Let me be clear, I understand that when you’re building a society, the fittest of mind and body offer the most promising results. That’s the logical conclusion, but I personally don’t feel that you can justify killing with logic. It’s just not human. When you ignore your sensibilities, and let cold logic determine who lives and who dies, what have you become?

When I first began this activity my initial thought was to save all the women and children because it was simply the right thing to do. But then I thought to myself, what if there are no other people outside of the bunker. What if these are the only 11 people who survived on the entire planet. Only then did my decision become clear to chose the people who will be beneficial to survival and reproduction. I chose the 7 of 11 based on their skills/trades and ability to reproduce. I’ll begin with the 4 I chose to sacrifice and my reasons.

Mrs. Lang: I think she is limited in skill set and others are way better qualified. She is educated but only in a specific area and Dr. Lang covers a wide range of education and teaching. Following Mrs. Lang was her son, Bobby Lang. Unfortunately, in this situation Bobby is not a productive member to society because of his health, lack of higher education and the high demand of medical and one on one care he needs. I had to let go of Jean Hernandaz, the three week old baby, for almost the same reasons as Bobby. There are not enough resources to take care of a mentally challenged and three week old children. And the last decision was between Mr. Newton, the medical student, and Dr. Garcia, it was difficult between the two. Dr. Garcia has better experience in the medical field but his health records made me very nervous. He had two heart attacks in five years and is 66 years old. One more heart attack and that could be the end of him. So for those reasons I had to eliminate Dr. Garcia.

Then there are the 7 I saved, Dr. Lang, Mr. Newton, Mrs. Clark, Mr. Young and Father Philip. The five of these people all have a common factor, they all have a skill that will contribute to surviving more so than the ones I had to sacrifice and can reproduce when the time comes. There is a teacher with a Ph. D. Mr. Lang. He can teach, has a potential for leadership and can reproduce. A medical student, Mr. Newton even though he was starting his last year of medical school, I think he has enough knowledge to be able preform basic procedures. Because we are limited to resources he is only able to do bare minimum without medication and medical supplies anyway. He is also younger and is in good health which means he has more time to teach others. an engineer, a handy man and a civil rights activist who is also a spiritual leader. Although I am catholic I did not base my decision on religion by choosing Father Philip. I like spirituality in my life so if there was another religion or any other form of spiritual teacher, as long as the teachings are positive I would have chose them also. I feel there is a need for some sort of spirituality in people lives because I believe it keeps us grounded. The last two are Mrs. Hernandaz and 8 year old Mary White. Mrs. Hernandez is young enough to have and raise children with her good health and she can also be taught a skill or trade. Same with Mary White, although she can not bare children because she herself is a child at the moment she will be able to have babies further down the line. Mary is also at the best age to be educated and taught skills and has the energy to out last some adults.

Overall, I chose these seven people because they had what I think are the basic needs, education, skills and trades to survive and begin rebuilding a new life. Although, some of these people, because of my decision, have lost family members I do believe they will be able to survive and contribute. Humans are very strong and are capable of great things and i believe sacrificing to survive is one of those miraculous capabilities. This activity was a challenge and in some ways uncomfortable because I was put in a seat to decide who lives and who dies. I did not want to sacrifice any people because I do believe they all have something to live for and many things to contribute.

I did think it was also very enlightening to see the reasoning and rational of the class during the class discussion. There was a lot of thought behind their answers that didn’t occur to me like that any of the people would be “adequate” to deliver a baby and that the people didn’t necessarily need a doctor’s expertise. However, one argument made in class that I felt was very offensive was that the atheist shouldn’t survive only because of his beliefs. I do not think that a person’s religious affiliation has anything to do with the worth of their life.

