Save the women and the children first

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Every woman should be prioritized over every man (assuming all women are fertile, but never mind), because they MIGHT be pregnant.

This is how expected values work. In the basic set up, we take the probability of a value times that value, repeat for all values and associated probabilities and then sum. So, if we've got P(X = 1) = 1, for X= 1, we get 1. All other values have 0 probability so the expected lives is 1.

For a woman we assume is of childbearing age, our situation is:

P(X = 1) * 1 + P(X = 2) * 2 + P(X = 3) * 3 + ...

A "multi-life combo" could be more simply called "two lives".

No, it cannot.

Because you're attached to this jargon which sounds like a Macca's option?

If you want to refute my claim, you can only do so by defining a "multi-life combo".

Though I'll grant you it is late, and probably we're both tired.

To further the discussion, I'll just pretend that a child's life being worth more than an adult's life, can be seamlessly extended to a fetus's life also being worth at least one whole life. I do not like it,

In principle, this is accommodated within the probability in the first place. We're not evaluating the chance that an arbitrary woman identified to be of childbearing age is, say, currently "cooking" two embroyos/zygotes/foetuses in the womb. We're evaluating the probability that such a woman will carry two children to term, who both survive birth given that woman's present characteristics.

You'd better stop there, before you prove that every female who might give birth some day, has infinitely more value than any male who might play his part in raising a child to breeding age.

It really looks to me like you're carrying the reasoning of each point just so far, before you realize that you're making a reductio ad absurdum of your own point. Are you leaving the finishing touches to me, as some kind of test?

I avoid the regression because it distracts from the essential premise of multi-life combos. The way I've written it here, for example, seems gender neutral but that's due to the limits of my words and my desire to not use a regression modelling the P(X = x)s.

Is it possible that "multi-life combos" is a previously defined term from actuarial science?
Maybe that's the problem. Maybe you're relying on some base of theory I've never heard of, and I made the silly mistake of thinking you are relying on something you thought up while staring dejectedly at a hamburger, and pondering why your appetite has evaporated.

I will stop teasing you soon. There is a genuine chance it's a properly defined term and I'll look like an idiot for not bothering to google it.

But here's where you make the most critical error. One or more women know they are pregnant, therefore to be fair ALL the women must be treated as double lives. How can you possibly present that as fair, when it favors the whole class of women for characteristics you only have reason to believe a few of them have?

No, that's the point. You can't identify who and is and isn't pregnant, you cannot identify who will and will not have successful births and you cannot believe what anyone tells you... and nor should you be wasting time. Basically, the logic is that every single woman that the crew believe could bear children gets to free ride off the possibility that they can be a multi-life combo. It's just a simple free rider problem, is all.

Suppose an accident had disabled so many lifeboats, that you didn't have enough places even for all the children. Girls, of whatever age, would have to go first, because 15 years from now they might play the indispensable role in creating a new person.

Boys however, are dispensable in the reproduction process. This is well known.

Nope. I'll let you favor the remaining women (after the known pregnant ones have been let on the boat), but only a bit. Not absolutely.

OK, as the captain you may have good numbers for how many women fall pregnant, per day, on a ship your size. Let's say in fact, on your own ship which you've captained many times (not the Titanic obviously). But if you don't, I would say to count the number of known pregnant women, and make that the number of "extra" women you're going to rig your lottery to pick.

Look, it'd make for a great dystopian sci fi... perhaps a plot point on Avenue Five or Black Mirror... to have cruise members be given armbands which have their expected lives stuck on them, but I don't make the assumption that the crew has made these calculations before the accident. I make the assumptions that (a) the captain gives orders to follow this utilitarian principle and (b) the crew members who operate that order have to make decisions on the fly.

Wait, I missed (a)? How did I miss this?

Captain: First Mate, I am busy at the helm of this stationary sinking ship. I am delegating to you the responsibility of maintaining order and seeing that the maximum number of passengers are seated safely on the lifeboats. Which as you know, are insufficient for all the passengers.

First Mate: Thankyou, thankyou for this grave responsibility sir. Permission to refuse?

Captain: Refused. You will conduct the filling of the lifeboats.

First Mate: What ... criteria should I ... employ, to choose between the passengers? Sir?

Captain: Apply the Utilitarian Principle, just like you learned in officer school. There will be no further orders. Do it now.

First Mate: *leaving* (mutters) Yes sir, Captain Ahab sir.

It's a simple free-rider problem. YEAH. The fact that your method suffers from a really stark free-rider problem, doesn't bother you at all?

When your calculations lead to the conclusion that a woman's life is always worth more than a man's life, then you've made some basic assumption error early in the process. Perhaps you failed to properly account for what "fair" should mean, or you've deliberately ignored the possibility a foetus's life can't be put on the same scale since it lacks value-for-itself and has only such value as the host woman puts on it?

