"Strilchuk, 16, said she and her friends had no life jackets. When she saw a man clutching one, she pleaded with him to hand it over.
She said she made a fist and punched him in the face when he wouldn't.
"He was holding it and he was 40 years old and we were kids," she explained, adding that she pulled the life jacket from him and gave it to a friend.
Strilchuk said she later punched another man and took his life jacket for herself"
I remember this from a while back, this girl got a lot of flak in the media over this. She may have been exaggerating but considering they were 16 year olds and not little kids it was a shitty move.
lonelyahava, looks like you're right.
Reason goes out the window and primal instincts take over.
You missed the best part:
Strilchuk said she later punched another man and took his life jacket for herself.
If you're on an airplane without proper parachutes, then something somewhere is far more fucked up than anything and you're more likely to not survive.
Most commercial and general aviation aircraft fly without parachutes. Most military aircraft that aren't fighter aircraft or carrying paratroopers or the equivalent probably don't as well.
The lack of parachutes doesn't seem to phaze most air travelers.
I suspect what you meant to say is: if you're on an airplane, and you NEED a parachute, but you are without one, then you are pretty much unlikely to survive the circumstances even if you HAD a parachute. I'd agree with that.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
I like how we can't have a debate about ethics because any scenario built to test ethics is dismissed as impossible. Why are you even here if you think conversation is impossible.
I like how we can't have a debate about ethics because any scenario built to test ethics is dismissed as impossible. Why are you even here if you think conversation is impossible.
I like how we can't have a debate about ethics because any scenario built to test ethics is dismissed as impossible. Why are you even here if you think conversation is impossible.
Validity of assumptions is as important as the arguments being presented upon the assumptions. If you can't deal with people attacking your assumptions, don't post arguments that require them?
Yeah. I mean, 50 mile hike is not exactly impossible. It's something around 16 hours of walking at a brisk pace. Start walking at 6 pm, arrive 10 am. Can't really get lost if you stay on the road.
16 hours of brisk walking without food or water. I don't think you realize how hard that would be for a physically untrained person.
Well, I don't regularly exercise all that much, and I've managed 12 hour cross country walks with little to no nourishment just fine, so I fail to see the problem with four more hours and on a road. My point was, that within the confines of the established situation, you'd be in no danger of dying from thirst or hunger while you walked to the nearest town. Shit, you could take 32 hours walking slowly, and you'd still survive.
The idea wasn't that the trip isn't exhausting, but that the situation was nowhere near as hopeless as it was made to seem. If a 50 mile walk becomes an impossible obstacle, there's really something physically wrong with the person in that situation. Granted, it wouldn't necessarily be a pleasant prospect, but completely doable nevertheless.
Yeah. I mean, 50 mile hike is not exactly impossible. It's something around 16 hours of walking at a brisk pace. Start walking at 6 pm, arrive 10 am. Can't really get lost if you stay on the road.
16 hours of brisk walking without food or water. I don't think you realize how hard that would be for a physically untrained person.
Well, I don't regularly exercise all that much, and I've managed 12 hour cross country walks with little to no nourishment just fine, so I fail to see the problem with four more hours and on a road. My point was, that within the confines of the established situation, you'd be in no danger of dying from thirst or hunger while you walked to the nearest town. Shit, you could take 32 hours walking slowly, and you'd still survive.
The idea wasn't that the trip isn't exhausting, but that the situation was nowhere near as hopeless as it was made to seem. If a 50 mile walk becomes an impossible obstacle, there's really something physically wrong with the person in that situation. Granted, it wouldn't necessarily be a pleasant prospect, but completely doable nevertheless.
I'm confused by the 50 miles figure anyways. In the theoretical story no distance was given other then a day and a half drive.
I think the "lifeboats" argument is just as outdated as the "women and children first" idea, because the odds of you being on a ship that is going down that requires any form of lifeboat rationing are pretty slim.
What if the problem wasn't who should be prioritized for rescue so much as who should take a priority of dwindling supplies?
As in, you are in a van filled with other people you don't know doing a carpool through the desert in the American southwest. It breaks down on a super old unused highway. Let's be super theoretical and say that it's going to be a day and a half before you were supposed to reach your destination, and half a day for someone's family member to decide you are missing and pressure the authorities into starting a search. It'll take half a day for them to find you.
So, it's likely going to be two and a half or more days before the helicopters see you, and you've got eight people (three men, three women, and two children - two of the women have one child each, but other than that everyone is a complete stranger) stuck with your remaining liquid supply of two cans of soda and half a bottle of water. It's 110° outside and the kids are crying. Assume no one has the knowledge to build a condensation pit and there are no water bearing cactuses around. The nearest town is fifty miles away, so "leaving to find help" isn't an option.
