• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Thought Experiment: The Fallout Shelter

Doctor, botonist, officer, mother, lawyer, layabout.
 
Keep them all, except maybe the young guy with the criminal past (depends on details. Was he caught with a kilo of blow? Keep him. Did he rape a five year old? He's gone). You've got two years to figure out how to make it work another three, if I understand the scenario correctly. It can be done. In our movie-a-night culture, most people seriously underestimate the trauma of making a decision to end another person's life. That will not merely haunt you, it can tear a person apart permanently. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I'd rather believe there's a way to prevail rather than choose to commit what would amount to murder, even in the name of survival.
 
Gathomas88 said:
A nuclear holocaust has occurred. You and a small group of eleven fellow survivors have managed to procure a shelter stocked with food and medical supplies. As far as you are aware, your group represents the last living human beings on planet Earth.

However, you have a problem. The shelter's supplies are limited, and your group is too large for the supplies on hand to support. With a population of six, and only limited rationing, your supplies can last five years. With all twelve persons (including yourself), on the other hand, the supplies will only last two years. If you ration your supplies strictly, you can save one additional person, for a total of seven, but the health of the group as a whole will suffer (note: if you're creative, it might be possible to stretch those rations further, in order to either save one additional person, for a total of eight, or alleviate the health impacts of saving seven, but I will not say how ;) ).

According to the expert in your group, radiation levels should be low enough to make it safe to exit the shelter in four years. It will take roughly a year to grow crops after that point.

Your group consists of the following:

One high-ranking military officer, male, age 45. He has advanced survival training, extensive leadership and managerial experience, and rather imposing presence. Unfortunately, however, he also has PTSD. This is manageable at the moment, but could get worse. He is moderately religious.

One nuclear physicist, male, age 30. He is a paraplegic, and somewhat sickly. No survival skills. He is non-religious.

One doctor, male, age 50. He is overweight and has high blood pressure. However, he also has considerable skill with both medicine and basic surgical procedures. He is religious, but non-practicing.

One nurse, female, age 67. She is the picture of good health, but her skills are not quite as great as the doctor in your group. She is devoutly religious.

One single mother, female (obviously), age 24. She is healthy, and has an infant daughter with her. She is presently breast feeding, so that child will not draw supplies (i.e. doesn't count). She is non-practicing religious.

One priest, male (again, obviously), age 42. He is in good health, though he lacks noteworthy survival skills. It should go without saying that he is religious.

One botanist, female, age 34. She has the beginning stages of multiple sclerosis, but is otherwise healthy. She is agnostic.

One transient who managed to sneak in at the last moment, male, age 28. He has demonstrated anti-social tendencies, has a criminal background, and is dependent on alcohol and very likely an illicit substance or two. He is non-religious.

One additional transient who managed to sneak in, female, age 21. Same as the above, romantically connected to the transient male. She was raised religious, but is non-practicing.

One lawyer, female, age 36. Highly intelligent, and she is in good health. However, she lacks survival skills, and does not get along with the military officer due to her political views. She is non-religious.

One unemployed layabout, male, age 26. He is in good health, and reasonably fit from a physical perspective, but he has no skills whatsoever. He is non-religious.

So...

Who lives and who dies? What is your reasoning for that decision? What is your endgame?

This was actually a group exercise we were given at Warrant Officer Candidate School. Needless to say, things got pretty damn dark in a hurry. :lol:

I'll be interested to see how civilians tackle the issue.
Click to expand...

People who have to die:
nurse (is past childbirthing age) and priest (contributes nothing) will definitely die. We might get rid of the transient as long as the transient female doesn't show too much objection. The lawyer also might die. The physicist might also die.
All of the dead people get eaten


The doctor get the smallest portions since he's overweight

The people who must absolutely live are the officer since he's the expert, the doctor since he can do surgery, the single mother who already has a child, and the botanist since she knows how to plant stuff

After we leave the shelter:

The botanist will plant crops to grow and over the decades, we will reproduce.

