Sci-Fi Fans....what are the names of these 2 short stories??

Question

These 2 stories have haunted me for years...I read them more than 20 years ago and I have mentioned them many times in my life as possibilities for the future(or possibilities for the present)

The first story centered on 3 people(2 girls and a guy) that wake up on an endless staircase. No food. No water. Gradually, they are "taught" to abuse each other to receive rewards of food and water. What is the name of this story?

The second involves the colonization of a distant planet. The colonists board rockets and head for the stars with full fan-fair but there is a dark secret: the rockets are poorly constructed and all of the "colonists" die. The whole plan of the "colonization" is to kill off anyone who is dumb enough to get on the rockets. What is the name of this story???

Answer 1

1st story is -  " A Brief History of the Republicans"

2nd is -   " The Democrats Suckered the Republicans Again "

Answer 2

Not sure about the first, but the second sounds like one of Ray Bradbury's stories in "The Illustrated Man."  

Answer 3

The first story is probably the novel "House of Stairs" by William Sleator (there were, however, 3 girls and 2 boys).

The second story is "The Marching Morons" by C. M. Kornbluth.  The premise was that stupid people had had so many more kids than the intelligent and well-educated that the vast majority of humanity were morons by today's standards.  The relatively few descendants of the intelligent had to spend their entire lives taking care of the majority, until a 20th-century man was woken up from suspended animation and suggested the plan you mention to kill off the majority.  

Answer 4

The first one sounds like The House of Stairs by William Sleator, only its a book, not a short story.  I have no idea on the second one, sorry.

Answer 5

Not an answer you wanted.

The second theme recurs in a number of books, essentially its the plot of Frederik Pohl's The Space Merchants and also occurs in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, where Earth is colonized by the phone sanitizers and other worthless members of a society.  Neither is the short story you want, but just examples of how the theme has been used at later points.

I recognize the first without the stair case idea, but I seem to remember more than just three people. A locked enviroment instead of a stair case.  Something where the rules kept changing and some refused to abuse the others even to survive.  It bothers me I can't remember the author.  I've read a lot of sci-fi short stories over the years.  Now it is starting to haunt me