Hipsters!
Sorry, couldn’t resist, I’ll see myself out…
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sigh
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i love that problem. i ran across it in college in a book of lateral thinking exercises. i used the principles of conditional probability to compare figure out that switching is the optimal choice.
the second-guessing of vos savant is, of course, no surprise at all. i’ve been witness to that kind of shit for longer than the term “mansplaining” has existed. if i get a chance later today i’ll have to try to find a video clip i saw a few years ago in which a panel discussion on feminism-related issues is going on. at some point in the proceedings one of the female participants (i can’t recall if she was a sociologist or an anthropologist) started discussing the problem of mansplaining and more generally the second-guessing of women’s expertise in fields of their expertise. in the middle of her exposition one of the male participants interrupted her and began challenging her definition of “mansplaining” as well as her characterization of the extent to which the phenomenon prevails at all levels of discourse. after a minute or so of semi-shocked silence the audience began laughing and got louder and louder as he continued. he evinced a combination of irritation and confusion and finally paused at which point one of the audience members got to one of the audience microphones and asked him if he were giving the crowd a practical illustration of what the woman had been talking about. his face was a study in confusion and he asked what that was supposed to mean at which point the woman whose speaking time he had been stepping on said something like “dr. ???, i think they’re laughing because you’ve interrupted me to spend the last 3 or 4 minutes mansplaining mansplaining. it’s pretty piquant if you think about it.” at that point it did finally sink in. he turned deep red and sat down.
edited for spelling.
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got tired of that song real fast.
try brain bleach…followed by fire
I heard that if it had hit the iceberg head on, the ship wouldn’t have sunk. It would have been damaged sure, but it would have stayed afloat.
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Yeah, because the compartmentalised structure below decks was built for leaks/punctures. They could seal off one or even a few sections and keep the rest waterproof. But the iceberg ripped open nearly half the compartments, causing a catastrophic failure.
The Titanic is a great example of something that was well-engineered in many respects but failed anyhow.
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Take a look at its latitudes. The northernmost point is slightly south of Newcastle.Rockall is 2 degrees further north. -19 in January, summers wet, cloudy and cool. If the thermohaline circulation stops, that’s what the UK and Ireland have to look forward to.
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I have read this too. The double bottom was just that - it didn’t even reach the bilges. The result was that the ship was as easily damaged by a glancing collision as a ship without a double bottom. But a head on collision would in theory have left it intact aft of the collision bulkhead.
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Absolutely. I’ve been far farther north on Europe than I have in Canada. You can see it on a Reykjavik -Toronto flight: Iceland will be lovely and green, whereas northern Quebec even quite a bit south is nothing but grey glacier-scratched rock covered with drifts of snow. Last time I flew that way I kept the map up on the back-of-seat screen and watched for the tree line. Took a while to show up.
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It was well engineered by the standards of the time and I think, except in blindingly obvious cases, it’s wrong to apply hindsight. What failed was the system, from sticking to BoT lifeboat limits set on the assumption that ships wouldn’t go much over 10kt in order to save money (despite there being the capacity for sufficient lifeboats) through various operational details. Ships are still built with inadequate side protection (Costa Concordia). You wouldn’t get me on a modern cruise liner. (The boat I am currently constructing is a coracle for the grandchildren, with loads of hidden flotation and grab handles. The scaling laws mean that tiny boats are very slow but, for their size, much stronger than a cruise ship. You can balance a coracle or a small kayak on one hand. If you tried the scale equivalent with a big ship, it would collapse around you.)
What is noticeable is the ratio of male/female survival rates. This was one of the few cases where being female improved your chances of survival. The highest death rate was for 2nd class men, which itself may say something about Edwardian society though I’m not too sure what.
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The Titanic was one of the last times “women and children first” actually meant something – at least in first and second class. More first-class men survived than third-class children. I’m not surprised the second-class men got the worst of it – rich enough to be expected to act like a gentleman, but too poor to claim they were important.
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But should it do now? To be very blunt, governments are no longer worried about how many adults they will have in the military age range in the 10-20 year timescale. Overpopulation is the issue. Are children worth more than adults with expensive educations and years of experience? In an emergency like that, wouldn’t the rational approach now be “doctors, nurses, small boat experts, survivalists and damage control personnel first?”
I’d be willing to consider any priority chain that puts politicians and CEOs at the bottom of the list.
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I’d say no. During the evacuation of that flight that crash-landed on the Hudson River, some women tried to invoke “women and children first”, only to be reminded that a) they were on a crowded airplane and filtering out people to disembark by gender and age wasn’t an efficient or practical proposition and b) it was the goddamn 21st century.
Women and children first made sense when women wore heavy skirts and needed help stepping into carriages, never mind lifeboats. Nowadays, not so much – although it’s a great argument for always wearing sensible, comfortable clothing on planes. Or anywhere.
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Assigning an equal weight to everybody capable of moving is probably the optimal approach in many disasters. However, with slow developing ones like the Titanic, in the 21st century, we should be able to do better.
We can’t tell from Costa Concordia because while the death rate wasn’t that high, it conveniently happened onshore. The Deutschland disaster in the 19th century happened on a shoal and about a quarter were killed. What would have happened if the Concordia had had a Titanic style accident? I wonder if we would have learned from history?
Given how the Costa Concordia showed how top-heavy those ships are now, I’d say no. I mean, on the bridge (radar, better communication protocols) and below decks, yes, and nowadays we have lifeboat drills and sufficient lifeboats. But learning from the Titanic means nothing if new structural problems are introduced.
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Oh I must see that. Priceless.
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So, I’m really interested in how feminism has been depicted in motion-picture and TV; are they reflections of actual feminism, or subtle pushes towards a feminist concept, no matter what the gender of the creator(s)?
This show has me somewhat baffled. It was only one for one season in the mid-1960s, as Ann Sheridan (I have yet to see her play some sob-sister who needs to be rescued) died near the end of filming of that season. At any rate, what I’m getting is…I don’t KNOW, lol! The women aren’t treated like goddesses, yet they’re obviously more competent then the men; and the men are foolish, but aren’t ridiculed for it, they’re treated more like impish children. Also: The definition of the word “sissy” - watch for it!
FYI: Douglas Fowley plays Grandpa; he was Kim Fowley’s father off-screen.
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I fucking love this thread.
That is all.
<3
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And this thread, and everyone in it loves you!
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It’s true, we do!
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If only the watertight bulkheads had had, y’know, watertight ceilings or something!
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