Scott Alexander and The Onion

Scott Alexander at Astral Star Codex writes:

Lifeboat Games And Backscratchers Clubs

JUL 11, 2024

I. Lifeboat Games

Ten people are stuck on a lifeboat after their ship sank. It will be weeks before anyone finds them, and they’re out of food.

They’ve heard this story before, so they decide to turn to cannibalism sooner rather than later. They agree to draw lots to determine the victim. Just as the first person is reaching for the lots, Albert shouts out “WAIT LET’S ALL KILL AND EAT BOB!”

They agree to do this instead of drawing lots. This is obvious, right? For nine out of ten people, it’s a better deal. For nine out of ten people, it brings their chance of death from 1/10 to 0. Bob’s against it, of course, but he’s outvoted. The nine others overpower Bob and eat him.

From The Onion in its prime:

In Retrospect, I Guess We Might Have Resorted To Cannibalism A Bit Early

Published June 10, 1998

Milton Boyd

Well, I suppose everyone's heard about last week's incident by now, and you probably have a pretty low opinion of us survivors. And, all things considered, perhaps we deserve it. Perhaps we panicked and resorted to cannibalism a bit early. But you weren't there. You don't know what it was like. I just want you to hear our side of the story before you go judging us.

When the six of us got into the elevator on that fateful day, we had no idea what was going to happen. We thought we were just going to take a little ride from the 12th floor to the lobby, just like every other day. Do you think we knew that elevator was going to get stuck between floors? Do you think we got into the elevator saying, "Hey, you know, we should eat our good old pal Jerry Weinhoff from Accounts Payable"? Of course not.

During those first few minutes after the elevator car lurched to a stop somewhere between the seventh and eighth floors, we were still civilized human beings. Everyone kept his cool. We tried pushing the emergency button. We called out for help. We even banged on the door a little bit. Nothing worked. Still, we figured, "No big deal, someone will notice that the elevator's stuck, and this thing will start back up any second." Morale was generally high. John and Peter actually cracked some jokes, if you can believe that.

Maybe it started there, the hysteria. Maybe we should have known. But, at some point, when the voices went away, and pushing the buttons continued to have no effect, it started to look a lot less like we were going to have a funny story to tell our kids and a lot more like they'd never hear from us again.

It does something to a person to think that. You confront your own mortality for the first time. You become savage, brutal. One word enters your mind: survive. Survive!

I have no idea how long we'd been marooned when we started edging toward Jerry. Twenty, thirty minutes, time has little meaning when you're in a situation like that. It wasn't a spoken decision, either. We just all looked at each other and knew something had to be done.

It might have been an animal act, but it had a certain logic. Jerry lived alone and had nobody special in his life—no kids, no wife or girlfriend, and his parents had died a long time ago. And, most important, he was the biggest. We figured there was enough meat on him to keep the rest of us alive for days, maybe weeks.