After we leave the shelter, we will look for other survivors. If we are truly the only survivors and the sperm in the sperm banks is rotten then humanity is doomed because our descendants will inherit bad genetic disorders like downs syndrome and hemophilia.
 
Captain Adverse said:
Ah, but if I were the general in this scenario I would sacrifice myself.

I don't believe my other skills would balance out against the threat I posed to the group as a whole.

In fact, I would volunteer to be the enforcer of insuring that the other rejects left with me...at gun-point if necessary. Then maybe outside, facing whatever that environment brings I'd strive to see what I could do for those with me until radiation poisoning or other causes of death ensue. That would include providing a quick death if necessary to those who wished it.
Click to expand...

I think I've seen that scene on TV. The people did okay until the Abbies found them and ate them.

Me, I am not that heroic. I would reverse the process and decide who to let in rather than who to kick out.
 
Gathomas88 said:
A nuclear holocaust has occurred. You and a small group of eleven fellow survivors have managed to procure a shelter stocked with food and medical supplies. As far as you are aware, your group represents the last living human beings on planet Earth.

However, you have a problem. The shelter's supplies are limited, and your group is too large for the supplies on hand to support. With a population of six, and only limited rationing, your supplies can last five years. With all twelve persons (including yourself), on the other hand, the supplies will only last two years. If you ration your supplies strictly, you can save one additional person, for a total of seven, but the health of the group as a whole will suffer (note: if you're creative, it might be possible to stretch those rations further, in order to either save one additional person, for a total of eight, or alleviate the health impacts of saving seven, but I will not say how ;) ).

According to the expert in your group, radiation levels should be low enough to make it safe to exit the shelter in four years. It will take roughly a year to grow crops after that point.

Your group consists of the following:

One high-ranking military officer, male, age 45. He has advanced survival training, extensive leadership and managerial experience, and rather imposing presence. Unfortunately, however, he also has PTSD. This is manageable at the moment, but could get worse. He is moderately religious.

One nuclear physicist, male, age 30. He is a paraplegic, and somewhat sickly. No survival skills. He is non-religious.

One doctor, male, age 50. He is overweight and has high blood pressure. However, he also has considerable skill with both medicine and basic surgical procedures. He is religious, but non-practicing.

One nurse, female, age 67. She is the picture of good health, but her skills are not quite as great as the doctor in your group. She is devoutly religious.

One single mother, female (obviously), age 24. She is healthy, and has an infant daughter with her. She is presently breast feeding, so that child will not draw supplies (i.e. doesn't count). She is non-practicing religious.

One priest, male (again, obviously), age 42. He is in good health, though he lacks noteworthy survival skills. It should go without saying that he is religious.

One botanist, female, age 34. She has the beginning stages of multiple sclerosis, but is otherwise healthy. She is agnostic.

One transient who managed to sneak in at the last moment, male, age 28. He has demonstrated anti-social tendencies, has a criminal background, and is dependent on alcohol and very likely an illicit substance or two. He is non-religious.

One additional transient who managed to sneak in, female, age 21. Same as the above, romantically connected to the transient male. She was raised religious, but is non-practicing.

One lawyer, female, age 36. Highly intelligent, and she is in good health. However, she lacks survival skills, and does not get along with the military officer due to her political views. She is non-religious.

One unemployed layabout, male, age 26. He is in good health, and reasonably fit from a physical perspective, but he has no skills whatsoever. He is non-religious.

So...

Who lives and who dies? What is your reasoning for that decision? What is your endgame?

This was actually a group exercise we were given at Warrant Officer Candidate School. Needless to say, things got pretty damn dark in a hurry. :lol:

I'll be interested to see how civilians tackle the issue.
Click to expand...