Yeah, I think that's it. A foetus that the woman is not even aware exists, has some value the Captain should account for. EDIT: Looking more closely, it's a foetus that actually doesn't exist that the Captain (or delegated officer) should be taking into account. This is so weird, I don't think I've heard it even from a pro-life "foetuses are literally God" type.

I notice now that you did sort of consider it, but wriggled around it with "women might lie" so let's apply your own logic to that. Sure they might. If it was me, I think I probably would. But because women might lie, we can treat all women claiming without obvious evidence to be pregnant, as liars. We have all the pregnant ones on the boat, and all the women still on the ship can be fairly treated as Not Pregnant. Only I wouldn't use that line of argument myself, it has that 'trying to balance a bicycle which has no wheels' feel to it.

I will make one compromise though. Before making the final list, I would call on all the women to declare if they like, that they are not pregnant (or if they're not sure but don't care), and that they don't want the privilege afforded to women by the default rule. If possible this would be done by a secret ballot, though if there's not time for that I guess "all women who do not wish to claim the benefit-of-the-doubt privilege ahead of the men, please make your way to the stern side of the crowd".

I have enough faith in human nature, to think giving the option to be treated exactly like the men are, to the women, will substantially cut into your "free rider problem".

What I would not do, is announce that because all the childbearing age or younger women could possibly make a greater contribution to the human race in the future, they will all go ahead of the men. I just can't see anything good coming of that.

[Arkhane]

If I remembered correctly, the reason for the shortage was a lot of people unwilling to ride the first barrage of boats.

In that case, I wouldn't need to fight because I'd be in the first wave. If they say the ship is sinking, I'm not going to be incredulous and ignore the first warning until it's too late. Unsinkable be damned.

[Valentine Z]

If I remembered correctly, the reason for the shortage was a lot of people unwilling to ride the first barrage of boats.

In that case, I wouldn't need to fight because I'd be in the first wave. If they say the ship is sinking, I'm not going to be incredulous and ignore the first warning until it's too late. Unsinkable be damned.

Which leads to another point: Never, ever call a ship unsinkable. Murphy's Law happens a lot more than we think!

^^;

[Forsher]

It's a simple free-rider problem. YEAH. The fact that your method suffers from a really stark free-rider problem, doesn't bother you at all?

That's the point.

When your calculations lead to the conclusion that a woman's life is always worth more than a man's life

They do not. We're not drawing conclusions about the worth of lives. Indeed, we're treating all lives the same. The difference is that because of how we're counting lives, we end up embodying more lives in women due to a biological quirk.

Saying there are more carrots than parsnip in the bag, does not mean I like (value) carrots more than parsnip.

I notice now that you did sort of consider it, but wriggled around it with "women might lie" so let's apply your own logic to that. Sure they might. If it was me, I think I probably would. But because women might lie, we can treat all women claiming without obvious evidence to be pregnant, as liars. We have all the pregnant ones on the boat, and all the women still on the ship can be fairly treated as Not Pregnant.

Again, this is just wrong. We're violating our fundamental principles by making such an assumption. It's not founded on good logic because we know women can be pregnant without realising. They can think they're lying whilst telling the truth.

I have enough faith in human nature, to think giving the option to be treated exactly like men are, to the women, will substantially cut into your "free rider problem".

The purpose of the exercise is to demonstrate that a utilitarian procedure which defines good in relation to the exercise at hand, will manifestly resemble "women and children first" regardless. That it reaches this outcome because of a free rider issue is irrelevant... the case is demonstrated.

[Destyntine]

Children first, you can fit twice as many children on a lifeboat as adults. As for women and men, let it be a first come, first serve rescue mission.. and anyone who knows how to build better start tearing apart the deck to make boats and rafts.

"First come, first served" seems the least fair way to choose imaginable.

I'm sure you fancy yourself pretty quick up a flight of stairs, so it would favor you. But that chubby and sad looking old woman with the oversize handbag has finally found a crime she doesn't mind doing time for.

You might as well look back and mock her for being so slow. She's going to shoot you either way!

That is if she can take 2 minutes to bend down, slowly open the handbag, and grip a gun with her shaky old frail hands. Pretty sure I'd be long ahead at that point.

If you don't see it as fair then what would you do? There is no 'fair' way in this situation. There isn't enough boats, somebody is going to die, there is no way around it.

[Ifreann]

There is also another interesting question. What if it happened in China? That would likely be might makes right. Survivors would be mostly adult men.

If the Titanic were in China then I dare say the problem would have been toppling over rather than striking an iceberg.

---

But why specifically women and children? If an injured man was on his way to the lifeboat and a perfectly healthy woman gets there just a second faster than him, you'd let her on despite the man being in much more danger? That's pretty sexist, my dude. You shouldn't discriminate life based on their gender.