Does your outlook change when you can't just leave someone to die on a boat, but instead have to reason with or fight them, and then look them in the face while they die?
Ah I just read the day and a half to reach your destination part. Seriously though if it was something like 300 miles away, the people in the vehicle would deserve what happens to them for driving through the desert while bringing almost no water, and some soda.
Ah I just read the day and a half to reach your destination part. Seriously though if it was something like 300 miles away, the people in the vehicle would deserve what happens to them for driving through the desert while bringing almost no water, and some soda.
I don't think that mindset is as universal as you think. What if there just wasnt enough room? What if there was water and it got tainted somehow and was no longer potable?
I'm wondering how you feel because I've been stranded, injured in the country before. Would I "Deserve what happens to me" because I didn't have the foresight to pack a first aid kit with me everytime i ride out on my motorcycle?
Ah I just read the day and a half to reach your destination part. Seriously though if it was something like 300 miles away, the people in the vehicle would deserve what happens to them for driving through the desert while bringing almost no water, and some soda.
I don't think that mindset is as universal as you think. What if there just wasnt enough room? What if there was water and it got tainted somehow and was no longer potable?
I'm wondering how you feel because I've been stranded, injured in the country before. Would I "Deserve what happens to me" because I didn't have the foresight to pack a first aid kit with me everytime i ride out on my motorcycle?
If you're driving through a desert you should have water with you.
Yeah. I mean, 50 mile hike is not exactly impossible. It's something around 16 hours of walking at a brisk pace. Start walking at 6 pm, arrive 10 am. Can't really get lost if you stay on the road.
16 hours of brisk walking without food or water. I don't think you realize how hard that would be for a physically untrained person.
Well, I don't regularly exercise all that much, and I've managed 12 hour cross country walks with little to no nourishment just fine, so I fail to see the problem with four more hours and on a road. My point was, that within the confines of the established situation, you'd be in no danger of dying from thirst or hunger while you walked to the nearest town. Shit, you could take 32 hours walking slowly, and you'd still survive.
The idea wasn't that the trip isn't exhausting, but that the situation was nowhere near as hopeless as it was made to seem. If a 50 mile walk becomes an impossible obstacle, there's really something physically wrong with the person in that situation. Granted, it wouldn't necessarily be a pleasant prospect, but completely doable nevertheless.
The issue isn't just the amount of time you spend walking, but the pace. 3mph walking pace isn't that bad and it's probably what most people do in the short distances they walk. But maintaining that constantly for a full 16 hours is beyond anyone who isn't at least somewhat physically trained for it.
Also, my second issue is with the whole concept of doing this during the night. I live in the desert and 6 pm during the summer (going by the temperature listed, I'm assuming it's summer) is not night. And when night actually comes, you'd be surprised how little the temperature drops, it usually starts dropping below 90 after 11pm. During your typical desert summer right you'll have maybe 4-6 hours below 85 degrees, and I think I'm being generous there.
Still, I think getting to town is doable if it's only 50 miles away. But in the desert, there's a big element of risk doing that kind of activity without water.
Ah I just read the day and a half to reach your destination part. Seriously though if it was something like 300 miles away, the people in the vehicle would deserve what happens to them for driving through the desert while bringing almost no water, and some soda.
I don't think that mindset is as universal as you think. What if there just wasnt enough room? What if there was water and it got tainted somehow and was no longer potable?
I'm wondering how you feel because I've been stranded, injured in the country before. Would I "Deserve what happens to me" because I didn't have the foresight to pack a first aid kit with me everytime i ride out on my motorcycle?
If you're driving through a desert you should have water with you.
And what if something happens to the water? What if the container tears or rips?
Ah I just read the day and a half to reach your destination part. Seriously though if it was something like 300 miles away, the people in the vehicle would deserve what happens to them for driving through the desert while bringing almost no water, and some soda.
I don't think that mindset is as universal as you think. What if there just wasnt enough room? What if there was water and it got tainted somehow and was no longer potable?
I'm wondering how you feel because I've been stranded, injured in the country before. Would I "Deserve what happens to me" because I didn't have the foresight to pack a first aid kit with me everytime i ride out on my motorcycle?
If you're driving through a desert you should have water with you.
And what if something happens to the water? What if the container tears or rips?
You'd have brought enough in the hypothetical situation given though.
