We are all equal in the eyes of God. I reckon if you used this as justification for your actions, he would smite you with the jawbone of an ass on the spot.

God is going to smite me with your jawbone? Do you really believe you speak for my God? Son, you are in trouble.

It's not my jawbone. I wasnt around when he coined the phrase. There is only one God so unless you have invented your own?

I would begin by throwing over all the liberals. I think that once that dead weight is gone, the b!tching and moaning will stop and the boat will be able to sustain those left. For the greater good and for the love of humanity, even if that left one conservative on the boat and all the rest overboard, it would be a justified expenditure.

I must have one different than yours. Your God would only be appeased if everyone drowned? Who was the last documented smite victim? Seems there were a few thousand deserving of smiting in the last 2000 years.

You are putting me in the boat as though I have the power to decide who lives and dies. If I were on the boat, I do believe I would be on the short list to take a swim. However, my suggestion was to vote who goes over the side. We haven't heard your God fearing solution other than they all deserve to die which is plain ignorant.

I'm with this guy...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1149581051.jpg

seriously though, I'm looking out for me at that point. I have no time for those not able to recognize what needs to b done to survive.

This makes me think about how I seriously wanted to kill Gilligan as a child.

I think the youngest prettiest blonde girls should survive. And me of course to repopulate the world eventhough I am shooting blanks.:D

Not if they were ugly.

First, throw all the lawyers overboard. That's obvious.

Second, you could go by weight since the idea is to prolong the viability of the raft as long as possible. So the fatties go next.

Third, I agree that the crew assumed the risk when they took the job so they get fed to the sharks after the fatties. Of course the sharks might be so full from eating the fatties and lawyers that the crew might be ok for a while, until they pull a Leonardo di Caprio and freeze to death in the water.

Fourth, go by age. If you are trying to preserve as many life years as possible it makes sense to toss Grandma.

That should get you somewhere close. The friggin thing is going to sink anyways.

This moral conundrum is just an expansion of a older simpler one:

You and a buddy are the only survivors of a ship wreck. You are both swimming in the middle of the ocean but know you can't keep this up forever. You see a life preserver. It will not support both of you...only one.

If you kill your buddy is it self-defense because you've done what was necessary to save your life? Afterall, if your buddy takes the life preserver, you are dead.

Or is it murder?

With regards to the lifeboat, I will add some complexity. What if it is a prison ship, transferring convicts to some tropical penal colony? Then what? What is the crew's responsibility to thieves, murderers and rapists? The courts have sentenced them to punishment, but not to death.

With a passenger ship, you may indeed have thieves murderers and rapists on board, but not know it.

Ewww! With a gammy leg!?

See, now you have a flaw in your logic. No self respecting shark would ever eat a lawyer! Not when there is decaying flesh and tin cans to eat instead. Geeezz...

A friend of mine took five years and backpacked from Texas to Cape Horn and back. He had no money, he hitched rides where he could, walked when he couldn't. He provided a day's labor for a day's food before moving on when he was hungry. Sometimes he didn't eat for days, sometimes he stayed in the same place for a while and ate his fill.

Coming from the U.S., the thing that most surprised him when he got away from "civilization" was how food was doled out in the small villages on the edge of subsistence. The healthy males ate first--they ate until they were full. The healthy women ate next, then the elderly, then the children. If the healthy men ate all of the food, no one else ate that day. If the healthy men and women ate all of the food...the elderly and children were SOL.

It may seem barbaric, but the logic behind this is sound. The healthy men supplied most of the labor, both in farming and hunting, if they were to die, the whole village would starve. The women were next in what they supplied: cooking and some farming labor. The elderly had knowledge. The children...they could be replaced in better times.

Incidentally, this friend left on this journey a socialist, and came back a libertarian.

You needn't eat the leg, Fitzpatrick! There's plenty of good meat left...look at that arm!

I would volunteer to leave the boat, but it would have to be last. Then when the first few died I would tie their bodies together to make a human raft. :D

In reality, your gonna die someday. If its woman & kids to choose from, I would take the plunge.

If its other men, I'd slit their throats and use them as bait.

Lubey, they Lawyers won't be eaten by sharks due to professional courtesy...

If there are icebergs, the water is cold. The people in the water won't last long.

i'de find somebody with a suitably sized finger, to plug the hole in the lifeboat.

that's 1

then i'de start picking based on size and potential rowing skills

really fat ones, or really skinny ones are no go, the fat ones don't have muscles, the skinny ones don't either + they have no fat reserves to keep em going...

women better not be whining at selection time, or the verdict will be swift and not in their favour... those with huge boyancy potential ... ok it's a plus.

ROFL!!!

Well, I'd ask the blondes all to hand over their chewing gum and one credit card. Stick the chewing gum to the credit card and send the crew's best swimmer over the side to apply the patch to the outside of the hole in the hull. Then I'd put everyone to work bailing water with their shoes.

But for the moral decision, I'd ask for volunteers, then select a mutually agreeable method for random selection (short straws always work in the movies). I'd allow people to volunteer to replace any of the draw-ers of short straws.

No method of selection that isn't universally agreed upon would be moral.

What about a method of selection that's agreed upon by a majority? I don't know that you could ever find a method that is universally agreed upon.