Ah, but his knowledge of small boats will probably be much more useful to the occupants on that lifeboat than a mother burdened with an infant.
Speaking for myself, I’d stay put. Sorry lady. Gotta be faster. I’d feel a bit guilty about the kid, sure, but not the mom.
Leroy should stay put.
It’s a ship, not the whole world. Women are NOT more valuable than men, and Leroy has his own life to live. He should take the child if he can.
Ya know me, Skald. Time to go swimming. Maybe I can find that big ass snake and earn a ticket to Valhalla.
If I were Leroy I would follow the rule, woman and infants first, and give up my seat. I would dive in and as they lowered the boat I would ask someone to throw me a rope to hang onto and stay with the life boat in case of rescue.
Threshold question: Is Leroy obese? If so, tubby needs to step aside
I’d take my kid, anyone else can drown.
If my wife happens to be there too, and she would feel compelled to act like her life was any more important than mine, then I may think about it for a few additional seconds, and would probably give it up for her, but not for any reason related to any belief that women are more valuable then men, but more because I think that’s how I would react.
If I were Leroy, I’d give up my space too. I mean, someone has to be the ultimate hero and fight the Kraken . . . [sub]or feed it[/sub].
Tripler
Please, won’t someone think of the Kraken?
This is something I had to figure out when I became a father. In my view, when I became a Dad, my own life isn’t entirely my own anymore. My continued existence means that my child has a father. To a lesser extent, that my wife continues to have the same husband with whom she is currently happy. So I feel I can’t risk my life a freely as I could when I was single, or not a father; conversely, I feel I have a duty to try that much more to save my own life, because I am saving my son’s dad. For this reason, I gave up skydiving when I became a Dad, I started exercising and loosing weight, and I take more precautions in general.
As as to Leroy, it’s not entirely his choice, imho. He has a duty to his kid. Now, one can argue the relative weight of one kid dying vs. one kid growing up without a Dad. But for me, it’s easy: it’s MY kid, so he gets his Dad.
The other side of this, however, is that if the kid is Leroy’s kid, then in my own personal opinion and deeply held belief, Leroy has an absolute duty to sacrifice himself so that his kid may live. It’s a decision I have made for myself a good while ago, and I am at peace with it. I hope the moment never comes, and I hope that if it comes, I will have the strength of my conviction, but I’m pretty sure I would.
If Leroy is single, then I think he does not have an obligation, but that he is free to make that gift, if he chooses; if he does sacrifice himself, then he should be honoured for it. It should not be taken for granted as merely going his duty.
Now here’s a loaded question, maybe more so for progressive dopers*: what if Leroy were Chantelle? Does a man have still more of an obligation to sacrifice himself than a women? What if there were no child? Has a man’s obligation to sacrifice himself for a woman ended with the end of the view that women are the weaker sex and to be protected and cosseted? Are two adults of different genders worth the same?
In this day of women in combat roles, feminism, and so on, and as a fairly conservative person, I think I would still say “sorry sister, finders keepers…”
*I say this because your can imagine the reaction in Humanities and Women’s Studies departments everywhere if the men in the Titanic had simply elbowed all the women aside: it would have gone down as a mass “gynocide” and as an act of hatred towards women. Yet one gender was, by choice, more victimised in the Titanic than the other. There just isn’t a view that it was an act of social oppression, for whatever reason…
Fat people are worth less, it seems.
I voted for Leroy to give up his seat if he had no children of his own.
IMO, children need, optimally, two parents, but minimally, one. If Leroy has kids, I couldn’t fault him for making sure that his kids had a dad.
However, as a woman with no dependents, I would give up my seat to the mother with the baby. That part of it cares not whether the person making the sacrifice has a double X or an XY.
So I’m the only one who would sacrifice myself to save a family member? If I die my (hypothetical) child will be taken care of by my family. Perhaps it was because I grew up with a large family. Even though I had parents it seems my elder siblings, cousins and aunts/uncles did just as much to raise me.
I hope that I would be brave enough to give up my seat in that situation. I wouldn’t see it as going to my death, though–no sitting back and going down with the ship. I’d try everything possible to survive.
I’m in the water, taking my chances.
I’d rather my kids grew up without a father who made a lifegiving difference for one or two people than with a father who let someone else die and can’t look at himself in a mirror. I think that my kids would (grow to) understand.
And my chances in the water would be better than the woman and baby. I’m a strong swimmer, and pretty innovative - I’d think I’d figure out something to survive.
And, for me, there is a religious aspect. I believe I am saved, and I believe in a saviour who chose to die for everyone else. If my giving up my life gives someone else a chance to live, then that’s what I choose. That does not mean taking stupid risks with my own life (like donating both kidneys and a liver to strangers), but if forced to choose in a situation where I would save a life at high risk to my own, I believe I would choose to do so.
Si
what if Leroy was a brain surgeon, and the woman was a dole-scrounging single mother with another six kids at home under the age of 5? I vote for Leroy staying on the boat and letting the rest of them take their chances.
As a biologist, I’ve always seen this question as the most concrete example of the selfish gene theory. Society’s expectation for Leroy is correlated to the amount of shared genetic material between Leroy and the kid. If it’s his own child, and he refused to sacrifice himself, he would be vilified by society, whereas if he sacrificed himself, he’d be a hero, but it would be an act of heroism we could all understand. If the kid is, say, a niece or nephew, the sacrifice becomes that much more noble, or the vilification becomes that much less. And if the kid is a complete unrelated stranger, then suddenly the sacrifice becomes the ultimate act of selfless heroism, or else the lack of sacrifice becomes, well, let’s say at least understandable, though not admirable.
The only thing that varies is the relatedness of the child to Leroy. Of course, since these are emotional judgments, adopted kids count the same as biological kids.
Women and children first. Ideally. But if the broad is an old hag then she’s going down. Youth ahead of age. But I’m curious. When did women-and-children-first become the ideal? A product of medieval chivalry?
Interesting question. For a concrete example, take the sinking of the Titanic: 72% of all women on board the ship survived, compared to just 19% of all men. A woman, even of low birth (49% of third class female passengers survived), was far more likely to survive the sinking than even the richest of men (just 34% of first class male passengers survived).
Women and children first?
Women first?
Fuck that. I’m pushing that bitch off the boat, even if she got there first. But it’s not out of a desperation to live, see. It’s to fight against a sexist system, you understand? I’m a hero, really.
Anybody that would put their life ahead of a child’s is a fucking lowlife in my opinion. However, a whole lot of people don’t give a shit what I think, so there you go.
I’d give the woman my seat mostly because I’m very fond of that half of the human race.
I would NOT stop there. I would keep trying to save more people by guiding them to pieces of the floating wreckage and what not. This would increase the chances of there being a made-for-TV docudrama about me.
As long as my child is already safe, I will give up my seat for the woman and her child. I’m going to die someday anyway, and probably sooner rather than later given some of my practices, so it is better to die an epic death. When the inevitable movie is made about the disaster, they should get Rutger Hauer to play me.