from Hacker News

So, I've been following the Avatar/Genocide discussion going on here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1050522 It's an interesting discussion that has provided a lot of emotional responses. This got me thinking about human nature when it's boiled down so I thought I'd conduct a little thought experiment.

Somewhere in an ocean there's an island. On it are 4 shipwreaked people. One can make sails, one can build a boat, one can sail and one can navigate. The problem is that the island is small and the water and food resources are limited, it cannot support 4 people. With all 4 their probability getting off the island and safely home is good. With only 3 not so much, with two it's poor and with 1 it's essentially impossible. However, the island could support 3 people with some hunger, 2 with realative comfort and 1 in luxury.

This is not a high school math problem ("if we just kill one person we can hang out on the island and still have a good chance of getting away"), or a Microsoft interview question, it's a human nature problem.

Imagine that they are all from the same culture/race. What do they do?

Now image that they are all from different cultures/races (if there are language differences it doesn't affect their ability to build a boat and sail away). What do they do?

I know what I think but what about you?