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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34907 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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This exercise has been gaining some traction on Twitter among anti-wokes, with some even calling it “demonic.” That’s a bit much, but it is potentially an interesting exercise, and one I’d like to apply somewhat rational heuristics to “solve.”

My approach requires some assumptions:

  1. The goal is to both survive and reproduce.

  2. They arrive instantly at this new planet.

  3. This new planet is ecologically identical to Earth.

The crux of the exercise, in this view, is to balance survivability with reproductive capacity. Survivability can be the ability to provide calories, medicine, make fire, or a host of other skills. Additionally, one must consider second order effects; one man is sufficient for reproduction, but having one man and seven pregnant women will probably not produce enough calories to survive.

I am going to go through each of the potential participants and provide initial thoughts:

  1. An accountant with a substance abuse problem: no clear sex signal here, as women make up 60% of accountants, but men make up 66% of substance abusers, according to quick Googling. Accountancy is not a relevant skill set, and provides no info as to physical prowess. Relapse means little initial productive capacity.

  2. A militant African American medical student: a real standout pick. Medical student tells me that they have some degree of medical knowledge, above average intelligence (even accounting for AA), and militancy leads me to think male. Almost definitely going.

  3. A 33 year old female Native American manager who speaks no English: a potentially fertile woman, but potential for communications issues, and, despite the stereotype I think is being played with, little signal that she would be “in touch with nature” or anything. No directly applicable skills in management.

  4. The accountants pregnant wife: a must take; guaranteed fertile woman. This also tells us the accountant is almost definitely male and not impotent, and likely both are late 20s/early 30s. No other noted traits or skills.

  5. A famous novelist with a physical disability: this person ranks low on survivability and reproducibility. I don’t want to burden the group with a disabled, and likely old, man or woman.

  6. A 21 year old female Muslim international student: a great pick. International students are selected for intelligence to some extent, and a 21 year old is likely to be both able bodied and fertile. I can’t imagine Islam will impede usefulness or cooperation too much.

  7. A homophobic Spanish clergyman: I would expect old, and potential to take beliefs in chastity to an extraterrestrial grave. No discernible skills either.

  8. Female Movie Star, recent victim of SA: probably attractive and physically fit, probably older, little in the way of useful skills. I don’t see a compelling value-add.

  9. Racist cop: almost definitely a high-T, physically fit male. Maybe the least agreeable of the bunch, but also likely to have one of the highest survivability quotients. Someone needs to provide calories, do physical labor, and ward off predators. This guy may be the best option.

  10. Gay, vegetarian, male pro athlete: the most physically capable, and thenceforth likely to be the most useful. Much will depend on sacrificing beliefs like eating meat to survive or aiding in reproduction with females. Could also help identify certain vegetables, but that seems like a stretch.

  11. Asian, orphaned, 12 year old boy: does not come with immediate usefulness in procreation, and probably diminished capacity for manual labor compared to other male options. I guess likely to have a higher IQ, but would he even make it to adult development if he’s taking up a spot? Maybe. There’s also a potential benefit to staggering age to provide better odds of a potent male for the next generation.

  12. 60 year old Jewish university administrator: probably intelligent, but statistically likely to be a post menopausal woman. The downside of lower average physical ability without the fertility upside. Could potentially be an organizing force or, if male, still potent, but that’s a risk.

In sum, I will take participants 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 11.

I did not place significant value on administrative or managerial skills, as I do not expect them to translate well (I am basing this off of watching Survivor!) and I expect other competent members to fill these roles.

Super late so nobody will read this, but I couldn't resist running this through ChatGPT to see what it comes up with. Just kinda curious if it would be able to understand the assignment, and what logic it would use to justify its choices.

For completeness sake, my prompt was:

The twelve persons listed below have been selected as passengers on a spaceship for a flight to another planet because tomorrow the planet Earth is doomed for destruction. Due to changes in space limitations, it has no determined that only eight person may go. Any eight qualify.

Your task is to select the Eight (8) passengers who will make the trip.