Pick the one female I like the best, then throw everyone else out and we have no concerns about surviving even longer, you will needs supplies even after the levels go down enough. Believe it or not that outcome would probably be more likely than not.
 
ashurbanipal said:
Keep them all, except maybe the young guy with the criminal past (depends on details. Was he caught with a kilo of blow? Keep him. Did he rape a five year old? He's gone). You've got two years to figure out how to make it work another three, if I understand the scenario correctly. It can be done. In our movie-a-night culture, most people seriously underestimate the trauma of making a decision to end another person's life. That will not merely haunt you, it can tear a person apart permanently. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I'd rather believe there's a way to prevail rather than choose to commit what would amount to murder, even in the name of survival.
Click to expand...

I think we both see the problem with this thought experiment: it isnt realistic. The perimeters unrealistically restricts creative decisions in favor of if you would kill members of the public for the mission. For military use I think they want to know if you are willing to kill innocent people for the greater good. Then apply that to chain of command decision making and obeying. The end result is a very primitive thought experiment designed to dictate what they want you to do. The actual picking of who dies is irrelevant. What matters is if you would kill or help kill six innocent people for the mission.
 
I'm keeping EVERYONE for a year then we make decisions.

As for the leadership, natural leaders always emerge...you can begin with one leader and two months later a natural leader will take their place and that is not predictable until the group interacts

rash decisions regarding life and death are not smart, time must be a factor and a year to see how people adjust to the close environment is not a lot....people melt down or adjust

any group dynamics shows that you need some time first
 
I don't understand the point of your 'devoutly religious' detail, unless they're gonna sit there and pray instead of do actual survival work.

If i were among the group, either i'd volunteer to be killed off for their sake, or attempt to kill them all first, as i believe humanity deserves only 1 shot. If we destroy the whole planet, we should not survive, just to repeat the same insanity. Not to mention if everyone on the planet dies, so does everything else we'd need to survive off once supplies run out

However, to humor you...the physicist was probably responsible in some way. I would be highly suspicious. So we shove him outside the shelter to suffer the same fate as his victims

The nurse is too old to be worth rations. However, as a healing profession, we treat her more kindly than the others and drop a huge boulder on her in her sleep

The infant won't be able to breast feed all 4 years, so will use supplies, and will create a terrible smell in the shelter, not to mention keep us awake. The obvious answer is to kill the newborn and keep the mother as a reproduction slave, to repopulate earth after the radiation is gone

The priest cannot contribute anything and getting up there in age. He use his crucifix to slit his throat

The doctor would be useful but there are surgical supplies or medicines left. The botanist cannot grow anything with the land that has been scorched. Similar to WWI battlefields, all plant life would die before it can thrive. The transients might be useful in a fight, but after using them to kill the others, there is no one left to fight. The lawyer is worthless because obviously legal arguments failed to save humanity for mass extinction

The layabout consumes the fewest calories, due to laying about so much. The correct path to success is for him to grind his feces into the food of the two transients. Then when they get sick, he will strangle them and go back to laying about. Now he has rations for about 20 years. Since any offspring would die off due to inbreeding with his daughters or between his sons and daughters, and he's a layabout who is uninterested in sex, he will artificially inseminate the mother. Then, his son will do the same to her to produce a 3rd generation. All but a couple daughters (just in case 1 is infertile) and 1 son in the 2nd generation will be killed immediately to preserve rations. As time goes on and the plant life begins to recover, humanity may just survive
 
the_recruit said:
The easiest decision right off the bat is cannibalism
Click to expand...

Heh. I honestly hadn't thought about cannibalism, largely because the stockpile of supplies on hand is large enough, and because - at five years - the time scale we're working on here is so extended, that a little extra meat doesn't intuitively seem to make that much difference in the grand scheme of things. However, now that you mention it, four adult human bodies (the minimum number of sacrificees specified by the scenario) would provide at least a couple of hundred pounds worth of usable meat. That's nothing to necessarily scoff at, provided that the supply is properly rationed and preserved.

