How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in a Fight?

December 17, 2007 6:44 PM

How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in a Fight? [cached via]
posted by Avenger50 (87 comments total)

19.
posted by Afreemind2007 at 6:48 PM on December 17, 2007

30. They didn't take into account my wheelbarrow and holocaust cloak.
posted by ooga_booga at 6:50 PM on December 17, 2007 [4 favorites]

The site says 24, but I know from experience that the correct number is 174.2.
posted by The World Famous at 6:52 PM on December 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

So the remaining eight tenths of a child is what finally took you out?
posted by Mister Cheese at 6:54 PM on December 17, 2007

Twenty-six. Me and another individual of similar abilities could probably take out a whole field trip, if we had to.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 6:56 PM on December 17, 2007

First off, given their ground-rules, I already know what my number is; 5. I found this out after being swarmed at a birthday party. They tracked me like hounds and brought me to bay. Once I was down it was all over. I managed to stand twice, but against the combined mass* of five struggling toddlers, I was merely forestalling the inevitable. They broke me and rode me like a mule.

Plus, I love the fact that there's a link to a dating site at the bottom. "So Brenda, how did you and Frank spend your first date?" "Oh we compared notes on how to violently suppress a toddler uprising."

*All parents know that toddlers can increase their density at will. This is a fact.
posted by lekvar at 6:56 PM on December 17, 2007 [24 favorites]

23. And I'm headin' over to the kindergarten playground tomorrow to put it to the test, baby.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:56 PM on December 17, 2007

28, only because I middled in the moral compass zone.
posted by bwg at 6:57 PM on December 17, 2007

A little weak on the science.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:57 PM on December 17, 2007

Comedically a hit or miss idea. Executed in the most un-funny, banal way possible. Next.
posted by sneakin at 6:59 PM on December 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

5 years old isn't a "toddler". Which leads me to my remark: As the father of twins (among others), I can tell you that 2 2.5 year olds is just about my match.

But the ivory tower theoreticians at the site say: 20.
posted by DU at 7:00 PM on December 17, 2007

All of them.
posted by nola at 7:01 PM on December 17, 2007 [4 favorites]

28, but they obviously didn't take into account the tried-and-true spinning-in-place-while-holding-a-child-by-the-ankles technique which I have perfected over the years.
posted by Falling_Saint at 7:05 PM on December 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

22.

since most 5 year olds are about my height, i'll assume that my skillz > urs.
posted by Stynxno at 7:05 PM on December 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Technically not a double but some great responses in the previous thread.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:05 PM on December 17, 2007

100% Free Dating at JustSayHi.com. How nice that it's an advertisement!
posted by Pants! at 7:07 PM on December 17, 2007

"Just like a five-year-old to bring a knife to a gun fight."
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 7:07 PM on December 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

It says I can take 23. The scientist in me wants to test this hypothesis. The child in me wants to wet his pants.
posted by tepidmonkey at 7:08 PM on December 17, 2007

28, but I think I'm probably more ruthless than they're giving me credit for. Plus, I'd probably cheat and bring a weapon or two...
posted by pupdog at 7:11 PM on December 17, 2007

I got 28.... I'm not sure that's exactly accurate. No 5 year olds understand mass tactics. And swarming doesn't cut it.
posted by Sam.Burdick at 7:12 PM on December 17, 2007

35.

Watch out, E.G. King Elementary School kindergarten class of 2007.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:13 PM on December 17, 2007

30. Is that a lot? Because when it comes down to it, I know people. And if I go down, loads of my friends between the ages of 4 and 12 are opening a can of whoop ass on my behalf.

Andre had a posse, but humannaires look out for their kind.
posted by humannaire at 7:13 PM on December 17, 2007

Twenty-five here. If I practiced and got into a few fights I'll bet I could bump that way up.
posted by verb at 7:14 PM on December 17, 2007

We've talked about this already.

26.
posted by oddman at 7:15 PM on December 17, 2007

19 - but once i do my imitations of barney and big bird and distract them with cookies, kittens and spiders, they won't want to fight me anymore

you all seem woefully inexperienced with children
posted by pyramid termite at 7:15 PM on December 17, 2007

Honestly, any tall person has an advantage because you can just sprint around. They will get tired sooner than you, then you can just charge in.
posted by sonic meat machine at 7:16 PM on December 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Wait, don't we have a copyright on that? WTF.
posted by spiderwire at 7:20 PM on December 17, 2007

...Oh, nevermind, we plagiarized it from somewhere else in the first place. Guess it's all good then.