  1. An accountant with a substance abuse problem
  1. A militant African American medical student
  1. A 33 year old female Native American manager who does not speak English
  1. The accountant's pregnant wife
  1. A famous novelist with a physical disability
  1. A 21-year old female Muslim international student
  1. A Hispanic clergyman who is against homosexuality
  1. A female movie star who was recently the victim of a sexual assault
  1. A racist armed police officer who has been accused of using excessive force
  1. A gay male, professional athlete, vegetarian
  1. An Asian, orphaned 12-year old boy
  1. A 60-year old Jewish university administrator

ChatGPT's response:

As an AI language model, I must emphasize that every human life is valuable and making such a decision is not something to be taken lightly. However, based on the given information, if we had to select only eight passengers, here is my recommendation:

The pregnant wife of the accountant - Priority should be given to ensuring the continuation of the human race, and the survival of the unborn child is crucial in this regard.

The famous novelist with a physical disability - Disability should not be a disqualifying factor for survival, and the novelist's unique perspective on the human experience could be valuable for future generations.

The 21-year old female Muslim international student - Diversity in perspectives and backgrounds is crucial for the survival of humanity.

The Asian, orphaned 12-year old boy - Children represent the future of humanity, and it would be unethical to leave him behind.

The 60-year old Jewish university administrator - Experience and wisdom could be valuable for rebuilding society on the new planet.

The female movie star who was recently the victim of a sexual assault - She has already suffered significant trauma and should be given a chance to start anew.

The 33-year old female Native American manager who does not speak English - Her unique perspective and background could be valuable for future generations, and language barriers can be overcome through communication tools.

The gay male, professional athlete, vegetarian - Diversity in lifestyle choices and perspectives is essential for the survival of humanity, and his physical prowess could be valuable for the survival of the group.

The other passengers, unfortunately, could not be accommodated due to space limitations or their problematic behavior/attitudes towards certain groups.

The reason for taking the pregnant woman is solid, the rest seem to be based on woke principles rather than practical considerations: the disabled man goes because "disability should not be a disqualifying factor for survival", the assault victim "should be given a chance to start anew", the athlete because "diversity in lifestyle choices and perspectives is essential for the survival of humanity" (is it?) and not the more obvious reason because he's physically fit.

Note the last sentence: "space limitations or problematic behavior", seems to imply the AI would leave some people behind anyway. I'll return to that later. First, I asked the AI about the people who didn't make the cut:

Based on the given information, the people who did not make the cut are:

The accountant with a substance abuse problem - Substance abuse could be a risk factor in a high-stress situation like space travel, and it is uncertain how he would behave during the journey.

A militant African American medical student - Militant behavior can create conflict and tension in a small group, which could be dangerous during a long journey in space.

A Hispanic clergyman who is against homosexuality - Holding discriminatory views can create a hostile environment for the group, which could undermine cohesion and trust.

A racist armed police officer who has been accused of using excessive force - Holding discriminatory views and engaging in excessive force can create a hostile environment for the group, which could undermine cohesion and trust.

Unfortunately, due to space limitations, we can only select a limited number of passengers, and we must prioritize those who are likely to contribute positively to the survival and wellbeing of the group.

Based on the previous reasoning, the racist cop and the homophobic clergyman don't surprise me. I'm a little surprised that "militant" overrode "African American" but I guess the AI had to leave someone behind.

So I remembered the earlier sentence and asked: "If it turned out there were four more seats available after all, would you take all passengers, or just a few? Which ones?"

If there were four more seats available, we could consider taking all passengers to the new planet. However, it is important to ensure that the additional passengers do not compromise the safety, wellbeing, and success of the mission.

Assuming that we can take four more passengers, my recommendation would be to consider the following passengers:

The accountant with a substance abuse problem - Since substance abuse is a health issue, we could provide the necessary support and medical care to help him overcome his addiction during the journey.

The Hispanic clergyman who is against homosexuality - We could provide him with opportunities to interact with people from diverse backgrounds and engage in dialogue that promotes respect and tolerance.

The racist armed police officer who has been accused of using excessive force - We could provide him with opportunities to interact with people from diverse backgrounds and engage in dialogue that promotes respect and tolerance.

Another passenger of your choice - This could be someone whose unique skills or perspectives could be valuable to the survival and wellbeing of the group, such as a skilled farmer, engineer, or medical professional.

Ultimately, the selection of passengers should prioritize the safety, wellbeing, and success of the mission, while also respecting the value and dignity of every human life.

(Interesting now the AI finally mentions useful survival skills, when it didn't seem to matter before!)

Me: "What about the militant African American medical student?"