The bigger question, I think, is whether or not the gain (they're not in any immediate danger of starvation, after all) is worth the risk from a psychological and social perspective. Murdering another human being in cold blood, and subsequently butchering them, let alone eating them afterwards, isn't any small thing. People may be able to pallet that sort of barbarism in extreme survival situations, but pre-emptively resorting to such measures before things have become become truly desperate is going to take a toll on a normal person. That could potentially wreak havoc on the social dynamics and morale of the group (by possibly setting off the General's PTSD, for example, among other things), which could put the survivors at risk.

Baby... She will consume calories via mom's milk
Click to expand...

According to what I've been able to find online, the average breastfeeding mother generally only needs an extra 300-500 calories a day. Considering that a woman's recommended calorie intake already falls somewhere between 1600-2000 a day, and a man's falls between 2400 and 2600, breastfeeding's really not all that much of an added burden on supplies. The mother will probably still be eating less than most of the men in the group, even with the baby.

She could also, conceivably, provide a certain amount of the milk she produces to the group's stores every day, and serve as an additional high protein food source herself. Hell! Human milk actually has higher calorie content than the bovine variety, from what I'm reading.

Calorie and fat content of various milks

FreedomFromAll said:
Before one could rationalize killing the assumed extras the group would need to setup a system of decision making
Click to expand...

Yes, some degree of consensus would be necessary. I don't think any of the people mentioned is powerful enough on an individual basis to forcibly impose their will on the rest of the group anyway, to be honest. There weren't any guns mentioned, for example.

Also, as I mentioned before, I would hope that at least some of these people would sacrifice themselves willingly when presented with the reality of the situation. The nurse should realize that she's a liability, and so should the physicist. The criminal, on the other hand, most likely won't, and might even try to do harm to other members of the group, so that's a good reason to keep people with some skill and stomach for violence around, like the Officer.

ashurbanipal said:
Keep them all... I'd rather believe there's a way to prevail rather than choose to commit what would amount to murder
Click to expand...

_Sal said:
I'm keeping EVERYONE for a year then we make decisions
Click to expand...

Keep in mind, if you maintain a group of 12, you'll be burning through supplies at roughly twice the rate specified by the "everyone survives for five years" plan. That means you'll run out twice as quickly.

Suppose you do keep everyone for a year or two, only to ultimately find that there really are no other alternatives, and that you have no other choice but to kick people out in order to preserve supplies. It might not do any good at that point, because you might not have enough supplies left to survive until you can grow your own food anyway. The whole group might wind up starving to death as a consequence, or you might end up having to sacrifice even more people, while maintaining an even smaller core group of survivors than the original scenario specified, as a result.

This is a scenario that requires long term planning and calculation more than anything else. The sooner certain choices are made, the better. Procrastination and indecisiveness only increases the risk that the group as a whole will suffer a fatal outcome.

chromium said:
I don't understand the point of your 'devoutly religious' detail
Click to expand...

In terms of morale and mental health, religious persons may benefit from the priest's presence.

The infant won't be able to breast feed all 4 years
Click to expand...

Breastfeeding can be maintained almost indefinitely, if the mother has the right physiology.
 
Last edited:
Gathomas88 said:
In terms of morale and mental health, religious persons may benefit from the priest's presence.
Click to expand...

i had them all killed off and in such scenarios, morale and mental health are not a priority

Gathomas88 said:
Breastfeeding can be maintained almost indefinitely, if the mother has the right physiology.
Click to expand...

well then she can breastfeed the layabout i decided to let live, like in "grapes of wraith". The infant is problematic for other reasons, such as vulnerability to childhood disease during that 4+ years. What this plan requires is for healthy adults to survive until the plants can repopulate. Anything that lives a while but doesn't survive until then has wasted the resources
 
Last edited:
Gathomas88 said:
Keep in mind, if you maintain a group of 12, you'll be burning through supplies at roughly twice the rate specified by the "everyone survives for five years" plan. That means you'll run out twice as quickly.

