Question 60099 - Starting a new civillization

[NerdGirl]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/60099/

I'd pick recreation management and youth leadership, because they probably have the best outdoor survival skills.

[thebigcheese]

And they would be the most fun, with their extensive knowledge of group games etc.

[Craig Jessop]

I was offended that they said history majors have no practical skills. That is entirely untrue!

[Tao]

heh. Laser Jock? No reply from the man who has been there, done that?

[C is for]

heh. Laser Jock? No reply from the man who has been there, done that?

Ha, what? He created a new civilization?

[Tao]

Yup. And my joining the Board was a direct result.

Soooo.... One man deserves the credit! One man deserves the blame! Aand Nikolai Ivanovich Laserjovsky is his name!

[Great Deflector]

I was offended that they said history majors have no practical skills. That is entirely untrue!

I'm sorry I offended you! The question said I was allowed to stereotype, and I really don't know what history majors do for a living. To me, I imagine history majors having battles to determine who has more important dates memorized and stuff, which didn't seem to useful for rebuilding a society. Plus, I prefaced my response with a semi-apology and I think I said some nice things about history majors even though they got disqualified. I really do like history! And I'm sorry again that I offended you!

-GD

[Dead Cat]

I'm going to go with Food Science. First of all, food is the number one priority of life, and if no one knows where to find it or how to make it, you are screwed. Second, there will still be a working knowledge of chemistry, biology and other sciences, so that won't be lost. Thirdly, there will still be the business aspect, as many choose an industry emphasis.

That's my answer and I'm sticking to it.

[TheAnswerIs42]

When I first read it, my knee-jerk response was that if you took the Math and Math Ed majors together then you would have an even gender ratio, and many people consider those the same thing anyway. But then I realized that you would have an even gender ratio of nerds with hardly any social abilities (myself included), and that wouldn't help anyone. We don't know anything about the world around us, just numbers on a board.

Yup. Useless.

I second the RMYL vote. It's about the only time I can imagine them being usefull. They know how to manage crowds AND live on the land. History and political science majors might know more about setting up the government, but RMYL has the best overall hope.

[ahem.]

I was offended that they said history majors have no practical skills. That is entirely untrue!

It would have been more accurate if he had said we have no marketable skills.

[Emiliana]

Heh. Well, I was an English Lit major, and I'll be the first to admit that I and my literary club friends wouldn't be the ones you'd want your survival dependent on. At least we'd be able to quote from Shakespeare's tragedies while we starved to death.

[Craig Jessop]

I was offended that they said history majors have no practical skills. That is entirely untrue!

It would have been more accurate if he had said we have no marketable skills.

Also (somewhat) untrue.

[Tao]

I was offended that they said history majors have no practical skills. That is entirely untrue!

It would have been more accurate if he had said we have no marketable skills.

Also (somewhat) untrue.

Care to elucidate, or just going to continue to negate?

[Laser Jock]

heh. Laser Jock? No reply from the man who has been there, done that?

Ha, what? He created a new civilization?

Tao and I were in a class together several years ago, and the whole class centered around the scenario that we (the class) were survivors of a shipwreck on an unknown island somewhere off the coast of Alaska. The goal of the class was to research, in detail, everything we'd need to build an airplane to get off the island (and survive until then). This included technology, of course, but also social topics: we had to figure out how to live as a group until we could get off. So yeah, we had to work out how to build a little civilization, to the satisfaction of our teacher (who was amazing, by the way).

We split up into groups and each group would research a broad area to help us reach that goal; individual people were in charge of researching specific topics (and writing up our research as proof to our teacher).

Why by airplane? The scenario was such that the currents around the island were incredibly treacherous, thus boats wouldn't work; and the ship we'd been on had been commissioned by a guy who was trying to store as much human knowledge as possible in case civilization collapsed, so we had a lot of books to go off of. Specifically, we could use anything found in the HBLL.

In short, it was a totally awesome class.

[Marduk]

Craig can explain as much as he'd like, but I'll throw something in here as an English/Philosophy major.

The way we do business in this world is rapidly changing; the methods and techniques used by any particular discipline evolve intensely once one leaves a classroom. It isn't unreasonable to suggest, for example, that a specific medical technique, or business structure, or distribution method, may be completely different five years after it is learned. What is important, then, is being adaptable to a dynamic business world. The specifics of how to do the business can be taught; the ability to learn quickly and change is much more difficult to come by. Here, the skills learned in humanities become more important. Critical thinking, problem solving, studies in human nature and their habits are all of critical use.

At least, that's what the counselors have us believe.

[thebigcheese]

I think every major claims those skills.

[Marduk]

Just listened to this the other day; it seemed relevant to this conversation, and I thought others perhaps might enjoy it.

http://www.classical89.org/thinkingalou ... =8/11/2010