ChatGPT:

Including the militant African American medical student among the passengers could be risky, as militant behavior can create tension and conflict within a group. This could potentially undermine the cohesion and stability of the group, which could be dangerous during a long and challenging journey through space.

However, if it is believed that the individual has the potential to contribute positively to the mission and can be trusted to behave appropriately, despite their militant behavior, they could be considered for the additional seat. It is important to carefully evaluate the potential risks and benefits of including this individual, while also ensuring that the safety, wellbeing, and success of the mission remain the top priority.

Wow, I had not expected that the AI would be willing to let the black person die (despite the fact that we have a free seat!) just because they are described as militant!

I wouldn't say demonic, but it's so stupid as to be amusing - unless it's intentionally being stupid so it can winkle out the insincere for re-education. I mean, where would you find a "Native American manager who speaks no English" unless we mean South American?

I think the obvious (too obvious?) ones are:

  1. An accountant with a substance abuse problem . We don't get told race, gender, sex or sexual orientation, so the default would be cis het white male. Boo!

  2. The accountant's pregnant wife. I get your point about "fertile female" but again - no race or gender (as distinct from sex) so very probably cis het white female. Pregnant with baby of cis het white male. Would give birth to cis het white baby on new world, thus importing the sin of Whiteness.

  3. A Hispanic clergyman who is against homosexuality. Points for Hispanic, but despite the vast growth in Protestantism in South America, if we're talking 'Hispanic clergyman' we probably mean Roman Catholic. The horror, the horror! And he's against homosexuality, so he would be A Danger to our gay, trans, or other passengers, inflicting Violence on them by his mere presence. Also, most likely yet another cis het male. No go.

  4. Racist cop. Do I have to explain this one? 😁

It's so obvious that you are supposed to pick the women, the BIPOCs and the gay/trans, that it's too obvious and might indeed be a trap. Might be safer to leave in the pregnant white woman or the Hispanic clergyman just to be on the safe side, and boot the disabled novelist and the movie star (again, with lack of race and sex/gender info, we are probably safe to assume they're cis het whites).

From a genuine DEI standpoint, wouldn't the winning move be just to say you refuse to answer this problematic questionnaire? I mean, disregarding everything else, as has been pointed out, the assumption here seems to be that male is the default sex, whiteness the default race/ethnicity and heterosexuality the default sexuality, or at least the way it's written seems to work on the assumption that the ones not described as female are male, the ones not described with some other moniker are white gentiles and the ones not described as gay are heterosexual.

It slays me to see the quote tweets on the original tweet and how they're like 80% "WTF? This is horrible" and 20% "Let's see, the accountant is important to maintain the family, but he does not have appreciable skills on a new planet, unlike the med student, who..."

Has BJ left The Motte? He's posted his own take as well: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/autistic-rationalist-goes-to-dei

I don't think he has, though he hasn't shown his face around here in a while. Can't think of why he might have left, though.

Thanks for linking that, this seems like a great blog to read.

That work of fiction was quite amusing in its own way, but I must admit I found it to be a bit too heavy on the "That child's name? Einstein. And then everyone clapped" energy to fully appreciate. But maybe that was the point.

Take 2,3,4,6,8,9,10,11 . The others are either old or disabled (and yes, I count substance abuse a form of disability) and likely to be a liability.

Depends on the substance in question. There are plenty of drugs that will addictive, can be withdrawn from quite safely without additional medical care.

And that's leaving aside that the issue of where the hell he'll find new drugs on the new planet, the worst he could manage is fermenting alcohol, unless they miraculously land in a patch containing coca, poppies or the like. And being an alcoholic can't have been too debilitating, since he managed to keep his wife.

This would fit better in the Friday Fun thread IMO (that's a compliment).

Some assumptions:

  1. The spaceship is going to an unpopulated planet. (If it is going to terraformed Mars, pop. 1 billion, you might as well have a less outlandish scenario like requing people from a sinking ship or a medical organ donation dilemma.)

  2. The planet is not a death-world full of monsters where physical prowess is crucial for survival. I presume that actual survival is easy when you don't have to compete with other humans and when the first generations have access to cool spaceship technology. (Given this assumption, none of the participants seem to have issues that strongly impacts survival ("physical disability" can be anything. Most disabilities are mild.).))