Suppose you do keep everyone for a year or two, only to ultimately find that there really are no other alternatives, and that you have no other choice but to kick people out in order to preserve supplies. It might not do any good at that point, because you might not have enough supplies left to survive until you can grow your own food anyway. The whole group might wind up starving to death as a consequence, or you might end up having to sacrifice even more people, while maintaining an even smaller core group of survivors than the original scenario specified, as a result.

This is a scenario that requires long term planning and calculation more than anything else. The sooner certain choices are made, the better. Procrastination and indecisiveness only increases the risk that the group as a whole will suffer a fatal outcome.
Click to expand...
yes we would burn through supplies quicker here's the thing, the world is over, we have destroyed it, everyone is dead, everyone in here will have lost their whole world...their family, their friends...life as they/we know it is over forever

this scenario says choose five

quite easy to choose who is going to die from an abstract perspective...but not in real life, and the whole psychological component has been dismissed...there will be people in the group who will immediately emerge as leaders and say no, we are not going to kill anyone...unless of course the whole group is composed of psychopaths

if half the group have to kill the other half in order to survive...there is no reason to live

this random group of sub humans deserve to perish
 
_Sal said:
yes we would burn through supplies quicker here's the thing, the world is over, we have destroyed it, everyone is dead, everyone in here will have lost their whole world...their family, their friends...life as they/we know it is over forever

this scenario says choose five

quite easy to choose who is going to die from an abstract perspective...but not in real life, and the whole psychological component has been dismissed...there will be people in the group who will immediately emerge as leaders and say no, we are not going to kill anyone...unless of course the whole group is composed of psychopaths

if half the group have to kill the other half in order to survive...there is no reason to live

this random group of sub humans deserve to perish
Click to expand...

The maximum number possible to save is either seven or eight, depending on whether one goes with the OP or my later correction, and how they go about doing it.

In any case, am I to take it that your choice can be summed up as "hope for a miracle, and commit mass suicide on principle if one does not arrive" then? As you said yourself, while that may sound romantic on paper, it would probably hold less appeal in real life.

The reality of the situation, as I told CMP earlier, is that these kinds of decisions and sacrifices are sometimes necessary in desperate circumstances. The only reason either of us are here, in point of fact, is because many of our ancestors were willing to make exactly those sorts of decisions, where other people were not.

Saying that this makes humanity "unworthy" of existence would seem to be a little on the drastic side, IMO. Where there's life, there is hope, and room for improvement. Death, on the other hand, is final.
 
Is this real nuclear holocausr?


If so, the first person I kill would be myself. I lack the patience to await the inevitable, and frankly, 4 years is a bit generous. Being that radiation will take a long time to be removed from water.
 
Gathomas88 said:
The maximum number possible to save is either seven or eight, depending on whether one goes with the OP or my later correction, and how they go about doing it.
Click to expand...
it doesn't matter because of the irony here...we have destroyed the whole world and now some psychopath thinks the killing should continue in order to survive...survive for what...when one has lost all sense of morality and all ethical behavior there is no reason to live

In any case, am I to take it that your choice can be summed up as "hope for a miracle, and commit mass suicide on principle if one does not arrive" then? As you said yourself, while that may sound romantic on paper, it would probably hold less appeal in real life.
Click to expand...
no miracle is going to occur...and no there is no mass suicide here, why is that even on the table unless of course people can't live with what has occurred and frankly that is a distinct possibility

but humanity, compassion, heroism could occur and the last few survivors can go out like people instead of sub humans

The reality of the situation, as I told CMP earlier, is that these kinds of decisions and sacrifices are sometimes necessary in desperate circumstances.
Click to expand...
that is baloney, when we lose our humanity what are we surviving for

The only reason either of us are here, in point of fact, is because many of our ancestors were willing to make exactly those sorts of decisions, where other people were not.
Click to expand...
more baloney....man's inhumanity to man is not something to be proud of nor to embrace

Saying that this makes humanity "unworthy" of existence would seem to be a little on the drastic side, IMO.
Click to expand...
drastic?...no not just drastic, killing an innocent in order to survive is despicable

now there are societies/cultures that survive that way...they have child soldiers, they have despot leaders, they chop people's hands off, they kill without thought...that is no way to live

Where there's life, there is hope, and room for improvement. Death, on the other hand, is final.
Click to expand...
we agree here for sure :mrgreen: :peace
 
_Sal said:
it doesn't matter because of the irony here...we have destroyed the whole world and now some psychopath thinks the killing should continue in order to survive...survive for what...when one has lost all sense of morality and all ethical behavior there is no reason to live
Click to expand...

