Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/11/help-sign-made-with-palm-leaves-saves-3-sailors-stranded-on-pacific-island-for-more-than-a-week.html
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Dammit, too slow. I was just about to post that.
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It is the first thing that comes to mind, isn’t it.
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I have seen the idiotic meme below pop up in my social media every once in a while. This is one more data point showing why it’s nonsense. Good for those sailors.
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Cool story, but now I can’t get the Gilligan’s Island theme song out of my head.
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The 3 sailors: “Now we can’t get the Gilligan’s Island theme song out of our heads.”
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Kind of a once-in-a-lifetime holiday, I’d think.
2 stars.
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That’s a perfect meme, for demonstrating the D-K effect in action. This fool imagines he’s capable of navigating the ocean on a raft made of driftwood and his own shoelaces, let’s watch!
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Ingenuity. Cripes, I saw that hack on Gilligan’s Island.
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well, it was for a while, and is again i guess.
poor island. maybe it just wanted some friends.
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If you don’t want to be rescued by just anybody:
QaH!
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Yes, but when Gilligan did it he accidentally caught his pants on fire and ran around slapstick-fashion knocking around the burning logs until the SOS message was changed to resemble a friendly salute to passing astronaut Sol Tobias.
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Someone really ought to install a
WELCOME TO PIKELOT
POPULATION: YOU
sign there. That would tend to be accurate.
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Yeah, because taking a raft across the ocean that previously stranded you in a much more capable vessel and without any food, water or shade is such a better idea than waiting for help.
The people posting this are the kind of people that get killed because they didn’t stay by their stranded car when broken down and think they can just walk across the desert to get help.
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I searched for it on Google Maps, because of course I did, and the satellite photo shows a small tin hut in the middle of Pikolot island. Obviously somebody goes there aside from shipwreck victims once in a while! (Seems a long way out of the way to get away from your parents for a few hours, so probably not just kids.)
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Or maybe just the kind of people who imagine they’d have the initiative to save themselves if they ever got in a tough spot as a way to maintain a feeling of superiority over anyone who makes a public plea for help.
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( maybe the island doesn’t want friends… maybe it’s hungry! 
)
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It’s a dumb meme, especially if one thinks it applies to everything. There definitely are scenarios where waiting for help isn’t going to be the best option because they are overwhelmed with some sort of large event or they are too far away and you need help now. But there are many other scenarios where staying put IS the best option.
IMO - it’s a balance between being prepared with some survival knowledge and equipment (like a spare tire or having a med kit), and being completely dependent on others. Most people are somewhere in the middle.
In this specific scenario, I would be making shelters and creating a sign or signal for planes or boats looking for us. Hopefully they are looking for us, but staying put is the best advice.
And in specific to that meme, there is no way you made a serviceable raft out of scrap wood. Unless you can SEE land, you gonna die in the ocean.
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