Yeah. I mean, 50 mile hike is not exactly impossible. It's something around 16 hours of walking at a brisk pace. Start walking at 6 pm, arrive 10 am. Can't really get lost if you stay on the road.
16 hours of brisk walking without food or water. I don't think you realize how hard that would be for a physically untrained person.
Well, I don't regularly exercise all that much, and I've managed 12 hour cross country walks with little to no nourishment just fine, so I fail to see the problem with four more hours and on a road. My point was, that within the confines of the established situation, you'd be in no danger of dying from thirst or hunger while you walked to the nearest town. Shit, you could take 32 hours walking slowly, and you'd still survive.
The idea wasn't that the trip isn't exhausting, but that the situation was nowhere near as hopeless as it was made to seem. If a 50 mile walk becomes an impossible obstacle, there's really something physically wrong with the person in that situation. Granted, it wouldn't necessarily be a pleasant prospect, but completely doable nevertheless.
The issue isn't just the amount of time you spend walking, but the pace. 3mph walking pace isn't that bad and it's probably what most people do in the short distances they walk. But maintaining that constantly for a full 16 hours is beyond anyone who isn't at least somewhat physically trained for it.
Also, my second issue is with the whole concept of doing this during the night. I live in the desert and 6 pm during the summer (going by the temperature listed, I'm assuming it's summer) is not night. And when night actually comes, you'd be surprised how little the temperature drops, it usually starts dropping below 90 after 11pm. During your typical desert summer right you'll have maybe 4-6 hours below 85 degrees, and I think I'm being generous there.
Still, I think getting to town is doable if it's only 50 miles away. But in the desert, there's a big element of risk doing that kind of activity without water.
The reason for walking during nighttime was mainly to avoid the sun. Granted, this would be very dangerous if done cross-country, since getting lost in the desert would be very easy. Following the road essentially eliminates that. My estimations weren't exactly spot on, but they'd be adjusted if an actual situation were to arise, and in this case they were meant to only highlight the fact that 50 miles along a road is not an impossible obstacle.
Really though, I wouldn't personally start crossing a desert or take a long desert trip without ample water in the car. A jerrycan in the trunk certainly wouldn't take too much space, and 20 litres of water can go a long way. I'll admit that many people don't prepare for things at all though.
Children aren't productive members of society. I'm not sure that they should go first.
Are you kidding? Children make a good chunk of our cheaper clothes, shoes, and simple homewares. We'd be lost without their tiny hands and malleable natures.
Children aren't productive members of society. I'm not sure that they should go first.
Are you kidding? Children make a good chunk of our cheaper clothes, shoes, and simple homewares. We'd be lost without their tiny hands and malleable natures.
Yeah but you can always make more of them.
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Alfred J. Kwakis it because you were insultedwhen I insulted your hair?Registered Userregular
edited December 2010
and here I thought walking was the only thing the human body was good for
oh yes we can outrun horses too, that's pretty neat
What I want to know is how strictly we follow this preference for children (and maybe women/mothers) at the outliers. It's easy to say we prefer to save a five year old over a fifty five year old man. Is that preference based on anything other than age and sentimentality, though?
What if it's a five year old and a 12 year old, and one of them won't make it? Do we automatically take the five year old? What about a pregnant woman vs. a five year old?
If it comes down to an 8 year old and a 17 year old, does the teenager at least have an argument?
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it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
and here I thought walking was the only thing the human body was good for
oh yes we can outrun horses too, that's pretty neat
The human body is in many ways extremely good at some things. While not very robust in a fight, the running capability(like you mentioned) is extremely good over long distances. Sure, humans are pretty slow runners, but the pace that one can get used to with training is something that most animals have no hope of keeping. Horses and many other herd animals can sprint very well, but run out of stamina over longer distances, and are eventually too exhausted to flee.
Human arm is also very well suited to throwing things, allowing for spears and other weapons that aid in hunting, as well as the suitability of our eyes to such activities. The human hand is also extremely good at manipulation of pretty much anything, allowing for the vast range of tools and other things that could be made. The brain and its usefulness is pretty much given.
Something that most people aren't very aware of, is how resilient the human body is, and with how little nutrition it can actually survive. Due to the low amount of musculature and the body's tendency to cannibalize resources in need, humans can go for several weeks without food, and a few days without water. If you have small amounts of them available, the prospective survival period can be extended to months. Obviously there are specialized animals like camels that can outdo people here, but they are usually tied to a specific environment. Hell, if you compare modern humans with the neanderthals, they couldn't survive with the same amount of food due to their heavier musculature requiring many more calories, which might have played a part in their extinction during the lean times at the end of the ice age.