Again... This would strike me as being more than a bit dramatic. However, to each their own.

no miracle is going to occur...and no there is no mass suicide here, why is that even on the table unless of course people can't live with what has occurred and frankly that is a distinct possibility
Click to expand...

Making the conscious choice to all starve to death, because you're unwilling to tell a couple of people to take a hike (keep in mind, no one said you had to kill them yourselves, per se), is basically a form of suicide.

more baloney....man's inhumanity to man is not something to be proud of nor to embrace
Click to expand...

There is ultimately a time and a place for it like anything else in this world, unfortunately.

Again, the traits we're discussing objectively played a big role in why our species survived in the first place. Hell! A great many scientists actually believe that our inclination towards social forms of violence helped to develop the very intelligence and self-awareness which marks us as "human" to begin with.

now there are societies/cultures that survive that way...they have child soldiers, they have despot leaders, they chop people's hands off, they kill without thought...that is no way to live
Click to expand...

Agreed. However, if one is going to improve such a state of affairs, they generally need to be alive to do so. ;)
 
Gathomas88 said:
Again... This would strike me as being more than a bit dramatic. However, to each their own.
Click to expand...
no in reality...killing innocents in order to survive is psychopathology...that is not drama...that is reality



Making the conscious choice to all starve to death, because you're unwilling to tell a couple of people to take a hike (keep in mind, no one said you had to kill them yourselves, per se), is basically a form of suicide.
Click to expand...
turning people out of the shelter is murder...period


There is ultimately a time and a place for it like anything else in this world, unfortunately.
Click to expand...
no, the murder of innocents is never justified...ever

Again, the traits we're discussing objectively played a big role in why our species survived in the first place.
Click to expand...
no we have not survived because we kill innocents...we have survived through intelligence and living in packs...no pack would survive for long if people are arbitrarily and coldly sacrificed

the higher evolved the society the better the most innocent are treated

Hell! A great many scientists actually believe that our inclination towards social forms of violence helped to develop the very intelligence and self-awareness which marks us as "human" to begin with.
Click to expand...
really? show me a few links on how sacrificing innocents leads to the development of intelligence....I believe it is the exact opposite

if you watch any survival show, a group survives when they are solid, all for one, and one for all

there have been many many studies done on Holocaust survivors...they were starving, they didn't kill each other off to survive longer and strangely enough, it was not the physically strongest who survived, it was the mentally strongest...they were not the cruelest



Agreed. However, if one is going to improve such a state of affairs, they generally need to be alive to do so. ;)
Click to expand...
that is true... :mrgreen:
 
_Sal said:
no in reality...killing innocents in order to survive is psychopathology...that is not drama...that is reality

turning people out of the shelter is murder...period


no, the murder of innocents is never justified...ever
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what do you think war is?

Are all soldiers psychopaths? Would it be better to be conquered, or killed by the enemy, than to kill "innocents" in battle?

This scenario really isn't all that different. The "enemy" in question simply happens to be time and the lack of resources rather than an actual entity.

no we have not survived because we kill innocents...we have survived through intelligence and living in packs...no pack would survive for long if people are arbitrarily and coldly sacrificed
Click to expand...

To be fair, "we're all going to starve to death unless we do X," isn't really "arbitrary." It's necessary, and rational.

really? show me a few links on how sacrificing innocents leads to the development of intelligence....I believe it is the exact opposite
Click to expand...

