From: YP Fun (ypprotection@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed May 15 2002 - 00:20:16 MDT
--- Phil Osborn <philosborn2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
> parties, I will definitely choose adult men over
> women, and especially over children.
I disagree. For survival reasons you should always
save the children, not because it is the "nice"
thing to do but just because they will be more likely
to survive. Ideally you want a few old people
to give them guidance but most of the population
to save should be young. Young people have more
energy and are more willing to learn and change.
I am sure there are experiments and statistics
on this but I need more time with google.
>
> Why? Because most adult men are worth more than
> most
I disagree. Invested more is not equal to worth more.
I think current worth and cummulative lifetime worth
are two very different things.
If I was an altruistic captain and I had to
decide who I would save in a ship reck and I had
a life boat for 10. I would save:
1. adult ~40 (ordered by priority healthy, practical,
smart)
2. adult ~50 (ordered by priority smart, healthy,
practical)
3. 5 children (mixed sex) and 5 teenager (mixed sex)
I pick mid to later aged adults because I want
them one to be young enough to survive, but old
enough to have lots of practical knowledge.
Young people adapt better than old people.
I also believe that young people are more capable
of tolerating and surviving environmental trama.
> adult women both in terms of their productivity and
> their capacity to be an asset in a dangerous
I would have to disagree.
> situation. Even if those I allowed in the boat were
> clearly to have no role whatever in determining out
> likely survival, still, I would consider it a
> betrayal
> of basic human values to choose people who are
> generally of less value.
See my worth point up above.
> going by the law of averages. Most men are better
> educated, more knowledgeable about life in general,
> and more rational. Not hugely so, for sure, but
What is your rational for this arguement? If that
was the case you should rank based on education
or survival skill not sex.
> enough to notice.
>
> Children, on the other hand, and especially infants,
> are generally nowhere near as valuable as a a
> healthy
> adult. It really sickens me to hear that some
> mother
> - or father - has chosen his or her baby's life over
> his or her own. For the typical infant these days,
> it
> will take almost two decades before he or she will
> be
> pulling his or her own weight, after a huge
The context of who to "save for the next generation"
as opposed to "who has rights in a given human
society" are very different.
In one context we post-evaluate worth in another
context we pre-evaluate potential.
YP
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