how many five year olds?

Kurt sent me a link to a website that is, unfortunately, so burdened with traffic that it is currently down.

The website asks: how many five year olds could you take in a fight?

Now, this might seem rather morbid, but really it’s kind of an interesting question. The Kids will, presumably, use swarm techniques on you. Kids… everywhere. If the ‘fighting kids’ thing has you wigged out, consider instead the question: how many soft short robots could you take in a fight?

Some facts:
Average height of a five year old: 1 meter. (3 feet 3 inches)
Average weight of a five year old: 18 Kilograms (40 pounds)
Average armspan of a five year old: about 38.1 centimeters (15 inches)

Assumptions:
The kids feel no fear in their attacks.
You have no moral standards that prevent you from fighting your hardest.
The swarm is made up of the average five year old.
Both you and the children are allowed to fight dirty
The fight starts with you surrounded completely by a sea of kids. The kids start three feet away from you.
The kids were not allowed to make strategies ahead of time.

So you tell me, how many five year olds would you be able to take in a fight? As the comments come together I think we’ll develop a pretty interesting conversation regarding methods, means, and strategies.

21 thoughts on “how many five year olds?

  • 12/14/2007 at 4:37 pm
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    My Claim is for 85 kids! I will feel no remorse as I pound their fleshy little inexperienced bodies to a pulp. Seriously. 5 year olds. I fight dirty against kids my own ages, why would i suddenly start following some obscure set of war rules. The first kid I can grab will become a weapon of mass destruction. eyes will be gauged from my vantage point of 1.66 meters. My increased arm range will keep the biters at bay. And if I slip on the blood of my fallen enemies and the kids swarm me under, I doubt the kids will be able to generate enough force behind their punches and kicks to even register as a bug bite. Little kids are just substandard humans waiting to get picked on and stomped. I say bring it on!

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  • 12/14/2007 at 4:49 pm
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    Nay Kurt. Nay.

    Your overzealousness will be your downfall. Little kids can be tough. 85? I think not. Even with my martial arts training I don’t think I could take more than 40. And that might be a sizable stretch.

    At least 6 or so will be on you at any one time. And if you go down, it’s practically over. 40 pounds might not seem like a lot, but when you hit the ground at least 8-10 could start trampling and 320-400 pounds is tough to take for anyone. 20 might be more reasonable.

    Also, little kids squiggle. I don’t think it would be such an easy task to use one as a weapon, especially when there are 5 more of them clawing at you from all sides.

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  • 12/14/2007 at 4:54 pm
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    I think you are correct MikeD. I did the test and I can only kill, cause I won’t leave an unconcious kid alive to rise up and stab me in the back, 27 of the hooligans.

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  • 12/14/2007 at 6:46 pm
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    I don’t know how well I can punch. I’ve only thrown one real punch in my entire life. But I figure that I can kick pretty well. I would think that a kick to the head would be enough to take out a 5-year old. Elbows and knees would be useful, too.

    If there are unlimited kids though, you’re bound to lose. They’d be piranhas. Or quicksand. You’d just drown in them. But there were 30 of them, it’d be a lot more fair.

    Speaking of unfair… I’d take off my belt and swing it around, buckle side out.

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  • 12/14/2007 at 6:54 pm
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    Good Thinking! Way to think outside the box! What about tying your shoelaces together and whipping them around like a pair of nunchuks?! Yeah. Take that you fingerpainting morons!

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  • 12/14/2007 at 7:45 pm
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    As the mother of a five-year-old, I refuse to participate, but I will point out that a bite from a five-year-old is just as painful as a dog bite, and they can easily trip you by latching onto your leg.

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  • 12/14/2007 at 11:19 pm
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    Speaking as somebody who’s envisioned lethality against 5 year olds even before Mike D. mentioned this quagmire to me today at work, I’m fairly confident that in a fight scenario my adrenaline (based on the experience of several life or death scenarios) would turn me into a feel-no-pain killing machine.
    Additionally, 5-year-olds are fairly low in bodily fortitude – sooner or later I’d rip off somebody’s arm – aka Nature’s Nunchucks! Between a severed elbow and wrist joint, my swinging bony weapon would easily extend the amount of damage I could do without hurting my hands, possibly breaking fingers. Even if you feel no pain, a hand full of broken fingers is good for little more than slapping.
    Furthermore, as soon as a 5 year old latches onto your leg he’s in prime “punching range.” You can box his ears and that little bugger is down for at least a couple minutes for you to destroy his buddies.

    Jes Saint – your faulty maternal instincts would surely render you somewhat weak in such a situation, but I can only suspect that as a mother of a 5 year old you must have better reasons to fight 5 year olds than anybody else! Them little guys are AGGRAVATING.

    Also, Kurt might have an advantage if he runs head-first through a crowd of them – he’d be a human battering ram.

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  • 12/15/2007 at 11:02 am
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    Most five-year-olds are easily distracted by candy, grandparents, and balloons. Pacifist methods are quite useful.