If it was a more or less healthy man that had been injured recently while during the chaos, i.e. maybe he twisted his ankle or something rushing down the stairs, then yeah I'd let the woman on first. There is a case to be made for the disabled and other similar cases or for those whom their injuries caused by the accident are so severe that their ability to look after themselves in the event of the ship sinking prior to getting in a lifeboat is that diminished, but for the most part yeah fit adult men shouldn't take the place of a woman or child unless deemed necessary. *shrug*

Trying to apply this kind prioritisation would just waste time and endanger lives. How many people are you willing to get killed by delaying the evacuation while you give up your place on the lifeboat?

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Thirdly, with women... every pregnant woman is a multi-life combo. (Yes, this implies, under this regime, you should have a quickie without protection just before queuing up for the lifeboat.) This advantages every woman since we don't know who's pregnant and who's not by looking at them.

Every woman should be prioritized over every man (assuming all women are fertile, but never mind), because they MIGHT be pregnant.

Not an old woman. They already lived most of their life anyhow so I think the young men should go before them.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Obviously it should be the really, really ridiculously good looking people first.

[Atheris]

Obviously it should be the really, really ridiculously good looking people first.

I guess we all know you're not getting one, then.

(this was a joke, just in case)

[Kannap]

In Titanic most of the survivors were women and children because the men were denied seats in the life boats.

As a consequence, 74% of the women and 52% of the children on board were saved, but only 20% of the men. Some officers on the Titanic misinterpreted the order from Captain Smith, and tried to prevent men from boarding the lifeboats. It was intended that women and children would board first, with any remaining free spaces for men. Because not all women and children were saved on the Titanic, the few men who survived, like White Star official J. Bruce Ismay, were initially branded as cowards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and ... st_century

In similar situations do you think you would personally hold the same line of thinking where the women and children get rescued first?

Personally, I am of the opinion of first come, first serve. My life is not worth less any of theirs.

How about we address the problem that forced that decision to have to be made (which we did after the Titanic disaster). You don't have to make the hard decision between "women and children first" or "every man for himself" when you have enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew aboard the ship.

As aforementioned, we addressed the problems that led to such loss of life in the Titanic disaster by implementing a number of regulations and safeguards in place to prevent another disaster like that from happening again. I'm curious how this discussion is relevant today, over 100 years later.

[Ors Might]

Children and the elderly first, as someone said earlier they’d simply get in the way of slowing down the possibly literal train wreck. Other than that, all are equal before the god of death. I ain’t sacrificing my life just because I have a willy and you do not.

[Nuroblav]

Plan A: Bring the correct amount of lifeboats

Plan B if this has somehow failed: Follow Huskar's plan from earlier.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

What about just children first? And we move up by age and not gender?

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Obviously it should be the really, really ridiculously good looking people first.

I guess we all know you're not getting one, then.

(this was a joke, just in case)

I'm deeply wounded.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Do not panic. Everyone first except people whose first names are more than three syllables. Your ass is staying on the ship. Lol.

[Atheris]

I guess we all know you're not getting one, then.

(this was a joke, just in case)

I'm deeply wounded.

We all are; we're on NSG.

[Nuroblav]

Do not panic. Everyone first except people whose first names are more than three syllables. Your ass is staying on the ship. Lol.

Are we taking birth names or ones generally used?

[Ifreann]

What about just children first? And we move up by age and not gender?

What about just put people on the lifeboats and don't waste time trying to establish a hierarchy of life value.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Do not panic. Everyone first except people whose first names are more than three syllables. Your ass is staying on the ship. Lol.

Are we taking birth names or ones generally used?

Ones generally used. It's okay if you got a nickname but if you're a lame who has a super long name and you didn't even get a nickname, have a nice swim.

[Kannap]

If I remembered correctly, the reason for the shortage was a lot of people unwilling to ride the first barrage of boats.

In that case, I wouldn't need to fight because I'd be in the first wave. If they say the ship is sinking, I'm not going to be incredulous and ignore the first warning until it's too late. Unsinkable be damned.

Titanic had a shortage of lifeboats even if every boat were filled to its maximum capacity. She held over 3,300 people - counting both passengers and crew - but only held lifeboats for 1,178 people. Which was more than regulated at the time, ships over 10,000 tons were only required to carry lifeboats for 960 people. Titanic was over 40,000 tons.

Of course, you're right, a lot of the lifeboats were lowered without being filled to their maximum capacity, hence why only 706 people survived the disaster rather than a number closer to the nearly 1,200 that could've fit in the boats. But even if the boats were filled to capacity, only 35% of the people on board could have been saved.

[Kannap]

Alphabetical order by last name, if you want my silly answer.