I had a difficult time with the Who Will Survive exercise. I’m going into the health field to save lives, so I struggled a bit on choosing whom I would save. I didn’t know where to start so I reflected back to what I learned in my EMT classes when it came to triaging mass casualty incidents. So my decision on who would survive was initially based on level of health. I had a feeling that the purpose of this assignment was increase awareness of concealed biases and judgments we may have that we either know about or don’t. I previously thought of myself as a nonjudgmental person, but what I came to realize is I was incorrect. I noticed that the people I chose to save reflected ageism and sexism by choosing to save the women and children first. This assignment opened my eyes to not judging aspects of a person’s life just because I don’t share the same views as they do. It also evoked some questions in my mind that made me really think. How could I base my decisions on gender and age? What makes one life worth more than another? What makes someones life more valuable than the next? Although I don’t criticize people based on lifestyle choices, judging based on age and sex is just as negative. Great exercise for inducing thought.

To begin, I was thinking not of the survival of these people but the survival of the world as a whole. We are not sure how many survivors there are left in the world and what scale nuclear attack this was. Lets just say that these are the only people in the world who have survived and now the rebirth of the world lies on their shoulders. I looked at what uses these people had to each other and the uses they have after they leave the bunker to restart the human race. Apart from the knowledge some of these people posses their age and gender also plays a role in my decision making. I apologize if I offend anyone with this paper but come on people its a worksheet.

Lets start with the four people I chose to let go, the Lang family and Dr. Garcia. Lets face it Bobby is of no use to anyone and in order for him to survive he needs his mother to help counsel him. Although his mother could be of use to help people stay calm in the bunker the other peoples uses outweigh hers. The father Dr. Lang could make a good potential leader because of his basic knowledge on how a community runs, however he would not be able to function properly without the rest of his family. I noticed a lot of people did not think about this. If you kill one of the Lang family members they other members will not be able to function properly causing them to not work up to their full potential. This is why I decided to get rid of the whole family.

I also got rid of Dr. Garcia because even though he has more knowledge than the other doctor his age and health conditions somewhat outweigh his uses. No one knows when he might pass away but it looks like pretty soon. These are the four people I got rid of. Now as you can see this does not clarify my decisions, which is why I will also briefly describe why the others should survive.

Father Philip would make a great leader. This is because he is a priest and he has a lot of experience in public speaking. In addition to that he can bring order to the bunker with his political thinking. As stated he went to college, is active in civil rights movements and has liberal views. He can be very useful to the bunker by replacing Mrs. Langs use. He can be the “therapist for the people in the bunker because he has experience with confessions and talking to people.

Mrs. Clark and Mr. Young can work together causing them to be a good team. Clark is an electronics engineer which will be extremely useful once these people leave the bunker and attempt to rebuild society. While Young could help Clark by building whatever she designs. He can also help build mechanical things as he has knowledge in that. These two people would be in charge of the construction aspect of survival.

Of course a doctor is necessary to help keep people healthy and deliver a baby when necessary. Although Mr. Newton is in his least year of schooling he still possess valuable knowledge. Because of his age and health I chose him over Dr. Garcia because he has a longer period of potential use. The fact that he might be gay and possibly may dislike other races does not matter. If these people want to survive they will all have to work together to recreate human civilization.

The two children and any others that will be made in the future serve as learning minds. The doctor, engineer and mechanist will create academic journals of all their knowledge to be passed onto every kid old enough to learn. Of course math, English and other subjects would also be passed on to children as we want to preserve the knowledge these people know and use it to continue expanding the human race.

Now obviously these people need to reproduce to continue the human race. Which is why both genders are very important to have. Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Hernandez are useful in the production of children. Due to Mrs. Hernandez’s lack of knowledge her main use would be mating and caregiver to the children. Also when Mary white and Jean Hernandez reach that age they can be used for mating too; also they will have learned all the knowledge the people posses making their potential use very high.

Any other babies created will learn the knowledge passed on through the generations of survivors. Slowly rebuilding the human population until the world is populated how it once was. Now yes I do know it is against Father Philips beliefs to mate, but either he will get past that and help in the creation of society or he continue to follow his beliefs. Newton is probably gay so he wont want to reproduce but there is always the option of jerking it and inseminating one of the females. Which basically leaves one male out of the seven people to participate I the reproduction process. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind being the stud.

Those are the brief reasons that influenced my decisions on who to pick to survive. Feel free to comment or whatever I’d love to hear someone elses perspective even though personally I think I nailed it right on the dot. But then again that is just my opinion.