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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!ratex!mck
From: mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Life Boat Situations -- Reply to Bain
Message-ID: <1061@ratex.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Apr-85 15:03:39 EST
Article-I.D.: ratex.1061
Posted: Fri Apr 19 15:03:39 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Apr-85 06:13:26 EST
Organization: Squids R Us
Lines: 23
Keywords: proletariat


Lines marked '>' are those of Karen Bain.

>I think the best way to handle this raft situation is survival of
>the fittest. Whoever dies of starvation first gets eaten by the 
>other.  It only seems fair - this way no one feels guilty about
>killing anyone, and by the time one of the people starves to death,
>the other will have sufficient appitite to eat him.

It's easy to design a life-boat situation where this approach won't work.
Let's say that you have n people, none of whom will significantly weaken
from hunger for w days; an individual can survive for c days on every
cadaver that he eats; there is a source of food which will lose all
nutritional content in r days, such that r < w; and rescue will not come
before s days, such that s > w + c * (n -1).

Incidently, the human body is probably not a very good source of nutrition.

                               Pessimistically,
                               DKMcK

PS: There was an EXCELLENT Tyrone Power movie made in the 50s (sorry, I
forget the title) about a true life-boat situation.