Essentially, we aren't that hopeless in the end. It's just that we get overshadowed by many other animals that excel in some way when compared to us.
What I want to know is how strictly we follow this preference for children (and maybe women/mothers) at the outliers. It's easy to say we prefer to save a five year old over a fifty five year old man. Is that preference based on anything other than age and sentimentality, though?
What if it's a five year old and a 12 year old, and one of them won't make it? Do we automatically take the five year old? What about a pregnant woman vs. a five year old?
If it comes down to an 8 year old and a 17 year old, does the teenager at least have an argument?
Well, that's the problem with the "Children and women"-preference - it's an emotional argument rather than a logical one and thus might not be adequate for dilemmas you posed.
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
But older people no longer have an advantage in productive years that can be said to outweigh the cost of his sacrifice. The sacrificed cost of the 50 year old is easily recouped by the 5 year olds future productive value so that's why the priority should go something like this: adults in prime > children > post-prime adults.
So for your above examples we should take the twelve year old, the pregnant woman and seventeen year old over the five year old. But we'd be right in saving the five year old over the fifty five year old man.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
This is neither 'objective' nor is it obviously the correct way to apply utilitarian reasoning to the situation. For instance, you have ignored the value to the person saved of their being so saved. Traditionally, one utilitarian rationale for saving the young is that they have more life ahead of them, and, as such, they benefit more from having been saved than an older person would. And since we are to maximize benefits and minimize harms, this directs us to save them first.
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Alfred J. Kwakis it because you were insultedwhen I insulted your hair?Registered Userregular
and here I thought walking was the only thing the human body was good for
oh yes we can outrun horses too, that's pretty neat
The human body is in many ways extremely good at some things. While not very robust in a fight, the running capability(like you mentioned) is extremely good over long distances. Sure, humans are pretty slow runners, but the pace that one can get used to with training is something that most animals have no hope of keeping. Horses and many other herd animals can sprint very well, but run out of stamina over longer distances, and are eventually too exhausted to flee.
Human arm is also very well suited to throwing things, allowing for spears and other weapons that aid in hunting, as well as the suitability of our eyes to such activities. The human hand is also extremely good at manipulation of pretty much anything, allowing for the vast range of tools and other things that could be made. The brain and its usefulness is pretty much given.
Something that most people aren't very aware of, is how resilient the human body is, and with how little nutrition it can actually survive. Due to the low amount of musculature and the body's tendency to cannibalize resources in need, humans can go for several weeks without food, and a few days without water. If you have small amounts of them available, the prospective survival period can be extended to months. Obviously there are specialized animals like camels that can outdo people here, but they are usually tied to a specific environment. Hell, if you compare modern humans with the neanderthals, they couldn't survive with the same amount of food due to their heavier musculature requiring many more calories, which might have played a part in their extinction during the lean times at the end of the ice age.
Essentially, we aren't that hopeless in the end. It's just that we get overshadowed by many other animals that excel in some way when compared to us.
This right there is a much more interesting topic at hand. Someone should do a thread about it one day.
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
This is neither 'objective' nor is it obviously the correct way to apply utilitarian reasoning to the situation. For instance, you have ignored the value to the person saved of their being so saved. Traditionally, one utilitarian rationale for saving the young is that they have more life ahead of them, and, as such, they benefit more from having been saved than an older person would. And since we are to maximize benefits and minimize harms, this directs us to save them first.
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
Sure, a young person has in general more life ahead of them but society has also invested less in them than an older person which means that they lose a bigger time/money-investment by choosing a young person over an older one.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
This is neither 'objective' nor is it obviously the correct way to apply utilitarian reasoning to the situation. For instance, you have ignored the value to the person saved of their being so saved. Traditionally, one utilitarian rationale for saving the young is that they have more life ahead of them, and, as such, they benefit more from having been saved than an older person would. And since we are to maximize benefits and minimize harms, this directs us to save them first.
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
Sure, a young person has in general more life ahead of them but society has also invested less in them than an older person which means that they lose a bigger time/money-investment by choosing a young person over an older one.
Even from the perspective of society, time invested in a person is a sunk cost. The benefits of life that have been enjoyed in the past have no bearing on the decision-making you use to maximize benefits in the future.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
We can measure all sorts of things; if we wanted we could let people onto lifeboats on the basis of the length of their longest fingernail. But I doubt anyone would ever propose fingernail length as an 'objective' criterion for deciding who to allow onto the lifeboats.