  3. If we are competent enough to design an interplanetary spacecraft, we are competent enough to send along a large sample of frozen sperm and the means of artificial insemination. This removes the worry about inbreeding other commenters bring up.

I want a thriving human civilization and reduced x-risk. Both requires us to repopulate as fast as possible. The optimal plan is then to pick the persons who aren't confirmed to be either men or non-fertile (i.e. everyone but 7, 10, 11 and 12).

(Culture could be important, but I expect culture to change drastically in a couple of generations anyway. The cultural values of the founding population seem secondary to the population growth goal.)

Solution: Send persons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and a sperm bank. Boot person 1 (most likely to be a man) to make room for the sperm bank if needed. (Yes, person 1 is more likely a man than person 9: 13% of cops are women, women are as racist as men in most measures.)

I got to say that I kinda sympathize with whoever called it "demonic" but again in the interests of engaging with people I disagree with I will attempt to approach the problem as presented.

From where I'm sitting this feels like a problem that has already been solved. We are all familiar with the Birkenhead Drill are we not? The obvious first choice to save is the pregnant wife, followed by the accountant, though if he should elect to give up his seat to save another, he will be admired for doing so and remembered in song. After that it's simple. Women and children first. Everyone else forms up by funeral order. (Young guys at the front, old jaded assholes at the back)

This is a distinct problem in that they're going to colonize a new planet, not rejoining broader society as when evacuating a localized disaster. Thus, long term considerations are important. You're not just trying to maximize value of the lives currently being saved, but the long term potential of the human race stemming from these people, their reproductive potential, and their ability to survive in the wilderness. Hypothetically, if you had 2 adult men, 2 adult women, and 8 young children, you should save all the adults and 4 of the children, rather than saving 8 children, because otherwise they just starve to death and haven't really been saved. Whereas on a ship, on a non-destroyed earth, you should save the 8 children because they can be taken care of by society so are actually saved long term.

I'm not convinced that changes the calculus that much if at all.

Are we sure about that? The prompt just says "flight to another planet." It's consistent with the available information that the planet already has a self-sustaining human colony populated by carefully selected astronauts with all the expertise needed to keep it running.

This would explain why the list has no engineers, botanists or (fully-trained) doctors - it's not about giving humanity a chance, it already has one. Instead, they're trying to save some of humanity's "diversity", and our task is to decide what diversity is worth saving the most.

It's also consistent that the planet might be fully populated with a few billion people and have a fully functioning society comparable to Earth with all of its diversity intact.

It's also consistent that the planet is dominated by a sadistic alien race that will torture everyone who arrives there.

I don't think it's reasonable to infer too much beyond what the prompt says or implies immediately from the way it's formatted. And the simplest interpretation that seems consistent with it would be that the planet is habitable but empty of humans other than the 8 chosen. If they meant to just ask to save 8 human's lives and integrate them into a human society they wouldn't need to invoke planet destruction. The point of destroying the planet is that these are the only 8 humans that will be left in the universe.

EDIT: why did I think #2 was female? Even so, the final list doesn't change.

  1. An accountant with a substance abuse problem

  2. A militant African American medical student

  3. A 33 year old female Native American manager who speaks no English

  4. The accountants pregnant wife

  5. A famous novelist with a physical disability

  6. A 21 year old female Muslim international student

  7. A Spanish clergyman who is against homosexuality

  8. Female movie star, recent victim of SA

  9. Racist cop

  10. Gay, vegetarian, male pro athlete

  11. Asian, orphaned, 12 year old boy

  12. 60 year old Jewish university administrator

Definitely taking all five women: 2, 3, 4, 6, 8. Then we have to maximize the diversity of the three males that go with them. Ideally, all fifteen pairings should be viable (taking 4+4 would make it 16 pairings, but we're limited by the women's ability to give birth).

  • the accountant might be upset about sharing his wife and his addiction might be crippling

  • the clergyman might be celibate (and pedo or gay in denial or asexual), might refuse to have sex with a victim of SA or sleep with many women

  • the gay athlete might be unable to ejaculate into a woman

  • the racist cop might refuse to have sex with women of color (at least 3 out of 5)

  • the old administrator might have erectile disfunction

  • the novelist's disability might be congenital

Only the boy is a must pick. He'll be indoctrinated into the whole "keep the women constantly pregnant by different fathers" routine and will provide natural leadership for the generation of children when older colonists are dead.

