POLL: Greatest Debate of All...

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Not all cavemen were ûber strong and they often had a weaker body due of diseases and other faults, thus a modern astronaut would win. He would be in a perfect health, he would know how to fight (or perhaps not, eheh), and he would be in good enough shape to take on a wild man. For example: in some regions of Africa they still live like cavemen and they aren't, exactly, packed with muscle or the like.

So, my vote goes for the astronaut.

 

Colthrun's right all the astronauts would have to do is have sex with the cavemen and then wait around for a bit while they die, worked for the Spanish. Not sure if it was their plan though, I think they were supposed to be spreading Cristianity not v.d. However I can be very nieve.

 

I'm with dmc on this one. The Caveman has freakin dinosaur for breakfast, some NASA pretty boy shouldn't give him too much trouble Even if the Astronaut has the intellectual edge, the caveman is used to hunting in order to survive and his instincts are, err, deadlier

 

ok so cavemen are clearly going to win this argument and the best that modern man can offer is defeated by some smelly halfling with a bone in his beard. What hope for the rest of us then when our electricity supply disappears? No supermarket to buy bread? You're joking right, but that's where food comes from.
On a more serious note; there is one factor that has yet to be er factored in, that's karma. Who would have the better karma cavemen or astronauts; if it's a close fight you never know it could just swing it.

[ March 16, 2005, 17:28: Message edited by: Ik ]

 

Same as comparing two exactly similar men: both have 50/50 chances and then you are asked which one will win.

 

It is very likely that they would both all die. We have diseases today that caveman could not withstand, and the astronauts would also be exposed to diseases that existed then, but no longer exist, that their immune systems couldn't handle. Additionally, how would the astronauts sterilize their water? I am assuming that we are dropping the astronauts into an environment where they have nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Without clean water they would die of dysentery in no time.

 

Hasn't anyone seen planet of the apes? The main character is a fighting machine compared to all of his other human counterparts!

Everyone comments on how cavemen would use their instincts to fight but remember there would be NO WEAPONS (as per the rules) and cavemen use weapons to hunt almost always. Whereas our space-boy has trained in hand-to-hand combat (melee combat WITHOUT weapons).

The astronaut is also a full-time warrior/soldier who has been trained to be an astronaut (not the other way around, he would have been a good soldier to have been picked for the NASA program) whereas the caveman is NOT a full-time warrior. He also has to skin his prey, cook it, make his own clothes and numerous other caveman things that don't involve hitting beasties on the head with a club. He doesn't spend his every WAKING MOMENT hunting (and who said anything about dinosaurs? Dinosaurs had long gone before cavemen even learnt to pick their nose).

 

Abom.-first of all, there are female astronauts with little or no actual combat experience. Very few war heroes made it as astronauts AFAIK. Secondly, the cave man would use a weapon, and bash you in the head when you try to take it from him. (Try to explain the rules of combat to a caveman). Third, what good would the knowledge of an astronaut do him? He would be able to identify the rock the cave man was hitting him with, if it was a moonrock or comet, and he may have some knowledge of anatomy and where to hit said caveperson, but as far as tactics and strategy go, cave men people have it knocked:sneak up behind em and hit em with a rock until it stops twitching, where as astronaut would have silly ideas like fair fighting and sportsmanship. Indians didnt' spend every waking moment hunting or fighting but they could still kill better armed cowboys. And don't flame me about no weapons, theyre in a natural setting with rocks and sticks everywhere, and there is no way you could keep a caveman unarmed if he was in a fight, unless you tie his hands, then it is not fair. In conclusion, a cave man would win, if only because he didn't understand, or didn't care to follow the silly no weapons rule.

 

Lets assume for a moment that both the contestants have been steralised, so that rules out the diseases...they've both been dropped into a new world, that rules out home ground advantage...neither know their way around.

Ok so the astronaughts have intillect, they know how to clean water by boiling it, they can cook meat, they know how to stay alive in a desperate situation. As to the cave man, he may not know as much as the astronaught but he knows enough to survive. If this turned into a "skirmish of attrition" then the astronaught would win...he knows how to keep clean and steralise wounds and things, the cave man would die from wounds going septic and food poisoning and things.

But if it was a plain hunter vs hunted or whatever, then I have to say it could really go either way...

The cave man is a trained hunter, what he's lived his whole life doing, think Barbarian-Ranger, not particularly intelligent but can stalk an animal like no one else...he knows what to look for...you say no weapons but I can't see a cave man paying much attention to the rules so he's bound to make a form of club or spear.

The astronaught on the other hand wouldn't know how to track...your not really gonna need to learn how to track a goat in space really...so he would be at a disadvantage, he would be able to pick up the obvious, we've all seen movies, but he'd miss the subtle things...now in todays society we obey the laws and rules, so I think the astronaught would not make a weapon because it would be against the rules and so there for I have decided...

THE CAVE MAN WOULD WIN!

I don't believe I wasted 10 minutes of my life writing all of this...

PS: I realise I contradicted myself in the end...but hey thats life!

 

Let's put this into a context that we are all more familiar with

Caveman = Barbarian
Astronaut = Fighter

*goes to do the simulation
It was all luck and THAC0 so I'll have to agree with Wirhe on this one.

But the Dalai Lama wins every time!

 

I have to say the astronaut for the previous Kirk argument.

But all this is ignoring the real Most Important Question Ever (TM): ninjas vs. pirates!

 

Depends on WHICH astronaut it was. If it was one of the really smart ones who was also a champion wrestler and karate black belt, he might do a bit better than the female biology specialist. The Kirk argument assumes that the astronaut is as uniquely skilled as Kirk (and not, say Chekov).

Man, did I just invoke Star Trek on an internet message board in a discussion about cavemen vs astronauts?! Aaaargh. Time to go outside and attempt to turn down my geek rating for the day.......

 

If you go and put on all the crap that astronauts have to wear, it would probably be too hard to walk on earth, forget bashing some guy who has spent his whole life hunting things and has absolutely no fear of violence.

On The Other hand... Does the astronaut wear his suit?

Second thought: Many astronauts are test pilots for the military beforehand, and test pilots are all fighter pilots before that. This would mean training in E&E (Escape & Evasion) and combat. So considering how fit the astronaut would be (unless he just got off a long-duration stay in the Space Station) and his training, he may well beat the crap out of the cave man.

[EDIT] Removed unnessecary "why I assume both parties are unarmed" stuff as that was a given in the topic starter.

 

Hmm, I see a problem here - plurals. This could very well be a large scale battle, hmm? Not just one on one...

 

So...cavemen were midgets?

*mental image of midgets with giant slabs of stone*

Oh, I voted for them, btw.

 

Yep, midgets. Which means they would be harder to hit - because there's less space occupied by them. On the other hand, nearly everywhere the caveman could hit, he would connect to the body of astronaut which is practically everywhere.

A clear thing if I ever saw one.

Even more so considering Aikanaro's very observant statement about a large scale battle: there have been thousands of cavemen. How many space men could you muster? A dozen? A hundred? Well, that's about it. The cavemen would win because of sheer numbers.

 

eaven if the numbers were equal, the cavemen would still win a large scale battle.

 

I think both sides are definitely capable of teamwork (the hunting of mammoths to extinction proved that), but wouldn't the astronauts be far superior at that than the cavemen?

If it's a handful of each, let's say 5, wouldn't the superior communicative abilities of the astronauts help to tip the scale? They can actually speak, for cryin' out loud.

 

Does this include Neanderthals? Astronauts wouldn't be able to touch those behemoths. Excellent poll!