# The Island

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-island/720867>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 26, 2015, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-island/720867 "2015-05-26T10:59:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-island/720867/1 "2015-05-26T10:59:20Z")

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I watched this after American Ninja Warrior (one of the few reality shows I like).

I do like that “The Island” is cooperative, though of course it is edited to emphasize conflict.

Some thoughts:  
Using reading glasses to start a fire - nice  
There were cocoanuts - couldn’t they get water from them?  
They were boiling the salt water (not sure how that got that far inland) - could they rig up some sort of still?

I’m not sure if it is this season, but there may be some “cheating”

Some critters were added so the people could hunt them  
They put a lining in the water hole to increase capacity  
While not survival experts, some of the cameramen have had extra training

Brian

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**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-island/720867/2 "2015-05-26T12:57:32Z")

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Did they actually show the fire being started with reading glasses? There’s a serious lack of surface area with those.

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**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-island/720867/3 "2015-05-26T17:23:00Z")

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> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#):
>
> Did they actually show the fire being started with reading glasses? There’s a serious lack of surface area with those.

IIRC they mostly showed the guys trying to friction start a fire - which did get some smoke before they went back to the lens guy saying “we have fire”

Brian