[Atheris]

Are we taking birth names or ones generally used?

Ones generally used. It's okay if you got a nickname but if you're a lame who has a super long name and you didn't even get a nickname, have a nice swim.

Why! My best's friends name is awesome! He goes by Alloo-loo-*click*-alloo-loo-*click*-alloo-lululu-lulula!

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Mfw we're about to disembark on the life raft but Maximilian won't take no for an answer: https://youtu.be/oihKDAE0n0w

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

"First come, first served" seems the least fair way to choose imaginable.

I'm sure you fancy yourself pretty quick up a flight of stairs, so it would favor you. But that chubby and sad looking old woman with the oversize handbag has finally found a crime she doesn't mind doing time for.

You might as well look back and mock her for being so slow. She's going to shoot you either way!

That is if she can take 2 minutes to bend down, slowly open the handbag, and grip a gun with her shaky old frail hands. Pretty sure I'd be long ahead at that point.

If you don't see it as fair then what would you do? There is no 'fair' way in this situation. There isn't enough boats, somebody is going to die, there is no way around it.

Without going into the variations I've considered, mine is:

Children first: most lives saved with the space and weight-bearing available.

Parents of the children: but in the first selection I will only allow 1 per child. This is to avoid the injustice of a single parent of two having no free riders, but dual parents of one child getting that free ride. It's not about the parents, it's about the value of a parent to a child.

Second parents (co-parents) of multiple children. The number depends on the situation (how full the boats are getting for instance) but lets say three. A set of 2 children don't get their second parent yet, but of course there's a very good chance they will later (one parent per child). A set of 3 children do get both their parents at this stage.

Teenagers get a slight advantage over adults, but nowhere near as much as the children did. I'd like to have a sliding scale, but under the circumstances it would take too long and be too complicated for the passengers to have faith in. I'm thinking double weight (two entries each) in the final lottery.

I'm trying to account for scenarios where there are lots of children (and thus families) and very few lifeboats. Hence the stuff about separating parents from children if necessary. In some circumstances it would just not be an option, other than by keeping some families together to live and whole other families being left out to die. I have a somewhat sentimental view that a family is more than just the sum of its members, it has a spirit (if you don't mind) that can recover from the death of a member. But obviously not from the death of all of them. That's why I'm favoring breaking up families over saving some but condemning others. It is however, sentimental. I don't think I can explain it is utilitarian terms.

If I had infinite time to explain and justify to the passengers, and modify or add to address their concerns, I would do all the remaining places by a weighted lottery. And remaining parents who hadn't qualified by the above steps, would now go in heavily weighted to the lottery.

More practically, the next step depends on how much space is left on the lifeboats after the "family cores" process. If there's more than half, say, I would bring back hope to breaking hearts and just let all the rest of the parents on. But under a harsher constraint, I really can't let "you're single, you're fucked" be the outcome. The remaining less-essential parents will have to take place in the lottery.

I really want to say the lottery should be weighted by each individual's size and weight. It is actually a valid criterion: consider an extreme case where one individual is so overweight they would take up the same capacity of the lifeboat as two trim and lightly built individuals. Should I put two more people into the space, or only 1? I say I'd like to, but I doubt I could pull it off. Someone yells out "the Captain is favoring those hot babes he hangs around with" and I've lost the crowd. Body image is such a hot button I can't touch it while still conducting an orderly selection process. Maybe I could have an officer discretely talk to them, about how welcome God will make them if they palm their lottery entry instead of putting it in the hat.

Anyway, this is the best bit, the lottery. At it's simplest, everyone puts their name (or their ship ID, if the ship uses that) in a big hat, and an officer (not me) pulls names out one by one. People putting their own name in, is very important: they physically participate, they see the hat up close, and it makes them much more confident the lottery is fair. Except under "ship is on fire, broken in the middle, sinking from both ends" circumstances, a lottery draw should be quick enough. Your name is called, you give your best friend a farewell hug, and get in the boat that's currently being filled.

Well the weighted lottery is of course more complicated, but one more thing I haven't mentioned is allowing any passenger who chooses to, to downweight their own entry. Even to zero, but without the embarrassment of publicly opting out. Yes, embarrassment. People mean well when they warmly congratulate another for being altruistic, but to some altruistic people that is the last thing they want. So allowing the option to do it secretly, can only increase the number who actually do. And down-weighting could be even more effective, for people whose altruism stretches to lengthening their own odds, but not all the way to sacrificing themselves with no chance at all.

Oh dear. Is saving the more selfish people in preference to the more altruistic, a good thing? No, because duh, but yes because it's what altruistic people do. On that confusing note, I'll wrap up my "short" summary of my method.

[The Two Jerseys]

Alphabetical order by last name, if you want my silly answer.

That would be a good time to be named Aaron Abner Aaronson.