New Scientist - How warfare shaped human evolution

Summarized: In the course of our evolution, human beings had to compete for resources, as all animals do. While social living and cooperation between individuals helps to mitigate that to a certain extent, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that not all human beings can belong to the same social group. We're just not wired that way. For that reason, competition between different groups over the same resources becomes inevitable after a certain point. That competition, inevitably, becomes violent.

Smarter, more efficient, more organized, and more ruthless groups tend to win out over groups less developed in those traits, so those groups survived where other groups did not. They also passed on their genes to subsequent generations, so those traits became more common in the human species as a whole.

the higher evolved the society the better the most innocent are treated
Click to expand...

That is a luxury which the resources and infrastructure at our disposal provides. The scenario presupposes that such luxury no longer exists.

if you watch any survival show, a group survives when they are solid, all for one, and one for all
Click to expand...

Which might very include sacrificing yourself for the greater good of the group as a whole.

there have been many many studies done on Holocaust survivors...they were starving, they didn't kill each other off to survive longer and strangely enough, it was not the physically strongest who survived, it was the mentally strongest...they were not the cruelest
Click to expand...

Ummm... Actually, from what I've read, a lot of people in the camps were basically willing to murder one another over bread crumbs, and a disproportionate number of survivors were either skilled laborers, or "trustees" of sorts, who basically worked with the Nazis to avoid the gas chambers and get better treatment.

There's no shame in that. You do what you have to do to survive under such circumstances. :shrug:
 
Last edited:
Gathomas88 said:
Yes, some degree of consensus would be necessary. I don't think any of the people mentioned is powerful enough on an individual basis to forcibly impose their will on the rest of the group anyway, to be honest. There weren't any guns mentioned, for example.

Also, as I mentioned before, I would hope that at least some of these people would sacrifice themselves willingly when presented with the reality of the situation. The nurse should realize that she's a liability, and so should the physicist. The criminal, on the other hand, most likely won't, and might even try to do harm to other members of the group, so that's a good reason to keep people with some skill and stomach for violence around, like the Officer.
Click to expand...

So what is the evaluation procedure? What were they looking for, what was considered the correct analysis?
 
FreedomFromAll said:
So what is the evaluation procedure? What were they looking for, what was considered the correct analysis?
Click to expand...

It doesn't really have a "right" answer, per se. It's more about the thought process you use to arrive at a certain conclusion, and the discussion that generates.

Then again, however, all the groups in my class had fairly similar strategies. I'm not sure how well some of the more "navel gazing" answers given in this thread would have gone over with the instructors. I'm guessing "not well." lol
 
Gathomas88 said:
According to this, the minimum number required would be between 80 and 160. However, that's specifically trying to avoid any kind of damage from inbreeding. I'm not sure how small of a population one could get away with while keeping inbreeding only at "livable levels," rather than getting rid of it entirely.

The goal would basically have to be to produce enough people to survive for at least a couple of generations, and hope that you ran into someone else in the meantime. That seems imminently doable... In theory.

As far as deficiency is concerned, could sunlamps be a work-around? It might be possible to build some, if worse came to worse.
Click to expand...

If you have sun lamps then your thesis goes out the window. Here's the reason.

Option C. Keep all personal and only terminate those that don't play ball ie the 2 trouble makers. They can be a source of meat or fertilizer if necessary. Preferable they play ball and you get their backs for the labor that will need to be done. If I have access to sun lamps and shovels and picks and other basic tools which should be in a well stocked fallout shelter, then I have everything I need to expand and modify the shelter to not only provide room for indoor crop production but other spaces for utilizing in some fashion to further benefit the shelter. In fact with the sunlamps on 24/7 and the confined sealed space raising the carbon dioxide levels and lots of human crap, the likelihood of bumper crops straightaway is a very good probability. If I get a indoor garden going that expands my down line options considerably. It also means that the existing resources can be utilized far more efficiently once the crops are in production.

