If you were stuck on a desert island...

In My Humble Opinion
1

If you were stuck on a desert island, would you rather have with you an exceptionally smart dog, or an exceptionally dumb human? Why?

Ignore for purposes of this question issues of sexuality and longevity. Just in terms of the day-to-day mental and physical survival.

2

Smart dog. The dumb human would drive me to murder within a week, and I’d be left with no sidekick at all.

3

Smart dog dumb dog wouldn’t make any difference for the same reason as twickster. I spend more time with my dogs than humans as it is. :slight_smile:

4

Right-o, I’d choose the dog. Dogs are much less annoying than people, and you can always eat the dog if it came to that.

5

I think I agree with the first two replies, but I’d be a little more specific. It would depend on the nature of the island.

If it were a big island, a-la Castaway & Tom Hanks, then the dog is a sure bet. He’ll be a better companion and might even be helpful in nabbing small game animals, if any were present in sufficient quantity.

If it were a very small island, like those seen in comics, on the other hand (the ones with a single palm tree and like 20 sq feet of surface), I’m going to go with a dumb human for the following reasons:

  1. The dumb human will provide greater caloric content, especially in the fat department which will be important if I’m going to survive for long.
  2. The skull could be evacuated and used as a rain water and/or evaporative trap (with some skin acting as a siphon or cooling surface). A dog skull is smaller and there’s less skin. Plus, the skin is all hairy. Gross.
  3. Also, the stomach can be adapted to hold water as well, with a little ingenuity. Off the top of my head I’d probably try to seal the pylorus with some palm tree stuff (stripped bark, maybe?) and use the esophagus as the spout. This would obviously require some field experimentation.
  4. Long bones can be sharpened into spears for your fishing needs.

Anyway, the list goes on…but you get the idea. A dumb human is just going to provide a lot more useful material in the “small-island” scenario. Plus, let’s be honest here, I’m going to feel really bad if I have to kill a dog.

6

Follow-up question: how does your answer change if we DO figure sexuality into it?

7

Is it a big dog? Which has more meat, the dog or the human?

8

If you’re really on a “desert” island, as opposed to a “deserted” island, you might have to eat whoever your companion is (if he/she/it doesn’t eat you first).

9

Gotta agree with Sevo. A really smart dog will know when I plan to have pate le Fido and will easily outrun me. Now if you gave me a cat for a companion, I just might learn to subsist on those mouse heads they keep leaving for me. :smiley:

10

Would the dog be a talking one like Brian?

Anyway, I couldn’t really answer the question without knowing if the human was atleast smart enough to talk with me.
Is the human really stupid but a nice person? I would lean towards the human but I don’t know, how dumb is dumb?

11

If the dumb human was young, extremely gorgeous and female, then yeah, human. :slight_smile:

12

Can I have a laptop, a satellite dish and a bunch of batteries so I can stay on the SDMB? Then, for sure, the dog. I’ve forgotten what sex is like anyway. :frowning:

13

Dog, smart or dumb, the dumb human would drive me to murder, as someone already said.

I can stand just about anything but stupidity. It’s especially bad if the stupid human thinks he/she is normal, or even that he/she is smart.

A friend of mine’s boyfriend is like this, the man is lucky I never see him…otherwise, I might have to see just how MUCH I really have learned from CSI.

:smiley:

14

I’m thinking along START’s lines. It depends on what kind of dumb. I know people who are really quite intelligent who drive me nuts after five minutes in the pub, let alone a desert island. I also know people who are not too smart, but could teach the smartasses as thing or two about kindness.

There’s many different kinds of dumbs as well, like “bad at math”, “ignorant racist”, “socially inept but great with computers”, “person with Down’s syndrom” and so on. Not the same thing at all.

Also, I don’t like dogs.

I’d go with the human and unless they were dumb in a bad, aggressive way.

15

Give me the dog any day. I would probably end up killing the dumb human within a week.

16

Your’re all insane. The first thing a really smart (and hungry) dog would do is figure out how to kill you and eat you.

17

But what if she is dumb, blond, pouty lips, great rack, and an onion for an ass. At least the decision gets, um, harder now that we have added some details.

18

having a human there gives you someone to talk to, but also may drive you crazy

with a dog, you get complete loyalty and obedience, but you lose human contact for good…

19

who? the dog or the human? :smiley:

20

:confused:

So called because her butt would help make tasty stew?
Because if I don’t get her booty I’ll cry?
Looking at her butt makes me want to slice it into rings, bread and deep fry it?