One man can impregnate many women, but women can only have one child at a time. While this is not really relevant in an over-populated society, the concept was developed long before the planet was overrun by humans.

I don't find this convincing. While I don't disagree that a woman's inherent worth is obviously entirely tied to her ability to breed and care for children, it bears a little more explanation.

Any theories as to why many, many other cultures don't feel that way, and value women far less than men (Muslims, Chinese, many other Asian cultures)?

That puts a huge hole in your theory, imo.

Also, under you theory, post menopausal women, who can't be impregnated, presumably should be left to die?

On a women's only Titanic with only half the number of needed lifeboats, would anyone argue that the ones who are capable of breeding should be saved? I don't think anyone would and I don't think that would happen.

So your explanation isn't satisfying.

Preferences aren't intellectual. You asked what was a silly question.

Therefore, boobs.

Horrific sexism never fails, Mr. Tooth. You are starting to lose your focus. Open another bottle of vodka.

This remark is crying out for a chicken sandwich example.

No one explanation is satisfying for anything involving human beings. Ldo.

Some other cultures might value women less in certain ways (e.g. telling them to shut up, cover up, etc.), but that doesn't mean they don't protect them, particularly during child-bearing years. I know of no society that would rather throw a 25 year old woman overboard than a man (all else equal) unless the man was the one allowed to make the choice for himself. There may be a few, but that would be rare.

The age-related value is confounded because many societies value the wisdom of the elderly, and don't want to throw the "wiser" people overboard. But i'd imagine that most of them would toss an older woman over a younger one (all else equal) because the younger ones have more life yet to live. This is the same reason why we value children more than adults.

There is obviously an evolutionary reason behind it, as there is for everything.

As worldly as you are, you seem ignorant on how women are viewed and treated around world. Many Asian and nearly all Islamic societies view women as second class citizens - worth less than men, troublesome, and less favored than a male son. Indeed, in many cultures the women of all ages eat what's left after the men have had their fill, and go hungry in hard times. Medical care will often only be spent on males:
Why don't you explain that in terms of evolutionary theory? While you're at it, why don't you explain this in terms of evolutionary theory?
The view of the world you're offering simply isn't true, imo.
No, it isn't. In the West we view children as precious because we've built up a whole culture around the parents nurturing them and putting their life on hold to give them the best. The strength with which we hold this to be true is very Western; many other cultures do not share this, and children are seen as property or commodities. Our desire to protect the "innocent" is also very Western; it is nowhere as strong in other cultures.
"Evolutionary" reasons for human psychology is one of my pet hates. This sweeping statement you make is up there as well. There are plenty of things that have nothing to do with evolution or evolutionary reasons.

Even if your statement was true, people who use evolutionary reasoning do so in such a clumsy and unscientific way that it's little better than astrology as a tool of understanding human nature. It's a case of "pick your favorite plausible evolutionary reason with zero evidence (the more simple-minded the better), proclaim it to be true, problem solved!"

I contend that the desire to protect women that Western men feel and act on is not evolutionary at all. Billions of people do not share this view of women and in fact protect and privilege themselves and their fellow men before women. That is extremely powerful evidence against your made-up evolutionary thesis.

Female children are not females of child-bearing age. Making them eat last is not the same as killing them first. You keep throwing up strawmen.

I wasn't aware that you didn't believe in evolution. I have no desire to try to convince you of it.

All the women eat last. Children, pregnant women, child bearing age, teenagers, old women. All of then. Again, you are deeply ignorant of how a couple of billion of the world's people live. There's no strawman here at all.

Women's lives and health are valued as less than men in the majority of Asian (including Middle Eastern) cultures.
Hah? Of course I "believe" in evolution. I have a science degree. From a long time personal interest in it, I would wager I know far more about it than you do.

The off-the-cuff layman formulations of evolutionary psychology, however, are about as pseudoscientific as you get. They're a veneer of credibility over "cool story bro".

You're a good thinker; you would realize that if you cared to think about it.

It seemed unnecessary. Obviously you save the women because they are typically shorter, which means they are less likely to block your view of the landscape. They also, typically ingest fewer calories, making them a more efficient use of resources while being significantly more likely to make me a chicken sandwich.

Pure utilitarian value there.

Total strawman until you provide evidence that they kill women over men. The rest is weak sauce correlations. People also treat slaves worse than chickens, but they don't kill them first.

Save the women because everywhere I go is a sausage-fest.

The physical attributes aren't everything. Especially in a well developed country.

If we call a person in wheelchair x.

I would save the 1 x over 8 able bodied people assuming the 1 x (physically impaired) has a meaningfully higher probability of impacting humanity positively.

I would save 9 physically impaired over 8 mentally impaired (able bodied).

All things being equal mentally (no definitive edges, no person in either group has a higher probability of impacting humanity positively) would save the 8 able bodied...

Why is this your criteria for life?

Young pretty females for example are responsible for enormous amounts of happiness and the creation of drive and positive energy merely by living. Do you save them above all others?

Toilet cleaners who save all their money are more valuable to society than the semi wealthy non-working, no matter how intelligent the latter are.

Third world breeders are the greatest curse the human race has - socially, environmentally, etc. Should we kill 1,000,000,000 to 1 given that they're a massive net negative for the future of the human race?

I guess I'd like to see your "probability of impacting humanity positively" fleshed out as a rationale, both practically and morally.

In a Lifeboat you can save more people by putting women and children first because they tend to take up the least space

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Women in wheelchairs are even shorter than those without wheelchairs. Save them first.

How about the train splits in two like quantum mechanics and both kills and saves both groups. They then live each day with a probability 50% but they wont know that the day before they were dead until they look at the date. Also it can be that they live back to back many days or lose many days in a row in total lack of existence because after all it's binomial distribution, etc.

That is a better resolution to trolley problems that all can live with except for the inability to design your life beyond one day at a time unless you develop probabilistic models of what happens each day that hedge future plans and dates with other people by selecting multiple days and assigning confidence intervals to your planning!

Date resets during sleeping time.

Basically meaning an individual has a purpose for living that is greater than himself/herself (to positively impact others).

This is my criteria because life needs a meaningful purpose, otherwise what's the point?

The easiest people to choose that should be slaughtered first would be the one's who are trying to argue why they should be saved instead of the others, IMO..

But ya, you raise some good questions for sure. Would be very hard to quantify on the spot....

Legit ate a sausage, egg, cheese mcgriddle for the first time of my life in late 2016. It was a gamechanger.

Since then my occasional cravings for them have also not been intellectual.

Well, it depends if heavens real... If it is, save the two fools. Save one even.

If this really did happen then I obviously would save the little girl, but Im guessing the pope wouldn't

Never heard of it, but it does sound better than a chicken sandwich right now.

You lose, Brian.

LOL..http://www.foodbeast.com/news/mcdona...ken-mcgriddle/

Heart wins though with the chicken sandwich probably.

Had to try it for dinner after mcdonalds went to all day breakfast

Does one of the people lie about being present at a terrorist attack? Because I definitely let that guy get hit.