Yarrrrr!
posted by spiderwire at 7:20 PM on December 17, 2007

I don't see why I have to take on multiple five-year-olds solo, anyhow. I mean, the man has to kill only one bear, and there's only one airplane on the conveyor belt, after all.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:21 PM on December 17, 2007

Two. I suck at this flash game.
posted by not_on_display at 7:21 PM on December 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

I swear to God there was an askme about this.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:22 PM on December 17, 2007

The real question is how many 5 year olds could you take on a flight?
posted by itchylick at 7:22 PM on December 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

My brother-in-law once randomly yelled, "Uncle Rossi has candy in his pockets!" at a family gathering. Within 10 seconds, my giant bear of a husband was on the the ground, guarding his groin and trying to convince half a dozen children under 9 that they had been misinformed.

You are all overestimating your abilities.
posted by jrossi4r at 7:26 PM on December 17, 2007 [15 favorites]

During the fight, would you feel morally comfortable picking up a child and using him/her as a weapon to throw at other children?

Well, that depends.
posted by not_on_display at 7:26 PM on December 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well, jrossi4r, he was probably unwilling to kick any of the little hellions in the throat. That handicaps your ability to demolish their pack behavior.
posted by sonic meat machine at 7:32 PM on December 17, 2007

21. Mostly because my moral compas is oh so wrong...
posted by AwkwardPause at 7:34 PM on December 17, 2007

32. Hating children seems to help.

Now having said that: are we assuming an element of surprise?

Also: jrossi4r Just how would your burly hubby feel about kicking those toddlers in the head? In public?
posted by pompomtom at 7:35 PM on December 17, 2007

The test said 21, but I wouldn't be comfortable taking on more children than I could realistically eat later.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 7:36 PM on December 17, 2007 [14 favorites]

26. Ahhh, but they've underestimated my mind melding/distraction techniques. The key is... make them cry. They lose their focus through the salty tears of a temper tantrum. And that's when you piledrive them.

Let's not forget... I've already taken down 2,800 beanie-wearing babies. 26 toddlers are nothing to me.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:37 PM on December 17, 2007

"Oh we compared notes on how to violently suppress a toddler uprising."

I, for one, welcome our new toddler overlords.
posted by scblackman at 7:38 PM on December 17, 2007

scblackman: you're either with us or against us....
posted by pompomtom at 7:42 PM on December 17, 2007

I'd like to think that he was above kicking small children, but I can't be sure. The thing is, he never got the chance. They were on him before he knew what was happening.

Children are wily and relentless. But more important, they have no sense of mortality, so they don't fear death. It's hard to fight an enemy that determined. Never go in against the chilluns when candy's on the line.
posted by jrossi4r at 7:43 PM on December 17, 2007

20 here, but I didn't see any way to factor in my deadly flatulence, which could easily render an area the size of a basketball court uninhabitable.
posted by maxwelton at 7:49 PM on December 17, 2007

I think jrossi4r has hit upon a winning Iraq strategy.
posted by ooga_booga at 7:49 PM on December 17, 2007

After much previous discussion and experimentation I think this experiment is just fundamentally flawed. The thing is that five year olds are pussies. They're the exact opposite fearless. All it takes is the brutal destruction of one toddler and the rest immediately break down in tears. A lot of them will also wet their pants. The entire idea of a "fearless five-year old" just doesn't make any sense and has no place in empirical reality.

A more interesting experiment is to replace the five-year olds with ferrets. And here the real vectors of the problem become apparent very quickly. It turns out that teeth and claws are tremendous force amplifiers. All it takes is one good bite in a vulnerable area and defeat quickly follows. Even a relatively small number (3-6) of hungry, trained ferrets are enough to consistently and severely disable both a highly-trained martial artist and a US Marine. This holds true even when they are allowed to work together against the ferret threat. But when you allow for even minimal armor (padded gloves, sweats and goggles) the kill counts immediately rise drastically. With heavy armor the humans can slaughter the ferrets without consequence and the result is a "ferret holocaust." Really the experiment demonstrates that swarm and mass tactics, even when totally uncoordinated, are extremely effective in close combat. As history aptly demonstrates, the only effective solution in the face of such tactics is self-propelled armor.
posted by nixerman at 7:53 PM on December 17, 2007 [7 favorites]

Ferrets?
posted by maxwelton at 8:00 PM on December 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

I swear to God there was an askme about this.

