Why are women and children saved first?

[WarPhalange]

 

[lisab]

...another brain-eating undead thread...

 

[moose]

Rubbish; People exploit nice guys. Nice guys finish last.

There's a difference between passive aggressive door mats and confident nice guys.

 

[DaveC426913]

(Atleast I think) that women and children are saved first during a disaster, Why?

Aside from the obvious chivalry, consider it as an efficiency in division of labour.

Assumed premise: Women, children and elderly, whether due to size, knowledge, or strength have been (at least historically) slower and weaker than men in situations requiring speed and strength and good decision-making (perhapsd merely due to training or previous experience).

Scenario 1 (every man or woman for him- or herself):

1a] Disaster strikes.
1b] All the men rush onto the life boats.
1c] The eoment, children and elderly, make poorer decisions, freeze, act too slowly are are simply incapable of garnering the strength to get to the lifeboats
1d] meanwhile the men stand around on the lifeboat, reading the paper, saying "Look, this boat is leaving in ten minutes whether you're in it or not!" They are wasted as a resource.

This scenario has theoretically no limit on how long it could take to get everyone in the lifeboats, because the goal is only reached once the slowest person gets to the finish line.


Scenario 2 (which should be fairly obvious by now):
2a] Disaster strikes.
2b] The men stick around to organize the elderly, women and children, which, indepedent of anything else, will get things moving along.
2c] Any sitution that cannot be handled by a given person (due to strength speed or intelligence) will be taken over by someone who is faster and/or stronger.
2d] The last ones off the boat are the ones most capable of getting off under their own power under worsening conditions.

In this scenario, the time elapsed is minimized.



If you accept the premise, the rest follows automatically.

 

[DaveC426913]

Ah fer Pete's sake...

the OP's been safe on shore for two years now, mourning the loss of his wife and children...

Really, we need a thing that says "resurrected thread"!

 

[BobG]

Ah fer Pete's sake...

the OP's been safe on shore for two years now, mourning the loss of his wife and children...

Really, we need a thing that says "resurrected thread"!

Either that or sitting on a deserted island talking to a volleyball.

 

[stickythighs]

There's a difference between passive aggressive door mats and confident nice guys.

What's your point? Do you disagree with the maxim that nice guys finish last?

 

[turbo]

What's your point? Do you disagree with the maxim that nice guys finish last?

I certainly do. Nice guys can get burned and be taken advantage of, but in the end, they are generally well-respected and highly valued by those who value ethics, loyalty, and a sense of fairness. If you think that the person who dies with the most toys wins, I am sorry for you. If you have ever attended a funeral/memorial service for someone that is packed with people alternately crying and smiling over remembrances of the departed, you know that a more reliable evaluation of a person's worth is the sense of loss that the community feels at his/her passing.

 

[lisab]

I certainly do. Nice guys can get burned and be taken advantage of, but in the end, they are generally well-respected and highly valued by those who value ethics, loyalty, and a sense of fairness. If you think that the person who dies with the most toys wins, I am sorry for you. If you have ever attended a funeral/memorial service for someone that is packed with people alternately crying and smiling over remembrances of the departed, you know that a more reliable evaluation of a person's worth is the sense of loss that the community feels at his/her passing.

I agree with turbo. In the workplace, your career will suffer if you're a jerk.

Note that "nice guy" doesn't mean you'll let people walk all over you, btw. You have to have a spine in life.

Here's a book about jerks in the workplace, and what they cost the company:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446526568/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Moonbear]

I certainly do. Nice guys can get burned and be taken advantage of, but in the end, they are generally well-respected and highly valued by those who value ethics, loyalty, and a sense of fairness. If you think that the person who dies with the most toys wins, I am sorry for you. If you have ever attended a funeral/memorial service for someone that is packed with people alternately crying and smiling over remembrances of the departed, you know that a more reliable evaluation of a person's worth is the sense of loss that the community feels at his/her passing.

I agree with turbo. In the workplace, your career will suffer if you're a jerk.

Note that "nice guy" doesn't mean you'll let people walk all over you, btw. You have to have a spine in life.

Here's a book about jerks in the workplace, and what they cost the company:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446526568/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Agreed and agreed. Why is it so hard for people to understand the difference between nice and doormat? Actually, someone can be a pretty obnoxious doormat too. Nobody likes to work in a hostile workplace.

 

[Evo]

Something no one's brought up (actually, I haven't bothered to look) is that the children are the future, you want your children to survive, the mother through history is the one that raises the child, so she goes along as part of the package. So that's one reason.

Others are that men are seen as the protectors of their families and have asumed this role (with exceptions), so it's always been expected of them.

The elderly, well it just wouldn't look right to throw Grandma overboard.

 

[Cyrus]

I heard in japan they save grandma and grandpa first and then go back for the kids because they are older. In a way, it makes more sense.

 

[WarPhalange]

You can always have more kids.
It's fun, too!

 

[moose]

In my mind, it should be (well...is) kids, moms, women, elders, men. Protecting the kids is in our DNA. They are the future. Moms to take care of those kids. Women to have kids in the future. Elderly because we owe them for what they've done for us. Men last because there needs to be someone last. Also men are usually stronger and can outlast the people from other categories, and somebody needed to be placed last. Also having men in numbers isn't as important biologically.