We measure the value of a life saved in just the way that we measure anything else if we are utilitarians: in terms of whatever we take to be constitutive of "utility," be it pleasure maximization, preference satisfaction, pain minimization, or what have you.
I've finally chewed through the rest of this thread, and one aspect to "whom do we save" that I haven't seen noted seems to be mass.
I admit up front that I do not know what your average lifeboat is rated at in capacity. I assume it's by the number of available seats, but that must take into account the average mass of a person. I know elevators do this: "Wxyz Pounds, or AB people". Now, instead of assuming that the choice is "1 kid or 1 young adult", what if we could save several kids who mass equal or less than the young adult, and with seating in people's laps where necessary take up little or no extra space?
Unless the system made doing so hazardous (example; I imagine "kids in laps" is a bad idea in a situation like that gravity deployed super slide/drop ride system) or there were so many kids that it threatened the weight limit, their presence really shouldn't be an issue, should it?
That said, I read and agree with the idea that in most situations the majority of us are likely to be in, the "giant boat with limited lifeboat seating" is purely a thought experiment with little direct practical value. Fleeing a burning building (done in as organized a fashion as possible) is far more likely than us getting on a ferry that decides that having people cling to the outside is stacked luggage is a good idea (note: please don't do this). I do believe in trying to assist those that need help, as long as doing so doesn't put me in unacceptable risk (as noted above, likely just increasing the job and risk to rescue workers).
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First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
This is neither 'objective' nor is it obviously the correct way to apply utilitarian reasoning to the situation. For instance, you have ignored the value to the person saved of their being so saved. Traditionally, one utilitarian rationale for saving the young is that they have more life ahead of them, and, as such, they benefit more from having been saved than an older person would. And since we are to maximize benefits and minimize harms, this directs us to save them first.
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
Sure, a young person has in general more life ahead of them but society has also invested less in them than an older person which means that they lose a bigger time/money-investment by choosing a young person over an older one.
Even from the perspective of society, time invested in a person is a sunk cost. The benefits of life that have been enjoyed in the past have no bearing on the decision-making you use to maximize benefits in the future.
Exactly, the younger the child is the smaller the sunk cost invested in that child.
When you sacrifice a 20 year old over a 5 year old, and we presume that they'll both contribute equally to society (thus paying back that sunk cost) over the course of their lives, you're sacrificing a 20 year investment that will now no long be able to pay back the sunk cost. Sacrificing the 5 year old in this case results in a net win of 15 years of investments.
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
We can measure all sorts of things; if we wanted we could let people onto lifeboats on the basis of the length of their longest fingernail. But I doubt anyone would ever propose fingernail length as an 'objective' criterion for deciding who to allow onto the lifeboats.
We measure the value of a life saved in just the way that we measure anything else if we are utilitarians: in terms of whatever we take to be constitutive of "utility," be it pleasure maximization, preference satisfaction, pain minimization, or what have you.
Fair enough, I've misunderstood the utilitarianism a bit then.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
This is neither 'objective' nor is it obviously the correct way to apply utilitarian reasoning to the situation. For instance, you have ignored the value to the person saved of their being so saved. Traditionally, one utilitarian rationale for saving the young is that they have more life ahead of them, and, as such, they benefit more from having been saved than an older person would. And since we are to maximize benefits and minimize harms, this directs us to save them first.
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
Sure, a young person has in general more life ahead of them but society has also invested less in them than an older person which means that they lose a bigger time/money-investment by choosing a young person over an older one.
Even from the perspective of society, time invested in a person is a sunk cost. The benefits of life that have been enjoyed in the past have no bearing on the decision-making you use to maximize benefits in the future.
Exactly, the younger the child is the smaller the sunk cost invested in that child.
When you sacrifice a 20 year old over a 5 year old, and we presume that they'll both contribute equally to society (thus paying back that sunk cost) over the course of their lives, you're sacrificing a 20 year investment that will now no long be able to pay back the sunk cost. Sacrificing the 5 year old in this case results in a net win of 15 years of investments.
You seem to have profoundly misunderstood the implications of a sunk cost. You have it exactly backwards. The total sum of utility the lives of everyone on board the ship at the point of decision-making is fixed; it has already been achieved; the decision you are making now cannot change it. A 50 year old man and a 5 year old child together have earned you 55 years worth of utility.
If you save the old man and he dies of old age, you will have earned yourself probably 30 more years of utility, bringing your total up to 85.
If you let the old man drown and save the child, and the child grows to old age, he will live to enjoy about 75 more years of utility. Your total is now 130 years worth of utility.
