The Lifeboat Game

This is part of my investigation to determine the attitudes of people from different settings:

www.nightowl.net...

THE LIFEBOAT GAME
You have received an emergency call on your ham radio from a ship off the coast of Alaska. It seems that the ship experienced an engine explosion of unknown origin which has killed the captain and most of the crew. Naturally, you contact the Coast Guard immediately, but you keep contact with the ship's passengers to monitor their progress. Their luck, unfortunately, isn't getting any better. The ship is sinking, and there is virtually no chance that the Coast Guard will reach them before it vanishes under the waves. Trying to swim or tread water is out of the question because of the freezing water. A small lifeboat has been located which, at best, can hold two people. Land is in sight, but it will take several hours of rowing on the rough waters to reach it. The passengers have asked you, as an impartial third party, to decide who should use the lifeboat.

The survivors are as follows:

1) "Jerry" Takeyama, 37, Oriental, Japanese citizenship. Jerry works in the marketing division of a Japanese computer company, and was in Alaska on vacation. He has a wife and three children back home in Kyoto.

2) Piotr Primakov, 22, Caucasian, Russian citizenship with a U.S. work visa. Piotr is a recent Russian emigre and the only surviving crew member. He is the youngest and most physically fit of the survivors. He has no spouse or offspring.

3) Carolyn Miller, 41, Caucasian, U.S. citizenship. Dr. Miller is a university physicist who has been working at a remote research station in the Arctic circle studying radiation emitted by the Aurora Borealis. Several nights ago at dinner, she announced that her research has accidentally led to what she believes will be the first working Unified Field Theory. She has had a stable 10-year partnership with another woman. She has no children.

4) Thomas Johnson, 57, African-American, U.S. citizenship. Dr. Johnson is an oncologist who works in Tennessee doing research on children's cancer, most recently at St. Jude's in Memphis. He has been married for two years to...

5) Helen Johnson, 23, Caucasian, U.S. citizenship. Helen has worked as a medical secretary, but retired after her marriage and is now four months' pregnant with the Johnsons' first child.

6) Lance Cooper, 39, Caucasian, U.S. citizenship. Lance is a junior congressman representing Alaska in Washington. While other Congressmen are on junkets to the Caribbean, Lance has been spending time with the Inuits (Eskimos), which he has made his special concern as a Representative. He has a wife and two children back at home in Georgetown.

[edit on 3/16/2009 by die_another_day]

good post. I love these kinds of questions.

I would say 2 and 5.

5 - because this way you save 2 people for the 'price' of 1(yeah I believe that a 4month old embryo is a person).

2 - because he will have a better chance of getting the boat to shore. There is also that he is younger and has more 'future.' Also if he is strong enough, perhaps there is a chance to save another if he feels that he could come back for another(Adrenaline in the young human is AMAZING).

Why not:

4 or 3 - The beautiful thing about research today is that it is not just one person doing that research. Information storage is now a fairly common thing as well.

1 - He has reproduced, and although his family's life will be hard, it will help his children in the long run (possibly). Not to say that it's good that he died, just trying to give an optomistic result from his tragic death.

6 - A real shame, but people who have "gone native" in the past were usually never really HEARD anyway. He has also already contributed to the gene pool.

reply to post by dragonking76


=p i love these games too. I did one where i had to choose 15 out of 30 people. It was a consensus from a class. Apparently we hated politicians, corporate leaders, and Miss America =D.

But yeh, thanks for your input.

Sink the boat and let them all die.



That would be option #3

I would say 2 and 3. 3 because a unified field theory is of more consequence than anything the others are doing with their lives and 2 for two reasons. First, his fitness and mariners skills will ensure he will successfully row to shore and second it seems he is most likely to be able to defend the lifeboat from others who might storm it and try to force their way aboard (the corollary being that choosing him to be aboard in the first place eliminates the possibility that he might force his way aboard if he was not chosen).