You’re on an airplane.
aboard are 2 other souls.
The pilot, and a sleeping passenger.
The passenger is the same race, sex, and age as you.
the pilot suffers a heart attack and dies.
the plane starts to plummet at an unsalvagable descent pattern.
sadly, on board, you find only one parachute.
even sadlier, it’s so old, it will only support one person.
do you…
A. Take the 'chute!!! after all, no will be the wiser!
the crash will destroy all evidence that might suggest you even had a choice!
B. Wake up the sleeping passenger,
and in a last, noble gesture,
give them the 'chute…
Thus ensuring that even had your last name included the words “Hitler”
you would still be guarunteed a place in heaven.
[if you believe that.]
C. Other?!
WADDAYA DO?!
[this isn’t a trick question, and NO SUPERMAN!!!]
[SafyreSchool.Thread#7]
[First to # their thread EVER!!!]
Despite the fact it is not safe, try and rig the chute to both him and I. At least I am not in the plane.
P.S. This should be in In My Humble Opinion “What’s your favorite …?” For frank exchanges of views on less-than-cosmic topics. This is also the place for polling.”
It’s a non-issue. I’m not sure how to say it, but I’m okay with dying. It’s not something I’m really -that- afraid of. And if dying means helping someone else live, so much the better.
like ArrMatey, if i have to die, saving someone else’s life in doing so balances it out just fine for me. plus, i’m conceited enough that i’ll take a crack at those airplane controls. hell, miracles can still happen. why not be able to at least pull a survivable crash-landing out of my butt, while i’m at it?
C. Wake up the other guy, ask if he has any flying experience. If he has, have him take over as pilot. If he hasn’t then give him the parachute and try to fly the plane myself while he bales out.
This is because I know I have no wife or children, other guy might have. I don’t consider such an act would guarantee a place in heaven or if taking the chute myself would guarantee a place in hell. If I had wife and children, I would share the parachute with the sleeping man. Hoping that a water landing and good luck would allow us both to survive.
C: Both share the chute. If we land safely/survive, sue the shit out of the airline for operating a plane with no copilot, a old chute, and not enough chutes. Make sure the other guy’s family knows so they can sue the shit out of the airline too if he doesn’t survive the landing and make him promise to notify mine if I don’t.
Gives new meaning to “you snooze, you lose”, doesn’t it?
I might go with the third option – wake the other guy up and say “Hey, dude, one parachute and we’re goin’ down. Flip you for it?”
(Realistically, with the plane in an uncontrollable death spiral, my tendency to motion sickness would manifest and I’d be curled up in a ball of misery in the cockpit, with jumping out of the plane being only a minimally less sickening option.)
Well, assuming that I had no idea what was going on–I would forget about the other dude and the parachute and try and fgure out how to correct the plane (so we might both go into the ground.) Really, this has mostly to do with me just disliking things that should work not working–I just keep thwonking them till they do work.
However, assuming that I magically understood that there was no chance to save the plane nor both of us–I would go for A. I’m more important to me than he is–and that’s true and will be true for everyone except those I love. Not to say that I wouldn’t feel like shit for it.
Wake up the sleeper… flip a coin… Winner gets the chute. Loser gets to grab the legs of the wearer. That way if it looks like the chute won’t hold the weight of two… Boot to the FACE!
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, Safyre, we’re glad to have you with us. You might want to read the forum descriptions – this isn’t really about arts or entertainment, and so doesn’t belong in Cafe Society. I am therefore moving it to IMHO (In My Humber Opinion) where you will probably get more responses.
No biggie, you’ll know for next time, and (as I said) welcome!
Share the parachute. I am not an expert skydiver, but I did jump out of a plane a few times in the Army and I’ve seen guys survive jumps with partially collapsed chutes. I think the both of us could survive a jump with one chute. Hell, it might even have a reserve chute with it.
Wake the other guy up, find out if he can fly the plane, if not, does he have a wife and children? If he has children, he gets the shute. If he only has a wife, flip a coin for it. If he’s single, the shute is mine because my wife expects me to come home to her.