Save the child.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
You seem to have profoundly misunderstood the implications of a sunk cost. You have it exactly backwards.
He is looking at it in terms of replacement costs; the idea being something like "we can always just pop another kid out in nine months, and then we'll be back where we started. But to get back where we started with an adult takes years and plenty of money."
This may or may not be a reasonable way to look at things, depending on a whole mass of background assumptions both factual and theoretical. I imagine, for instance, that one needs to do a fair amount of thought about population ethics (how many people should be alive at once? Is being born a benefit? Is not being born a harm?) before one can definitively settle the question in the utilitarian system. What I would stress is just that the replacement-cost type view is clearly not the only way of looking at things, nor is it a necessary result of subscription to the utilitarian calculus.
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
This is neither 'objective' nor is it obviously the correct way to apply utilitarian reasoning to the situation. For instance, you have ignored the value to the person saved of their being so saved. Traditionally, one utilitarian rationale for saving the young is that they have more life ahead of them, and, as such, they benefit more from having been saved than an older person would. And since we are to maximize benefits and minimize harms, this directs us to save them first.
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
Sure, a young person has in general more life ahead of them but society has also invested less in them than an older person which means that they lose a bigger time/money-investment by choosing a young person over an older one.
Even from the perspective of society, time invested in a person is a sunk cost. The benefits of life that have been enjoyed in the past have no bearing on the decision-making you use to maximize benefits in the future.
Exactly, the younger the child is the smaller the sunk cost invested in that child.
When you sacrifice a 20 year old over a 5 year old, and we presume that they'll both contribute equally to society (thus paying back that sunk cost) over the course of their lives, you're sacrificing a 20 year investment that will now no long be able to pay back the sunk cost. Sacrificing the 5 year old in this case results in a net win of 15 years of investments.
You seem to have profoundly misunderstood the implications of a sunk cost. You have it exactly backwards. The total sum of utility the lives of everyone on board the ship at the point of decision-making is fixed; it has already been achieved; the decision you are making now cannot change it. A 50 year old man and a 5 year old child together have earned you 55 years worth of utility.
If you save the old man and he dies of old age, you will have earned yourself probably 30 more years of utility, bringing your total up to 85.
If you let the old man drown and save the child, and the child grows to old age, he will live to enjoy about 75 more years of utility. Your total is now 130 years worth of utility.
Save the child.
I pointed that out, it's more logical to save the 5 year old over the 50 year old man.
But not when saving a 5 year old over a 15 year old for an example.
You've spent X time/money on the 5 year old while you've spent 3X time/money on the 15 year old.
Let's say they both live until the age of 70, start to pay back to society when they're 21 and are productive until the age of 50.
If you save the 5 year old then you've lost 15 years from the teenager, you invest a further 16 years into the child and end up getting 29 productive years that's then with the lost investment of 15 years from the teenager as well as the 16 years of investments of child - ending up with a net loss of 2 years.
If you save the 15 year old teenager then you've lost 5 years from the child, you invest a further 6 years into the teenager and end up getting 29 productive years that's then subtracted with the lost investment of 5 years from the child as well as the 6 years of investments of the teenager - ending up with a net win of 18 years.
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lonelyahava, looks like you're right.
Reason goes out the window and primal instincts take over.
You missed the best part:
Most commercial and general aviation aircraft fly without parachutes. Most military aircraft that aren't fighter aircraft or carrying paratroopers or the equivalent probably don't as well.
The lack of parachutes doesn't seem to phaze most air travelers.
I suspect what you meant to say is: if you're on an airplane, and you NEED a parachute, but you are without one, then you are pretty much unlikely to survive the circumstances even if you HAD a parachute. I'd agree with that.
Didn't you see Robman's photos???
Validity of assumptions is as important as the arguments being presented upon the assumptions. If you can't deal with people attacking your assumptions, don't post arguments that require them?
Then what do you base it off of? Which astronaut has the most PHDs?
Well, fashion sense probably wouldn't work...
You never know I mean I'm sure you could accessorize a spacesuit.
Well, I don't regularly exercise all that much, and I've managed 12 hour cross country walks with little to no nourishment just fine, so I fail to see the problem with four more hours and on a road. My point was, that within the confines of the established situation, you'd be in no danger of dying from thirst or hunger while you walked to the nearest town. Shit, you could take 32 hours walking slowly, and you'd still survive.
The idea wasn't that the trip isn't exhausting, but that the situation was nowhere near as hopeless as it was made to seem. If a 50 mile walk becomes an impossible obstacle, there's really something physically wrong with the person in that situation. Granted, it wouldn't necessarily be a pleasant prospect, but completely doable nevertheless.