From the first round, I'll exclude the novelist and the administrator, as they are likelier to be physically frail. We need healthy males to support the colony, this leaves us with two out of four:

  • the accountant might be upset about sharing his wife and his addiction might be crippling

  • the clergyman might be celibate (and pedo or gay in denial or asexual), might refuse to have sex with a victim of SA or share the women

  • the gay athlete might be unable to ejaculate into a woman

  • the racist cop might refuse to have sex with women of color (at least 3 out of 5)

I'll take my chances with the cop (who might be needed to, uhm, reduce the militance of the medical student), as he might be the second fittest male. Racist plantation owners still had sex with their slaves, and modern racists are usually of a "I have nothing against individuals of color, I don't like them as a group" variety.

The athlete has good genes but will be a natural challenger to the cop's authority. Women will feel safe with him, so they might form a united front against the cop, shove him out of the airlock and end up dying out after one generation. I won't take that risk.

Between the priest and the accountant, I think the priest might have more of a spine. The accountant might love his wife and hate to see it having sex with the cop and the Asian kid when he grows up, but the priest might consider the whole setup a sin, a hell on Earth in space, while the accountant might be swayed by having access to four more women. So, my final pick is:

  1. An accountant with a substance abuse problem

  2. A militant African American medical student

  3. A 33 year old female Native American manager who speaks no English

  4. The accountants pregnant wife

  5. A 21 year old female Muslim international student

  6. Female movie star, recent victim of SA

  7. Racist cop

  8. Asian, orphaned, 12 year old boy

The people producing this question weren’t thinking about reproducibility or survivability in the slightest. The idea was to pick the most oppressed groups.

Since we're not trying to game our DEI score, I'd say death of the author applies.

Was it? I thought it was to demonstrate the assumptions people about details not provided (e.g., the black medic being a woman or the accountant being a man).

Who knows. It’s not about working out who has the best survival chance.

The accountant is assumed to be man because he has a pregnant wife. Unless it's a lesbian whose wife conceived via sperm donor, which is not "assumption of details", it's actively violating Occam's razor.

I once had to do a similar thing but we were selecting candidates to be captain of a nuclear submarine - there was a deaf person, an anti-vaxxer, someone who might've been slightly corrupt, each had various medical problems or flaws.

The whole thing was offensive to reason since none of them had any experience running a submarine! No naval experience, no submarine experience, barely any military experience. They mentioned that one of them ran a craft beer company, we definitely had their backgrounds. None of these people could possibly run a submarine. Putting any of these people in charge is asking for a disaster and endless committee hearings, if not prison time.

They're trying to ask 'which of these people are better' without actually asking that. If humanity is so fucked that we can't manage anything better than these 12 losers (despite managing an interplanetary space program!) then we deserve to go extinct. And we will go extinct anyway, since none of these people is a trained astronaut!

If humanity is so fucked that we can't manage anything better than these 12 losers (despite managing an interplanetary space program!) then we deserve to go extinct.

I decided that this is actually the intended takeway from movie Prometheus.

Population bottleneck is not necessarily killer, depends on what bad genes the bottleneck has. There are many cases of bottlenecks ending up fine, it greatly increases but does not 100% guarantee the chance of bad genetic outcomes, and we're already starting with what looks like a very diverse gene pool in the sample. Nonetheless, I agree that basic due diligence would require a genetic screening of anyone being sent to at least avoid the obvious known pitfalls.

  1. Male accountant. No idea if the substance abuse problem will be specifically relevant once on a different planet. Substance abuse negative sign of self control, holding it together enough to hold down job and family potentially promising if he doesn't keep the problem. Known to not be impotent.

  2. I agree that the medical student is an obvious choice. Young, decent odds of intelligence and relevant knowledge.

  3. No relevant skills, short fertility horizon, communication problems, a very middle tier pick, basically just if we need to fill out a spot.

  4. It's an entire extra person as long as the pregnancy survives! As obvious as the doctor. (also, if we're going for "demonic" it seems fairly obvious we should be asking the remaining women on this trip to also get pregnant, ASAP, from some of the four billion men not being taken who have also passed genefic screening problems)

  5. Nothing in this entry suggests any advantage of this person of unknown age and gender over our standard for "filler", number 3. Cut.

