[lily.]

1. Lifeboat

You are going on a cruise. 2 days into the cruise your ship experiences technical difficulties and the captain says it needs to make an unscheduled stop. A couple of hours later the captain makes another announcement that the ships hull has been breached and that you will all need to start heading to life rafts and abandon ship. The ships life rafts are lowered as people begin to pile in and you get on board one of the life rafts.

As it is lowered however, it hits the side of the ship, putting a hole in the side of the raft, and when it hits the water it begins to sink. There are 10 people in the boat and to prevent it sinking, you quickly work out that by having 9 people working for 10 minutes while 1 person rests you can bail the water out with their hands, quick enough to keep the water at bay and preventing it from sinking, but you have to continually keep it up to ensure that the boat doesn’t sink. By being able to rest one person you are greatly able to increase the length of time you can keep the boat afloat, however if the rescue team doesn’t turn up you calculate that within 5 hours the boat will sink and you will all die.

While taking your break, you glance over to another boat and notice that a friend of yours who you met on the boat is there and has noticed your predicament. He is signaling for you to come over and join them on their boat so you don’t have to continue bailing water out. There is only just enough room for one more person. You also notice that their boat is moving away rapidly with the current, but your boat can’t keep up because the hole is affecting its buoyancy.

You estimate that if you jump ship, you will force all 9 remaining crew members to bail water continuously, which will reduce the total time they can stay afloat to just 2 hours, but will ensure that you will be able to live long enough to be rescued.

If you stay aboard, you will not have another chance to jump ship, and there’s no guarantee that the rescue will arrive in 5 hours, meaning you will drown, however by staying you give everyone a better chance of survival.
As you watch the boat with your friend drift away, you realize you have about 30 seconds to make a decision:

a) Do you stay on your current boat and help keep it afloat as long as possible and hope that the rescue will arrive in 5 hours
b) Do you go to your friends boat, ensuring your rescue, but reducing the chances of the others on the boat being rescued?



Source: Top 10 Moral Dilemmas

[Kate!]

a) I would stay with the current boat and pray to God for us all to be rescued. I couldn't abandon them.

[MTVN]

Well to repeat what I said before the threads all became a mess, I'm not sure I could jump ship, I'd feel too much of a bastard

[Ammi]

This is an easy one....I would never have been on the ship in the first place

[Niamh.]

I think I'd stay and hope for the best, I don't know if I could live with 9 peoples deaths on my conscience

[Marc]

a) Do you stay on your current boat and help keep it afloat as long as possible and hope that the rescue will arrive in 5 hours

[Crimson Dynamo]

I would not go on a cruise.

[lostalex]

There'd be no reason to jump, because if you did, others would wuickly realize what yu were doing and would all jump too and try to swim to the other boat faster, and i know atleast one of them would get there faster than me, so there'd be no point. I'd stay and not alarm the others.

It's like that old saying "if yur running from a bear yu don't have to be faster than the bear, yu just have to be faster than yur friends." And i'm not faster than my friends lol.

[Benjamin]

I'd stay in my boat and hope to be rescued.

[Tom4784]

My answer has mysteriously disappeared...

It would depend on who was on my boat, I'm no good at endurance based tasks so if I was the weakest link then I'd jump ship but I'd stay if there was any elderly survivors or children since they would need the help.

[lostalex]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

My answer has mysteriously disappeared...

It would depend on who was on my boat, I'm no good at endurance based tasks so if I was the weakest link then I'd jump ship but I'd stay if there was any elderly survivors or children since they would need the help.

so yur basically the exact opposite of me then. cause if the boat was full of children and eldery then i'd definitely jump, cause i know noone of them could catch me before i got to the other boat.

The only reason i wouldn't jump is because i thought someone could get to the other boat faster than me. There's only room for 1 on the other boat remember.

[Z]

I'd go with the one remaining spot on the intact life raft. It might make you a bad guy for ditching 9 people but if a rescue craft hasn't reached them after 2 hours, I don't know if I'd rate the chances of one reaching them after 5 hours. That's a long time to be trying to survive while floating aimlessly on the sea. And, to put it another way, why let 10 people die if you can save 1 of them (yourself, in this situation)?

[Josy]

I would stay on the boat and hope to be rescued.

[Niall]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I think I'd stay and hope for the best, I don't know if I could live with 9 peoples deaths on my conscience

This.

[nicole_burks]

Stay and hope for the best

[Vicky.]

If I was in a boat full of strangers, I would save myself. That may sound harsh, but Im just being honest. They would still have a change of getting rescued...yeah they lose 3 hours...but if I stayed there I could die needlessly while a spare seat is available on another boat.

If friends and family were in my boat, I would stay put and try to help. I could not have family/friends possible death on my hands

[Doogle]

I would WANT to go to the other boat but I couldn't bring myself to it. Too much on my conscience.

[Jords]

Like Vicky if they all were strangers Id take the remaining place and try to find help somehow, but if they were people I knew well I dont think I could.

[Bollo]

Jump boats

[GypsyGoth]

I would stay. If I jumped to another boat and the others died because of me, I wouldn't want to survive like that, I don't think I'd ever be happy again.

[lily.]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

My answer has mysteriously disappeared...

It would depend on who was on my boat, I'm no good at endurance based tasks so if I was the weakest link then I'd jump ship but I'd stay if there was any elderly survivors or children since they would need the help.

Two of my answers have disappeared from these threads today. :/

[MTVN]

Lmao it's cos Marc went and merged them all so it was all a mess, then why he tried to move all the posts back to separate threads he wasn't sure where some of them were meant to go which is why they might not have been put back

[lostalex]

Look on the bright side though, if yu were on a boat full of strangers waiting to be rescued, you wouldn't feel that guilty about having to eat them as they died.

[Glenn.]

If I was in a boat full of strangers then I would jump ship. There's no way I'm sticking around on the basis of unknown rescue. It would be unfortunate for the others but I would save my own neck in that situation.