I'm confused by the 50 miles figure anyways. In the theoretical story no distance was given other then a day and a half drive.
I don't think that mindset is as universal as you think. What if there just wasnt enough room? What if there was water and it got tainted somehow and was no longer potable?
I'm wondering how you feel because I've been stranded, injured in the country before. Would I "Deserve what happens to me" because I didn't have the foresight to pack a first aid kit with me everytime i ride out on my motorcycle?
If you're driving through a desert you should have water with you.
Also, my second issue is with the whole concept of doing this during the night. I live in the desert and 6 pm during the summer (going by the temperature listed, I'm assuming it's summer) is not night. And when night actually comes, you'd be surprised how little the temperature drops, it usually starts dropping below 90 after 11pm. During your typical desert summer right you'll have maybe 4-6 hours below 85 degrees, and I think I'm being generous there.
Still, I think getting to town is doable if it's only 50 miles away. But in the desert, there's a big element of risk doing that kind of activity without water.
And what if something happens to the water? What if the container tears or rips?
You'd have brought enough in the hypothetical situation given though.
The reason for walking during nighttime was mainly to avoid the sun. Granted, this would be very dangerous if done cross-country, since getting lost in the desert would be very easy. Following the road essentially eliminates that. My estimations weren't exactly spot on, but they'd be adjusted if an actual situation were to arise, and in this case they were meant to only highlight the fact that 50 miles along a road is not an impossible obstacle.
Really though, I wouldn't personally start crossing a desert or take a long desert trip without ample water in the car. A jerrycan in the trunk certainly wouldn't take too much space, and 20 litres of water can go a long way. I'll admit that many people don't prepare for things at all though.
Are you kidding? Children make a good chunk of our cheaper clothes, shoes, and simple homewares. We'd be lost without their tiny hands and malleable natures.
Yeah but you can always make more of them.
oh yes we can outrun horses too, that's pretty neat
What if it's a five year old and a 12 year old, and one of them won't make it? Do we automatically take the five year old? What about a pregnant woman vs. a five year old?
If it comes down to an 8 year old and a 17 year old, does the teenager at least have an argument?
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The human body is in many ways extremely good at some things. While not very robust in a fight, the running capability(like you mentioned) is extremely good over long distances. Sure, humans are pretty slow runners, but the pace that one can get used to with training is something that most animals have no hope of keeping. Horses and many other herd animals can sprint very well, but run out of stamina over longer distances, and are eventually too exhausted to flee.
Human arm is also very well suited to throwing things, allowing for spears and other weapons that aid in hunting, as well as the suitability of our eyes to such activities. The human hand is also extremely good at manipulation of pretty much anything, allowing for the vast range of tools and other things that could be made. The brain and its usefulness is pretty much given.
Something that most people aren't very aware of, is how resilient the human body is, and with how little nutrition it can actually survive. Due to the low amount of musculature and the body's tendency to cannibalize resources in need, humans can go for several weeks without food, and a few days without water. If you have small amounts of them available, the prospective survival period can be extended to months. Obviously there are specialized animals like camels that can outdo people here, but they are usually tied to a specific environment. Hell, if you compare modern humans with the neanderthals, they couldn't survive with the same amount of food due to their heavier musculature requiring many more calories, which might have played a part in their extinction during the lean times at the end of the ice age.
Essentially, we aren't that hopeless in the end. It's just that we get overshadowed by many other animals that excel in some way when compared to us.
Well, that's the problem with the "Children and women"-preference - it's an emotional argument rather than a logical one and thus might not be adequate for dilemmas you posed.
If we go from the utilitarian approach, looking at the objective societal costs, then the older people will always be chosen up to a certain point.
There's a pretty basic formula you can follow. If you sacrifice the child in your last example you only sacrifice the cost of the years the child spent in development - which is overall a lower societal cost than sacrificing the cost of seventeen years of development for the teenager.
But older people no longer have an advantage in productive years that can be said to outweigh the cost of his sacrifice. The sacrificed cost of the 50 year old is easily recouped by the 5 year olds future productive value so that's why the priority should go something like this: adults in prime > children > post-prime adults.
So for your above examples we should take the twelve year old, the pregnant woman and seventeen year old over the five year old. But we'd be right in saving the five year old over the fifty five year old man.
This is neither 'objective' nor is it obviously the correct way to apply utilitarian reasoning to the situation. For instance, you have ignored the value to the person saved of their being so saved. Traditionally, one utilitarian rationale for saving the young is that they have more life ahead of them, and, as such, they benefit more from having been saved than an older person would. And since we are to maximize benefits and minimize harms, this directs us to save them first.
