OK we all rip on Florida man a lot and usually with good reason. There are stories about methed out alligators in Florida and often when one says Florida it's usually in connection to something outrageously stupid.
Well, today Florida was connected with a few other things: Goodness, courage, compassion, heroism.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/good-samaritans-form-human-chain-to-rescue-swimmers-from-rip-current-in-florida/ar-AAEmMMw?OCID=ansmsnnews11&fbclid=IwAR1zYTemPZMGV1pZlFhhP0eSLjtRw-9-hpUOyqdAAESllHmY4F2e1JRpf3sA bunch of people in Florida linked hands and formed a human chain to save a person, likely a stranger to most of them, from a fatal encounter with a surprise riptide. At least a few of them risked their own lives to do it.
In a time when hate and vileness seem to be surging, itcs good to see there are still some good people left, even in unlikely places.
Several people may have put themselves at risk to save one. Heinlein talked about than in the starship troopers novel, the scene didn't make it into the movie.
He was comparing humanity to the collective hive mind species, the bugs.
Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?--TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.
Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature--a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
He admitted the human way was poor arithmetic, and the bugs didn't have a trace of it, willingly expending their soldiers the way a human expends bullets. He admitted he didn't know if the human way was better or worse than the bugs, and didn't know if human ways were a weakness that would condemn the species to extinction or a strength that would give it the galaxy, but the bugs just didn't have a trace of it.
Bad math or not, I felt a little better when I saw this story, there's still some goodness in the world. Despite what I see on the news every day....