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  • 12/15/2007 at 12:30 pm
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    I think you’re all overlooking one big point. As you start dropping wee lil’ foes, the pile will accumulate. Assuming you could keep moving, this would not be a problem, but since you’re lost adrift a sea of maniac munchkins, there’s really no where to go. To prevent yourself from being buried alive, you must be prepared for a serious game of King of the Corpse Hill. This is where we rock climbers bring something to the party. No doubt a lifeless pile of twerps is AT BEST a 5.6 (only because the “holds” probably move). Once on top of the pile, you have the EXTREME advantage of the high ground. The other brats will have to scale the mountain of their fallen comrades to get to you. I think I could do this indefinitely until maybe I reached an altitude where I’d pass out. Or maybe I’d get bored and barrel down at full speed, seeing how much carnage I could create in one last blaze of glory!

    And Sander, I can’t believe you wouldn’t use your superpower against the enemy. Eat Fatty, EAT!

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  • 12/15/2007 at 7:33 pm
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    Jeez, no one’s going to make the obvious movie references inspired by this, quite cerebral, discussion?

    First off I’m picturing Matrix 2 when Neo fights a ton of Agent Smiths. For fun replace yourself with Neo and 5-year olds with Smith. Go ahead, do the stop-time punches and levitating. Very effective on the wee ones I wager.

    Next is Mike’s response to Kurt. Princess Bride as Inigo Montoya and Fezzik plan to attack the castle. Inigo and Fezzik discuss the number of guards they can handle. “But the castle gate is guarded by thirty men”….. “I don’t think more than ten.”

    Lastly, Jesse it sounds like you’re discribing 300 to the T.

    My addition is that if I dress up in a flaming effigy of Elmo I’ll scare thousands of 5-year olds to death.

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  • 12/15/2007 at 11:34 pm
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    Jesee – Provided you’ve built up enough muscle mass to curl yourself into a ball (of planet-like proportions), I think your roll down the pile of bodies would undoubtedly double your kill number.

    Also, SCREW YOU… I only eat people if I’m REALLY hungry, and they’d have to be at least partially cooked.

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  • 12/15/2007 at 11:41 pm
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    Kurt –
    You are so full of poop.
    I filled out this survey given the following provisions –

    -I’m “Athletic” body type.
    -I have a big reach (+4 ape index – woot!)

    And got an answer of 27 5 year olds.
    The same answer as you!

    1. Describing your body as Athletic would be a strech of the imagination…I think overweight at best – even if you had 6-pack abs your head weighs at least 200 lbs.
    2. Your reach is measly, due to years of holding your arms at your sides playing Halo, in a sea of uneaten Doritos.

    How dare you lie to the internet – for shame!

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  • 12/16/2007 at 11:40 pm
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    OK I have to weigh in on this one, and I don’t need any website to tell me how many of the little bastards I could take. My extensive experience as an apathetic and somewhat mean camp counselor tells me all I need to know. Over the summer I would routinely take on fifteen to twenty children between the ages of 6 and 12 often with a 13 or 14 year old thrown in to add some challenge.
    Now lets keep a few things in mind here #1-because of parents and police I had to hold back quite a bit (aka no finishing moves) #2-due to this it was 15–20 of them multiplied by the number of times they could get back up. This would last until someone got hurt bad enough for an icepack, usually 20 minutes or more, sometimes this was on purpose but usually by accident (this is the part where being the first aid director came in handy).
    Now I can give you a few hints. Little kids aren’t very coordinated and often just fall on their own. A child can easily be used as a sort of bludgeon if necessary. They aren’t very heavy and you can easily use them as projectiles. and most importantly they are sissies you don’t have to hit them very hard to make them cry and run away. Now if we are talking to the death remember the top of their head may still be a bit soft.
    Taking all of that into consideration I predict that I could take 50 at a minimum probably more like 75, and on a good day I bet I could wipe out 100 5 year olds. That of course is bare handed there is no point in doing the math for other possibilities.

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  • 12/17/2007 at 11:14 am
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    I believe that, yes, Joel could easily take out 100 five year olds.

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  • 12/17/2007 at 12:09 pm
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    I bet he could also take five 100 yr olds! GO JOEL!

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  • 12/19/2007 at 11:40 am
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    A bunch of 5 year olds could probably kick my ass.

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  • 12/19/2007 at 11:13 pm
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    Having seen pictures, and limited low-res video or Irene (I am not referring to amateur internet porn, but rather the time Mike D kicked a cup off her head), I’m confident that her skinny, short stature would prove impossible for 5 year olds to effectively injure provided she wore really baggy clothing. It’d be like trying to hit a baseball hidden inside a beachball – super hard!

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  • 12/20/2007 at 8:04 am
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    A poor 22 for me, although I think I was a little generous in my answers and I’m tempted to suggest the real question should be “How many Rolands could a 5 year old take in a fight?”.

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  • 12/20/2007 at 12:01 pm
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    I got a 22 (I think it’s lack of experience in fights, and experience in being trampled).

    Seriously, more than 4 and I think I would be in trouble. My neice is almost 4 and small for her age, and I don’t think I could handle more than a half-dozen of her.

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