This right there is a much more interesting topic at hand. Someone should do a thread about it one day.
The objective part is that it is measurable, how do you measure the value to the person saved of their being so saved?
Sure, a young person has in general more life ahead of them but society has also invested less in them than an older person which means that they lose a bigger time/money-investment by choosing a young person over an older one.
Even from the perspective of society, time invested in a person is a sunk cost. The benefits of life that have been enjoyed in the past have no bearing on the decision-making you use to maximize benefits in the future.
We can measure all sorts of things; if we wanted we could let people onto lifeboats on the basis of the length of their longest fingernail. But I doubt anyone would ever propose fingernail length as an 'objective' criterion for deciding who to allow onto the lifeboats.
We measure the value of a life saved in just the way that we measure anything else if we are utilitarians: in terms of whatever we take to be constitutive of "utility," be it pleasure maximization, preference satisfaction, pain minimization, or what have you.
But MrMr's got my back.
I admit up front that I do not know what your average lifeboat is rated at in capacity. I assume it's by the number of available seats, but that must take into account the average mass of a person. I know elevators do this: "Wxyz Pounds, or AB people". Now, instead of assuming that the choice is "1 kid or 1 young adult", what if we could save several kids who mass equal or less than the young adult, and with seating in people's laps where necessary take up little or no extra space?
Unless the system made doing so hazardous (example; I imagine "kids in laps" is a bad idea in a situation like that gravity deployed super slide/drop ride system) or there were so many kids that it threatened the weight limit, their presence really shouldn't be an issue, should it?
That said, I read and agree with the idea that in most situations the majority of us are likely to be in, the "giant boat with limited lifeboat seating" is purely a thought experiment with little direct practical value. Fleeing a burning building (done in as organized a fashion as possible) is far more likely than us getting on a ferry that decides that having people cling to the outside is stacked luggage is a good idea (note: please don't do this). I do believe in trying to assist those that need help, as long as doing so doesn't put me in unacceptable risk (as noted above, likely just increasing the job and risk to rescue workers).
When you sacrifice a 20 year old over a 5 year old, and we presume that they'll both contribute equally to society (thus paying back that sunk cost) over the course of their lives, you're sacrificing a 20 year investment that will now no long be able to pay back the sunk cost. Sacrificing the 5 year old in this case results in a net win of 15 years of investments.
Fair enough, I've misunderstood the utilitarianism a bit then.
You seem to have profoundly misunderstood the implications of a sunk cost. You have it exactly backwards. The total sum of utility the lives of everyone on board the ship at the point of decision-making is fixed; it has already been achieved; the decision you are making now cannot change it. A 50 year old man and a 5 year old child together have earned you 55 years worth of utility.
If you save the old man and he dies of old age, you will have earned yourself probably 30 more years of utility, bringing your total up to 85.
If you let the old man drown and save the child, and the child grows to old age, he will live to enjoy about 75 more years of utility. Your total is now 130 years worth of utility.
Save the child.
He is looking at it in terms of replacement costs; the idea being something like "we can always just pop another kid out in nine months, and then we'll be back where we started. But to get back where we started with an adult takes years and plenty of money."
This may or may not be a reasonable way to look at things, depending on a whole mass of background assumptions both factual and theoretical. I imagine, for instance, that one needs to do a fair amount of thought about population ethics (how many people should be alive at once? Is being born a benefit? Is not being born a harm?) before one can definitively settle the question in the utilitarian system. What I would stress is just that the replacement-cost type view is clearly not the only way of looking at things, nor is it a necessary result of subscription to the utilitarian calculus.
I pointed that out, it's more logical to save the 5 year old over the 50 year old man.
But not when saving a 5 year old over a 15 year old for an example.
You've spent X time/money on the 5 year old while you've spent 3X time/money on the 15 year old.
Let's say they both live until the age of 70, start to pay back to society when they're 21 and are productive until the age of 50.
If you save the 5 year old then you've lost 15 years from the teenager, you invest a further 16 years into the child and end up getting 29 productive years that's then with the lost investment of 15 years from the teenager as well as the 16 years of investments of child - ending up with a net loss of 2 years.
If you save the 15 year old teenager then you've lost 5 years from the child, you invest a further 6 years into the teenager and end up getting 29 productive years that's then subtracted with the lost investment of 5 years from the child as well as the 6 years of investments of the teenager - ending up with a net win of 18 years.