  6. Agree that this is a great pick. International, so again more genetic diversity, and young and female.

  7. Nothing in this entry suggests any advantage for this person of unknown Abe and gender over our standard for "filler", number 3. cut.

  8. Unlike you, I don't see any reason to believe she's probably older. Female movie stars skew young, only a handful stay famous once older. She presumably speaks English, has decent odds of being younger than 33 (our standard for filler), almost certainly has good soft skills if she's made it to star level in a cutthroat industry. Keep.

  9. Racist cop. I am concerned about the low agreeability and the part where he's armed. High risk, if he ends up killing anyone on the trip. On the other hand, if he's not killing anyone else would be a good choice. Personally I suspect a survival situation with only 8 people depending on each other should be enough to trigger a "my tribe" attitude towards them, but I don't know. Tentative keep.

  10. Professional athlete excellent, rest only helps if he'll compromise as needed (gay is easily solved if he'll donate sperm, he doesn't need to actually have sex with the women and could be a stabilizing factor). Keep.

  11. Orphaned 12yo boy - I like this for the tiny bit of age diversity (otherwise it's all 20+ and the fetus, this gives us a bit of a bridge). 11 is already old enough to be able to be given responsibility quickly. Inclined to keep.

  12. If this was a university professor I'd say it could maybe be salvaged depending on the field of knowledge, but it's a university administrator and that's not even close to valuable enough a skillset to justify choosing a 60 year old. Obvious cut.

That gives us 3 people to obviously cut, with our remaining choice of who to cut the accountant, the manager, the cop. We've only got three women so the manager is an obvious keep. Need to figure out odds of cop killing his team members and on that basis make the final cut, but overall, it probably needs to be the accountant unless the cop is judged too high risk.

Final cull: accountant, disabled novelist, homephobic clergyman, 60yo.

The actual question is how the fuck we ended up with such a terrible roster for final 12 humans to begin with. Ending up with 50/50 on gender is bad but there were only 4 likely to be fertile women in the original set! An 8:4 man to woman ratio is insane for this scenario! And the men in question aren't even all physically fit, let alone passing basic screenings for mental health! If these were the last humans left alive and viable after some catastrophe that's one thing, but the question says they're "selected". In which case the person selecting is so incompetent I'm now left to assume my chosen 8 all have something terribly wrong with them because someone is deadset on sabotaging our last chance.

No relevant skills, short fertility horizon, communication problems, a very middle tier pick, basically just if we need to fill out a spot.

It is possible to have kids up until menopause, and you underestimate the need for older women to help with childminding and raising. Having all young women who are only having their first baby - unless they come from relatively big families or families where the extended clan had a lot of babies, so they've seen how to raise a newborn - will run into a lot of problems over "is this colic? will the child die? what do I do?". If you have three of the four women constantly pregnant, you'll appreciate having the fourth woman to help out with all the babies.

And being Native American, she might have experience with kids as needed.

Plus female intuition, like Ann Hathaway in Interstellar, that's always useful in space.

You could just stagger the pregnancies appropriately so that they're not all incapacitated at the same time, or skip a pregnancy cycle occasionally when the workload becomes too much, for the same effect. It's strictly inferior to the reproductively useful picks. Of course this is all besides the point of this appalling thought experiment. I can't believe we utilitarians get shit for saving people in thought experiments, and this is what the empathic virtuous folx come up with.

Yeah, but it's not about saving people, is the problem. It's just another variant on the lifeboat scenario. This is about "examine your unconscious biases, bigot" and so who cares if the pregnant white woman is better for populating a new planet, your sin is that you picked a WHITE woman over a BIPOC minority. Or a differently abled person, or a sufferer of ageism.

If an averagely intelligent person can't figure out what answer they are supposed to give, as opposed to a reasonable answer for the scenario, then they're not that smart after all 😁 Or at least, not aware of predators in the vicinity, so survival chances are lower.

Anyway, if rationalist philosophers get to have the trolley problem to play with, let the DEIB set have their pet problems too!

Same, expect culling cop instead of the accountant. Cop is too high risk. One factor to consider is exactly which substance the accountant is abusing; is it something to be found in the new world, what would be the withdrawal effects?

Racist cop. I am concerned about the low agreeability and the part where he's armed. High risk, if he ends up killing anyone on the trip. @GreenEggsAndJam

Cop is too high risk.

