, you are very interested in having your moral instincts validated by real world metrics. The problem is of course that life is more complex.

Of course it is a judgement.

1- let me clarify that. If I see some weasel in a situation like that trying to survive by condeming those weaker than himself to death, I will ensure that that person does not survive by the most expediant means at hand.

2- of course it is, but I also find that most of what makes the world appear so complex is manufactured, a veneer used to camoflauge questionable things that are of no real benifit to anyone but to the people that dreamed up the complcations.

3- yes it is, but as I was saying, NOT a judgement of you personally.

There is a 90% chance that if confronted with the situation, you would do the honorable thing, the real villians out there are remarkably rare.

But they do love company.

I had a memorable converation with a fellow veteran a while back. He said that 90% of what we call heroism is really just an extreme example of common courtesy.

The remaining cases... perhaps an expresion of our mutual insanity.

Not a bad way to express such a thing, saving lives instead of taking them, eh?

[Cameron]

In theory, the most fit would just beat their way onto the lifeboats, the problem solves itself. Those without a will to live, idiotic cultural fantasies about chivalry, or who are weaker than those who don't have the above will live. Simple social evolution theory

[Lyanna Stark]

1- What we have now, where the cavalier attitude towards Pregnant women being expendable, would be unthinkable in any other era in history. Only now do we have such a glut of humanity that certain pundits and self-described experts can talk about this sort of thing, to encourage people to think of themsevles first in a last distch survival situation, and ignore even the protective insitincts that come from deep down inside.

Which era of history? During, say, the 17th century, repeated pregnancies were seen as a blight, and people used to put their "extra" newborns they couldn't feed out in the forest to die as way to enforce some sort of birth control (reference P Englund if you are interested in a credible source, too).

Pregnant women were definitely expendable, as were children, since there was far less need to sustain a huge population compared to actually feeding a population.

Besides, everyone keeps going on and on about how men are expendable so we save women and children since then somehow, magically, all these women will procreate with only a limited set of men on account of some massive amounts of polygamy or something. However, real life examples show this is not the case. Polygamy isn't practiced just because there is a lack of men. See population numbers from Sweden during/after the 30 year war and especially perhaps during the reign of Charles XII and the Great Northern War where the casualties ended up being nearly 15% of the population due to war and famine. That means that in some areas, there were nearly no adult males left in the population.

And there still wasn't a rush to engage in polygamy where all available women let themselves be impregnated.

People seem to forget that Europe, among with probably a bunch of other areas, have already seen this type of scenario where only women, the old and the extremely young are left alive. Which totally fits the "women and children first" scenario and how this is because of the survival of the species!!! totally natural & not at all impacted by culture and how this will then magically transform into some sort of mormon compound.

Only history has shown us that it doesn't work that way. If you kill off shitloads of men, it's just as bad as if you kill off shitloads of women. While it's technically possible to "save" the species Margaret Atwood "Handmaiden" style with more women, reality != evopsych theory.