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How to Escape a Sinking Ship

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Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#181

Post by raldi »

secabeen wrote: post #13

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but still some good advice here: -- Know your surroundings, specifically where your exits are. The nearest exit may be behind you. -- Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. -- Be where the well-connected people are, and look/act the part. Try to blend into the tribe, be a…

I once read an article about a guy who repeatedly managed to sneak into places at sporting events he shouldn't be: Down on the field to celebrate with the players that just won the championship, onto the press or VIP-suite level, even into locker rooms. He basically just did what you describe above.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#182

Post by mrslave »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #66
smogcutter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Break the rules. Officials may try to deter you from using passages, ladders or stairwells. Ignore them. If you need to kick open a door or pick a lock, do it. I learned this lesson on 9/11, as a high school student in lower Manhattan. We were told to sit in our homerooms and wait, while smoke (and god knows what else) enveloped the building. Eventually we were shuffled out of the building and told to keep going nor…

Someone I knows knows someone who worked in the second WTC building to be hit. After the first strike, their employer's plan was for everyone to stay in place, but they got the heck out of there. Saved their life.

I saw a man interviewed on TV who was in a very similar situation. He just figured to get out even though there was no real understanding of what had happened to the first tower or knowledge of a threat to the second. The manager gave stay put and calm instructions while we wait for more information, and he just thought to leave via the fire escape stairwell and take the rest of the day off. Amazing.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#183

Post by radlad »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #91
radlad wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a better alternative?

The effectiveness of any information source is only as good as its signal to noise ratio. Given a bad S/N, the alarm system is simply not effective. Reduce the noise.

I agree with you. But this is a tricky problem.

The alarms go off because there is smoke - the issue is that the smoke is not dangerous. How do you solve for this? You could set a higher threshold for detection, but this also delays any response to the (very dangerous and urgent) problem.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#184

Post by pauljurczak »

overscore wrote: post #89
pauljurczak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, but the numerous references to the ocean, 14 of them, indicate sloppy writing. Baltic is a relatively small, shallow and closed sea. It can be fierce, but ocean it is not.

That's misguided pedantry, I think. Most seas are a subset of the ocean, and the Baltic is an arm of the Atlantic.

Pedantry? Perhaps. Baltic Ocean, no way! No Atlantic Sea, either.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#185

Post by bzbarsky »

542354234235 wrote: post #159
monsieurbanana wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I'd see more of those actual feminists call out against the misandrists that usurp their name. It's not fair on them, but they need to if they want to stop the growing trend of equaling feminism with misandry. I'm just a random guy in the internet, living in a country where I don't see much of either, but because of the internet I thought for a long time that modern feminism was indeed hatred of men rather tha…

Do you think that could be a deliberate push to delegitimize calls for equality? Are large feminist organizations making those misandry statements or are random individuals and fringe organizations making those statements and their voice is being amplified and spread simply because it validates the idea in people’s minds that “this crazy person is what feminism is”. If 1% of women from, say, the US were misandrists,…

> Are large feminist organizations making those misandry statements

The official position of NOW on family law and the rights of fathers to have any sort of contact with their children when a divorce happens (much less the idea of fathers getting custody) has generally been pretty abysmal.

I can't find a current public position from them on the topic, so maybe they've gotten better. One can hope.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#186

Post by elric »

elric wrote: post #142

Drowning is not a pleasant way to die. I drowned as a child and lived to tell the tale, but it's not an experience I would not recommend. At all. If you've determined that you won't survive your shipwreck, you might want to consider a faster way to die.

> but it's not an experience I would not recommend

That was obviously a typo. Too late to edit.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#187

Post by pauljurczak »

overscore wrote: post #89
pauljurczak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, but the numerous references to the ocean, 14 of them, indicate sloppy writing. Baltic is a relatively small, shallow and closed sea. It can be fierce, but ocean it is not.

That's misguided pedantry, I think. Most seas are a subset of the ocean, and the Baltic is an arm of the Atlantic.

Not to be too pedantic, but there is no connection between the Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea. The North Sea separates them.

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#188

Post by [deleted] »

hef19898 wrote: post #102
bsanr2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Titanic aired on broadcast TV earlier this year, I was struck by the horror of the situation in a way I hadn't been when it first came out (my being 7-years-old at the time might have something to do with that, of course). I came to similar conclusions at the time: situational awareness (especially listening to what the people around you are saying and reading between the lines), willingness to break rules, will…

I wouldn't draw much conclusions from a true disaster over 100 years ago (in which case the evacuation itself wasn't as bad, given the total lack of safety procedures and the timing) and a case in which nobody believed the buildings would go down. In both cases, rules have been revised, e.g. the closed doors between classes on the Titanic are not a thing anymore.

[deleted]

Re: How to Escape a Sinking Ship

#189

Post by bsanr2 »

hef19898 wrote: post #102
bsanr2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Titanic aired on broadcast TV earlier this year, I was struck by the horror of the situation in a way I hadn't been when it first came out (my being 7-years-old at the time might have something to do with that, of course). I came to similar conclusions at the time: situational awareness (especially listening to what the people around you are saying and reading between the lines), willingness to break rules, will…

I wouldn't draw much conclusions from a true disaster over 100 years ago (in which case the evacuation itself wasn't as bad, given the total lack of safety procedures and the timing) and a case in which nobody believed the buildings would go down. In both cases, rules have been revised, e.g. the closed doors between classes on the Titanic are not a thing anymore.

I think the point is to realize that the unthinkable could be happening to you. We don't know until we know, and by then it may be too late.
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