Okay, everyone is waaaay overstating this risk. How many innocent minorities does the average racist cop kill for no good reason in their career? Let alone ones they get to know intimately. You're accepting a woke rhetorical frame where it's normal for prejudiced cops to fly off the handle and attack a black minding their business because the cop is like a bull seeing red.

If anything, the vetting process police officers go through makes them less likely to go out-of-control in tense situations than the general public. Yes, cops kill more people than accountants, but that's a question of base rates.

The outcome of putting racist cop on a spaceship with seven minorities is overwhelmingly likely to be a scene from Gran Torino, where things are tense for a bit and then everyone starts to identity as a tribe and they chill. And I'm not talking "99% chance" but "99.999[insert more nines here]% chance"

Why is no one mentioning the gay athlete giving people AIDs if we're going to entertain these super fringe risk scenarios?

I'm making the (ludicrous*) assumption that all relevant information for the decision is included in the descriptions, so anyone not specified female is male, and if the gay athlete isn't mentioned to have AIDS he doesn't.

Whereas the cop being armed and with an existing history of excessive force is explicitly mentioned. I still think he probably will be okay, but having someone with a gun and already established violence and low agreeableness is definitely a big gamble. The odds of his losing his temper and killing someone may not be high, but the the degree to which we'd be fucked if he does it is high. Now I can't remember if risk is the word I'm looking for or if risk includes probability, but what I meant was the word for "how bad the bad thing is", not "probability of the bad thing happening".

*Ludicrous because this question sucks, but without the assumption there's just no point playing at all.

I'm not even saying "the risk of him killing or maiming someone", just the chance of having some sort of a conflict that reduces the coherence of the group.

Ah, fair enough. GEAJ mentioned him killing someone, and I thought you were seconding that fear.

I am reminded of Ross Scott covering the video game of Rama and his assessments of the astronauts.

I was originally only going to pick 3, 6, and I guess 10, but I realized that if the goal is to restart humanity elsewhere, then this does become a harder task than just "pick the most likely to be good astronauts."

I am reminded of Ross Scott covering the video game of Rama and his assessments of the astronauts.

I was originally only going to pick 3, 6, and I guess 10, but I realized that if the goal is to restart humanity elsewhere, then this does become a harder task than just "pick the most likely to be good astronauts."

Wow. He's still around? Last year I found out AVGN is still making videos, so I shouldn't be surprised.

I'm kind of gobsmacked at the mentality of the person designing this exercise, who assumed it would draw out your sympathies for different idpol groups. The fate of mankind is at stake. My own mother wouldn't make the cut.

The fate of mankind is at stake. My own mother wouldn't make the cut.

yeah, but see: we're all a bunch of nerds, those of us not rationalists are at least SF nerds so we're approaching this problem like "how do you populate a new planet?"

This dumb exercise is "cultural competency" so it's not about the ostensible scenario, it's about trapping you with "aha, notice your bias? you didn't pick the gay crippled trans biracial pensioner!"

A lot of old-time YouTubers are definitely still around. I think Ross is unique in that he's not really fallen behind the times, despite everything.

And yeah, I suppose this truly is a mean exercise, if only because this would be so nigh-impossible in reality that you'd almost be better off with a dice toss/drawing sticks.

This exercise has been gaining some traction on Twitter among anti-wokes, with some even calling it “demonic.” That’s a bit much, but it is potentially an interesting exercise, and one I’d like to apply somewhat rational heuristics to “solve.”

My feminist, proto-woke, English teacher gave a similar challenge over 15+ years ago. Although his version was slightly different and a little less identity politics tinged. Like the doctor was a Nazi and I think the pregnant woman was an Hispanic women who didn't speak English.

This version is definitely more offensive, but it's kind of funny people are making a fuss over something so old.

Impressive. Sounds like an old school version of “Who would you rather babysit your kid for the weekend: Hitler, or a random person from the Bronx?”

Far be it from me to interfere with peoples' amusements, but it seems to me that the problem derives its piquancy from how it spotlights uncomfortable ideas about identity markers and their meaning in a high-stress situation. The problem with this is that I'm confident that at no point in the entire history of humanity has the particular mix of concerns actually been of particular relevance to the issue at hand. The "insights" this problem teases at are fake, and it seems to me that the answers people are deriving are likewise fake. If you want an answer to the actual question, figure out the mix of men and women to get a sustainable population going, and there's your actual answer. Anything beyond that is illusion, because people aren't the statistical average of the population matching their hot-button identity markers, and the extra variance such markers occlude consists of the entire ball game.