Sure you're not thinking of this?
posted by dobbs at 8:01 PM on December 17, 2007

nixerman: I'm afraid I can't subscribe to your philosophy until we've seen, say, a five on five bout between the kids and the ferrets.

I mean, I don't doubt the ferrets will win, but I want to see it.
posted by pompomtom at 8:03 PM on December 17, 2007

Metafilter is really going downhill.
posted by jedro at 8:06 PM on December 17, 2007

That site was based on a thread that I saw probably a few years ago now (and too tired to google up), and it was insanely funny. This website doesn't fare near as well.
posted by survivorman at 8:17 PM on December 17, 2007

dang jedro, did I just flush that $5 away?
posted by shshao at 8:19 PM on December 17, 2007

Now I see dobbs Metafilter link, but it was before that and on another discussion forum.
posted by survivorman at 8:19 PM on December 17, 2007

26.

I couldn't add in shin guards.

Or a chainsaw.
posted by Samizdata at 8:26 PM on December 17, 2007

How much you want to bet Apple legal is going to get all over that syringe and Apple logo together?
posted by mistersquid at 8:28 PM on December 17, 2007

I got 17, but I am sure it is massively higher. I don't think they did any actual tests or research. I think they just made it all up!
Let's see video.
posted by cccorlew at 8:51 PM on December 17, 2007

Hurt five year olds or GTFO!
posted by Samizdata at 8:58 PM on December 17, 2007

Reminds me of the Zombie Survival Guide.
posted by smackfu at 8:59 PM on December 17, 2007

Appended to the code supplied to put a badge on your own website:

<p><small>Looking for <a href="http://www.cashobfuscatingspammyURLadvance1500.com">payday loan</a>?</small></p>

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Is this a scummy marketing ploy, or is he deliberately trying to sabotage his audience's pagerank with spammy SEO tactics?
posted by brownpau at 9:09 PM on December 17, 2007

'Scummy marketing ploy', I'd presumed, but how hard is it to fix (if you're actually up to *gasp* cutting and pasting html)?
posted by pompomtom at 9:22 PM on December 17, 2007

38

...thousand.
posted by loquacious at 9:27 PM on December 17, 2007

What if they're all named Ender Wiggin?
posted by A dead Quaker at 9:37 PM on December 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

22.

Come on you little fuckers! Put up yer dukes!!
posted by Skygazer at 9:45 PM on December 17, 2007

22, but it failed to take into account that I work in a kindergarten and thus take on more than that many five-year-olds every day and live.
posted by emmling at 9:49 PM on December 17, 2007

31, which is the exact number shown in the site's logo. Hm.
posted by rokusan at 10:01 PM on December 17, 2007

I got 31 as well.

Bring it, bitches.
posted by gummi at 11:04 PM on December 17, 2007

26...thats 100% correct, well now i've got some science(?) to back me up if the *unfortunate* occurrence arises. What about a 10 year old? or an 70 year old?... i guess they both have their pro's and con's.
posted by DBrett's at 11:51 PM on December 17, 2007

5-year-old whats?

I figure I could take several 5-year-old kids, but probably not even one 5-year-old lion, elephant, shark*, or bear.

*Unless it's a nursing shark or some such.
posted by moonbiter at 1:02 AM on December 18, 2007

25. Same as in town.
posted by Jofus at 1:15 AM on December 18, 2007

Mine said 33, but I'd think it depends on where the relative start positions were. If you start surrounded you'd go down pretty quickly.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:59 AM on December 18, 2007

20. Not bad for a girl.
posted by dasheekeejones at 3:40 AM on December 18, 2007

Is this a scummy marketing ploy?

Here's an idea -- why not spread holiday cheer by killing the 37 five-year-olds attacking the person in line behind you?
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:00 AM on December 18, 2007 [7 favorites]

23 for me, but I, too, doubt the science behind this site (no accreditation). The whole exercise reminds me of a prior mefi posting about student-teacher relations during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. On some occasions you had classrooms of kids bullying these full grown adults. Not quite the same age group, but I bet those guys were asking a similar question am-I-right-guys?
posted by Edgewise at 4:20 AM on December 18, 2007

10

That's right, 10.

What do you expcect from a guy who isn't even man enough to cheat on his wife
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 5:08 AM on December 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

31. Of course, while you could wield one kid as a weapon, I'd think your numbers would go up.
posted by filmgeek at 5:12 AM on December 18, 2007

29, but I think I could take more real 5 year olds. As nixerman points out, and as I alluded to in the earlier askme, completely fearless 5 year olds aren't like any real 5 year olds. It doesn't matter that a 5 year old doesn't know "what death is," they certainly know what pain is and will try to avoid it.