I think I may have just repeated Evo...

 

[Cyrus]

A babies life isn't worth more than that of an elderly person. An old person has been around for a long time, has wisdom and advice.

You can always have another baby.

 

[rootX]

A babies life isn't worth more than that of an elderly person. An old person has been around for a long time, has wisdom and advice.

You can always have another baby.

There's some uncertainty maybe P = 0.01.
What if the losing baby would be future Einstein .. ?

Elderly person is useless with probability of 0.9.

 

[Cyrus]

There's some uncertainty maybe P = 0.01.
What if the losing baby would be future Einstein .. ?

Elderly person is useless with probability of 0.9.

What do I care what it could be? It could be a drug addict.

What I DO know is that the elderly person has more wisdom and experience to share.

 

[WarPhalange]

What I DO know is that the elderly person has more wisdom and experience to share.

Which old person? The one crapping his pants because he doesn't know where he is?

Most people are stupid. Most old people aren't any different. Age =/= Wisdom. Just look at the largest voting demographic and look at who they picked for president.

QED.

 

[Cyrus]

Which old person? The one crapping his pants because he doesn't know where he is?

Most people are stupid. Most old people aren't any different. Age =/= Wisdom. Just look at the largest voting demographic and look at who they picked for president.

QED.

....are you 12?

 

[Math Is Hard]

Most people are stupid.

You don't happen to know a guy named Pengwuino, do you?

 

[Moonbear]

What I DO know is that the elderly person has more wisdom and experience to share.

With whom? If nobody else survives, they have no one to pass their knowledge down to. Better to hope they've passed some of it along to the adults of reproductive age and get them saved first...they can have more kids. Kids can't fend for themselves without parents, so no point saving them ahead of parents. I say, save the reproductive adults first, then have the granparents help save as many children as possible, since they're the future, and if the grandparents still have time, they get out, if they run out of time, they were already closest to death anyway.

 

[Cyrus]

With whom? If nobody else survives, they have no one to pass their knowledge down to. Better to hope they've passed some of it along to the adults of reproductive age and get them saved first...they can have more kids. Kids can't fend for themselves without parents, so no point saving them ahead of parents. I say, save the reproductive adults first, then have the granparents help save as many children as possible, since they're the future, and if the grandparents still have time, they get out, if they run out of time, they were already closest to death anyway.

What is this 'if nobody else survives' statement? Are we assuming the rest of the world is gone? If there were a burning building with old people and babies, I'm saying save the old people first.

The old people have knowledge that young babies don't have, which they can pass on to young adults. Babies are the ones that can be created, or replaced quite easily.

 

[Math Is Hard]

So the answer is different depending on whether or not there are other people in the world besides the rescuer and the "to be rescued"?

 

[rootX]

So the answer is different depending on whether or not there are other people in the world besides the rescuer and the "to be rescued"?

It's only a small tragedy

And also when there is a massacre or some large scale killing, arson ,etc. The newpapers carry that line "blah!blah!more than 200 people were killed...including women".

 

[Math Is Hard]

I only ask because I think these kinds of manipulations of scenarios are interesting when people are working out decisions in hypothetical moral dilemmas.

 

[Math Is Hard]

It's only a small tragedy

You're making me think of that saying, "A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

 

[rootX]

You're making me think of that saying, "A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

Seems true. I think in war tragedies/ others it is better for whole nation/family to die than only parents dying

But, I was thinking of having constraints. Some people are assuming that whole world would die while others are considering this as a small tragedy ~ thousands of people (?) ..

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I was grousing to my wife just the other day, how come it's women and children first. Why can't I be first just once. What a disaster that was.

 

[Moonbear]

I only ask because I think these kinds of manipulations of scenarios are interesting when people are working out decisions in hypothetical moral dilemmas.

I think it's interesting to see how different people weight things too.

Okay, if the rest of the world is perfectly happy and fine, and if everyone on the ship died, not much would be affected, then it should simply be a free-for-all. If those old people have more wisdom, they'll know how to trick the youngsters out of their places on the life rafts, if the youngsters are strong enough to survive on their own, they'll push the old people overboard, the women will have the sense to hand the babies off to the men so the women aren't the ones weighed down while running for the life rafts, and I'll sit on my lounge chair on the beach watching the melee through binoculars while sipping drinks from coconuts.

 

[Cyrus]

I think it's interesting to see how different people weight things too.

Okay, if the rest of the world is perfectly happy and fine, and if everyone on the ship died, not much would be affected, then it should simply be a free-for-all. If those old people have more wisdom, they'll know how to trick the youngsters out of their places on the life rafts, if the youngsters are strong enough to survive on their own, they'll push the old people overboard, the women will have the sense to hand the babies off to the men so the women aren't the ones weighed down while running for the life rafts, and I'll sit on my lounge chair on the beach watching the melee through binoculars while sipping drinks from coconuts.

I'd just watch them all die while laughing from my new OFFICE WINDOW BABY!