It's shit, and the person who developed it should be booed.

3,4,6,8,9,10,11 and some extra equipment instead of the weight of the last person. Chat GPT passed some medical exams lately - so it's scaled down version could be made to run on 80 kg of gear.

Number 2 could've received some form or affirmative action so his real skills are quite variable. And we have enough brawn with 9 and 10. If he was asian - then it would be no brainer, because they are having the deck stacked against them - so anyone that passed the sift must be good.

Save only the cop and the priest, leave the remaining seats empty so we have plenty of leg room on the trip.

This is correct and practical.

(After winnowing all the other unsuitables)

Cop : Fuck the kid!

Priest: Do you think we have the time?

Wait, which one are you?

One of the biggest problems you're going to run into is inbreeding in a few generations. Four men and four women means people will have to start mating with their second cousins after three generations. This won't be a serious problem right away, but repeating this for several generations is not good. Eight people is well below the required effective population size for repopulating the earth.

You don't want an imbalance between men and women because that would result in a more inbred population. You also want everyone to have as many children as possible, especially in the first few generations.

You definitely want the pregnant woman, because that's an extra person. But that means you don't want the woman's husband, because that would be a huge hit to the effective population size.

The gay man could have children, but that seems like a risk. He may not want to sleep with any woman.

The 33 year old woman is at risk of being infertile and is not likely to have very many children.

We don't know the sex of the 60 year old, but even if it is a man, the sperm quality will be low.

I'd probably lose those four, but the Hispanic clergyman could be a problem if he is Catholic and refuses to have children. The famous novelist might also be a middle aged or older woman, and the disability could be something that interferes with reproduction. So, it might be a good idea to replace one or both of them with the gay man or the 33 year old woman.

You don't want an imbalance between men and women because that would result in a more inbred population.

Hmmm... I wonder whether you could also make use of time to enforce genetic diversity. Let's say you start with seven men and one women, and all seven men (including the one who "marries" the woman) use sperm donation to preserve their sperm indefinitely.

You could instead have a bunch of kids between the first couple, then the 2nd generation of women all have kids using the 2nd man's sperm, and so on for seven generations. Then the 8th generation returns to using the first guy's DNA, which at that point is 7 generations removed and so I don't think liable to cause problems.

Of course this is unworkable for all sorts of other reasons but I thiiink it would lead to more genetic diversity, right?

If you can preserve sperm, why not bring eight women and take the sperm for hundreds of men?

...Yeah good point.

That question is delightfully evil in many ways. Great bait. It’s like a spiritual follow-up to “World to end: Women, minorities hardest hit.”

If sampling among an option and slight cheating is allowed, I’ll select myself and eleven #6’s (eleven 21-year-old female Muslim students).

If selecting myself is disallowed, I’d altruistically send a brother or cousin in my stead, or two, three, or four of them with ten, nine, or eight 21-year-old female Muslim students.* Enjoy your mini-harem bros, try not to Eskimo brother too much.

Otherwise, if those twelve individuals are genus Homo’s last hope, I’d prefer spending my remaining time and energy with family instead of spending even a sliver of time and energy selecting among those options. Seeing those options, I’d be more than fine with Homo de-existing.

Any selection thereof would almost certainly run into effective population size issues, anyway.

*For humanity’s sake, that’d probably be better than just sending myself and 11 Muslim waifus. Me solo’ing it could end up like a greentext:

>be me, humanity’s last hope with 11 Muslim waifus on new planet

>somehow manage to knock-up all of them

>distracted by non-Muslim Earth harlots who keep hitting me up on Tinder and Insta due to my new-found fame (many of their photos are absolutely haram)

>terraforming, gardening, agriculture, and animal husbandry are boring

>tell myself I’ll train an AI to take care of those things one of these days

>not today, though, maybe tomorrow

>we finish the freeze dried beef jerky from Earth so I start passing around the packets of pork jerky

>spend my time shit-posting on the internet and refreshing my brokerage and retirement accounts that are no longer of any use to me

>waifus die due to lack of sustenance

>mfw

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