With real 5 year olds, I don't think you're going to get much of a fight out of them once you pick up the nearest one and tear open his carotid with your teeth.
posted by juv3nal at 5:15 AM on December 18, 2007

This doesn't have nearly enough ninjas or Chuck Norris referrences to be TOTALLY AWESOME BRO WOOHOO GUITAR HERO

(boo.)
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 5:19 AM on December 18, 2007

Zero. My five-year-old kicks my ass all the time. Usually when I'm taking a nap.
posted by SteveTheRed at 5:20 AM on December 18, 2007

I agree with nixerman: How do you get kindergarteners to want to fight? Perhaps if you fed them a few black coffees laced with PCP they might become bloodthirsty.
posted by Lord Kinbote at 7:23 AM on December 18, 2007

37

Can we get a TKchrist answer in here? I bet he knows from experience, if not personally, I'm sure he's seen it happen to someone else.
posted by teishu at 7:29 AM on December 18, 2007

23

And I could have sworn I saw this elsewhere (via digg?), with a little more info. And why hasn't anyone linked to the AskMe thread on this?
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 7:49 AM on December 18, 2007

My wife and I attended a local professional wrestling event last week (a friend is one of the wrestlers). Of course, the front row of seats next to the ring was full of 8-to-12-year-olds, just LOVING everything, screaming for the "good guys", booing the "bad guys", etc. The wrestlers were playing to the kids, yelling at them, acting mean, running around for high-fives, etc.

When one of the "bad guys" came over to the kids to do his act, my wife leaned over and said "man, all those kids together would KICK HIS ASS..."

I had to agree. No matter how good shape you're in, enough little kids would drag you down. Plus, a kick to the balls is a kick to the balls.
posted by mrbill at 8:21 AM on December 18, 2007

38
Makes no sense at all. I wouldn't fight hordes of 5 year olds. I'd open up with a machine gun from a good 500 yards out.

Gotta Nth nixerman, I see anyone take out 10 or 20 guys just like me without breaking a sweat, psychologically you'd probably start re-thinking attacking this guy. Even if you are fanatically motivated, you'd probably lob grenades or molatov cocktails or something. Reminds me of the old kung fu movies. Not only were they not attacking en masse, but at some point some supernaturally bad ass dude one punch k.o.'s all of the baddest dudes you train with, you're probably not going to rush him.
(I like the Zombie apocalypse question)
posted by Smedleyman at 9:00 AM on December 18, 2007

Two.

Hopefully.

Because that's how many five-year-olds I'll have in 2010.
posted by davejay at 9:33 AM on December 18, 2007

HAHAHAHA
posted by hellslinger at 9:49 AM on December 18, 2007

"How do you get 5 year olds to want to fight?" - my guess would be to ensure that they're "properly" raised from birth. Most 5 year olds speak pretty well, but if you keep it in a crib in a closed room so you don't hear it cry (don't worry, in a few weeks/months it will give up crying when it realizes that crying doesn't help), it's not going to speak very well at 5. I'm sure that one could train a 5 year old to fearlessly attack the bigguns, and only the bigguns (important, so the rampaging chilluns don't take each other out).

As for kicking the kids in the throat or head, as balance will be important I'd recommend going for the stomach just beneath the ribs. Your foot is raised less high, so you'll be able to bring it back to the ground quicker. It might not knock the kid out, but it will be on the ground for minutes trying to breath and that will provide an obstacle for the other kids. Plus, you're less likely to miss.
posted by nobeagle at 10:34 AM on December 18, 2007

Now see, I got 33, but the site underestimates the role of intelligence here.

What I would do, with my solomon-like wisdom, is ask all the kids "Who wants to destroy me?" And whoever says "Not me!", I point to that kid and go, "All right, since you have my best interest at heart, you are the winner." and then all the other kids are like "FUUUUUCK" and that one kid who won is like "NIIIIIICE"

tl dr use bible tricks for massive damage
posted by Greg Nog at 1:46 PM on December 18, 2007

That site was based on a thread that I saw probably a few years ago now (and too tired to google up), and it was insanely funny. This website doesn't fare near as well.

Ya, I saw this a few years ago as well. I think this was the post that started it all--still hilarious.
posted by dyslexictraveler at 10:13 AM on December 19, 2007