Another point I would like to make is that when we are looking at four years, is that continuous exposure? Or is there a possibility to send runners after a couple of years or even earlier, every so often to scrounge for materials and further supply. Is the decline of radiation on a linear scale or a logarithmic scale. These details and others can effect initial decision making.
 
Gathomas88 said:
It doesn't really have a "right" answer, per se. It's more about the thought process you use to arrive at a certain conclusion, and the discussion that generates.

Then again, however, all the groups in my class had fairly similar strategies. I'm not sure how well some of the more "navel gazing" answers given in this thread would have gone over with the instructors. I'm guessing "not well." lol
Click to expand...

Thats what I want to know; what the instructors believed was the correct action in that situation. Certainly it was a evaluation process, not just something they brought up to bull**** about. I am sure the conclusions that each student had were reflective of their training. The people in this thread most likely lack the same training.

So what was the consensus?
 
Gathomas88 said:
Because I got the scenario from a military course, obviously. :roll:

In any case, what difference does it make? If you want to turn the General into freaking Rick Grimes for the purpose of this exercise, be my guest. I really couldn't care less.
Click to expand...

yeah, so give us the military's standard operating procedure where you have 11 troops in a fallout shelter with provisions for 6. I am sure it will go totally smoothly when 4 of them are ordered to lay down and be eaten by the rest, in order to stretch the rations

Did anyone in your class even go into details on how to kill off the others without resistance to the point everyone is left dead? What kind of deals, brutality, and back stabbing would be necessary?
 
chromium said:
yeah, so give us the military's standard operating procedure where you have 11 troops in a fallout shelter with provisions for 6. I am sure it will go totally smoothly when 4 of them are ordered to lay down and be eaten by the rest, in order to stretch the rations

Did anyone in your class even go into details on how to kill off the others without resistance to the point everyone is left dead? What kind of deals, brutality, and back stabbing would be necessary?
Click to expand...

Just gotta:

 
PirateMk1 said:
If you have sun lamps then your thesis goes out the window. Here's the reason.

Option C. Keep all personal and only terminate those that don't play ball ie the 2 trouble makers. They can be a source of meat or fertilizer if necessary. Preferable they play ball and you get their backs for the labor that will need to be done. If I have access to sun lamps and shovels and picks and other basic tools which should be in a well stocked fallout shelter, then I have everything I need to expand and modify the shelter to not only provide room for indoor crop production but other spaces for utilizing in some fashion to further benefit the shelter. In fact with the sunlamps on 24/7 and the confined sealed space raising the carbon dioxide levels and lots of human crap, the likelihood of bumper crops straightaway is a very good probability. If I get a indoor garden going that expands my down line options considerably. It also means that the existing resources can be utilized far more efficiently once the crops are in production.

Another point I would like to make is that when we are looking at four years, is that continuous exposure? Or is there a possibility to send runners after a couple of years or even earlier, every so often to scrounge for materials and further supply. Is the decline of radiation on a linear scale or a logarithmic scale. These details and others can effect initial decision making.
Click to expand...

True, and all good points. However, I think they go a bit beyond the scope of the original exercise. We'd probably need some actual experts in all of those fields to answer questions like that. :lol:

FreedomFromAll said:
Thats what I want to know; what the instructors believed was the correct action in that situation. Certainly it was a evaluation process, not just something they brought up to bull**** about. I am sure the conclusions that each student had were reflective of their training. The people in this thread most likely lack the same training.

So what was the consensus?
Click to expand...

To be fair, it wasn't a graded exercise. It was just meant to be a discussion piece, to build cohesion, promote critical thinking, and hopefully generate some conflict for us to resolve (each group had to have consensus before briefing their strategy). As I said, however, there really wasn't too much differentiation between groups, or even really in them. We all had fairly similar ideas on what should be done.

The major points of division were the officer, the priest, and the physicist, as I recall... For many of the same reasons brought up here. A few outliers killed people like the young guy and the baby, but they were fairly few and far between.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom