mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan) (04/19/85)
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.