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The lifeboat 'story'

Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 05 May 2016, 06:52:14

Sea, yes that is a definite pattern. However, their are exceptions to this. For example many of us have heard of how soldiers risk and even forfeit their lives for the sake of fellow soldiers. These situation bring out the best and worse in us.
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby Tanada » Thu 05 May 2016, 07:48:47

onlooker wrote:Sea, yes that is a definite pattern. However, their are exceptions to this. For example many of us have heard of how soldiers risk and even forfeit their lives for the sake of fellow soldiers. These situation bring out the best and worse in us.


That is the difference between loyalty to tribe/family verses competition between yourself and any random other for necessary resources.

When military, or police or fire fighters risk injury or death for a comrade it is because the survival of the tribe is much more important than their own ego. Same effect when a tribal group member stays behind to delay the advancing threat so that other tribe members have a greater chance of escape/survival.

However if the individual observes a large percentage of the tribe/unit getting killed the idea that their sacrifice increases the odds of the tribe surviving pivots around to every remaining member of the tribe including themselves being extremely valuable to the survival of the tribe. As more and more members are removed the focus narrows down to personal survival is the only thing that will matter.

This is what took place in those shipwreck stories cited earlier in the thread, first the ship was lost, then more and more of the survivors were lost until it no longer became a situation of 'unit' survival as the largest number possible, but a matter of the individual must survive for anything else to have meaning.

The psychology behind it has been studied because of famous cases like the Donner party or that team of athletes who were marooned in the mountains after their plane crashed, or even how the Titanic survivors in the lifeboats reacted when the ship sank and over 1,000 people were left in the water screaming for rescue. Of the 20 lifeboats on the Titanic 1 was capsized and had a score of survivors clinging to the overturned hull but 19 others were only partly filled. Only 1 turned back to rescue the freezing people in the water. Nobody in the 18 lifeboats that could have turned back but which did not was punished in any legal way. By law and custom the 'lifeboat Captain' on each was responsible only for those lives of the people in their particular boat, because all countries with seafaring traditions understood back then that swamping a boat with too many people would lead to everyone dying instead of more people surviving. If every lifeboat had been filled to capacity and launched in an orderly manner at least 600 more people could have survived the sinking of the Titanic. In total the boats could have held a nameplate capacity of 1,178 adults men. Given the number of children and persons of small stature they could have held a mixed population of 1,200 to 1,400 but they only saved 706.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 05 May 2016, 08:10:04

Nice points.

Did you see this conspiracy theory?

The Titanic Didn't Sink!

https://www.datalounge.com/thread/11490 ... ympic-sunk!
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 05 May 2016, 08:14:40

It's not the "best" or "worst", these are inherent traits extant in highly socialized animals. All colonial animals..wasps, bees, ants, etc. ... Have the same response. One will sacrifice itself for the good of the colony.

The "moral" evaluation is something we humans bring to the event. We praise it because it and reward it because it assists the colony.

It is akin to suicide bombers, nuts to us ar "heroes" to them. It's all in the perspective.

The more deep analysis reveals just how much we are a colonial animal, and all colonial animals band together against others of the same species. In a way the colony acts as an indicvidual in the struggle for survival.
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 05 May 2016, 08:14:47

Fascinating analysis and points T, thanks. The salient point being that members of the "same" group seem to help each other for the most part while of different groups not so much. Imagine if we could encompass everyone into the "human" group.
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 05 May 2016, 08:18:13

Tanda,
Your post slipped ahead of mine.

I think you make some great points, it's not an analysis if head before but it rings true.
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 05 May 2016, 08:25:09

onlooker wrote:Fascinating analysis and points T, thanks. The salient point being that members of the "same" group seem to help each other for the most part while of different groups not so much. Imagine if we could encompass everyone into the "human" group.


We can't, because if we could we would not be "human". It's like saying imagine all ants in the world belonged to a single colony. For one thing, in colonial animals, a large part of the evolution comes not from individual selection but from competition between groups, between colonies. It's part of our basic biology.

If we were all one "human group" community or group evolution would stop. I don't know what that would do to individual evolution. In trying to think this mind game throug it strikes me a community is largely defined by the threats against it, for humans our largest threat is another human group. Without a threat the "human group" may well disintegrate into just so many individuals with no ties that bind. It may be your worst nightmare. :x
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 05 May 2016, 08:40:34

It just so happens that they're is now a common threat to all humans beings being environmental collapse and collapse in general. So in agreeing with your point that a group is defined by a common interest or perspective, well we collectively ALL face decline and decimation together. So, perhaps this may be a time unlike any in the past when everyone can unite in this theoretical human group.
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Re: The lifeboat 'story'

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 05 May 2016, 08:58:26

Somehow you keep slipping past the point.

An external threat may unite for a bit.

That has nothing to do with competition and evolution.

I'm sure you understand evolution on an individual basis. It also applies between colonies. The colonies where this is most easily seen are in wasps, bes, ants....that kind of thing. In those situations adjacent colonies compete with one another as if they were individuals. The same evolutionary forces are at work. Evolution takes place when the subtle advantage of one colony causes it to eliminate an adjacent colony.

It now appears that human evolution has developed along similar lines with adjacent colonies ( groups, tribes, towns, whatever) competing with their neighbors and aniliating them or taking them over, kill the men, steal the women, rape and pillage.

Much of our moral structure, heroism, compassion, sacrifice, can be explained, can ONLY be explained, through an understanding of this "eusocial" development. So those things which we hold so dear, so "right", so "moral" are just our own narrow perspective of things that have helped our species to succeed.

To be sure there are some significant difference between humans and ants, some needs a lot of explaining. But we should not ignore the similarities and what they can teach us.
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