You happen to have carved out a small portion of the Internet, a medium that aside from porn is primarily for pirates vs. ninjas debates, and declared it's for some other purpose. That doesn't mean you're allowed to be surprised when pirates vs. ninjas debates happen.

Is he allowed to be surprised when lesswrong porn happens?

Besides, it's not like we're having really ridiculous thread-derailing discussions.

I know you are mostly just building up to a "Twilight Sparkle" joke but I'm going to express agreement with this anyway. The main way that this thread has gone off topic is in as much as the skill that daenyrs is testing and training isn't 'consequentialism' it is a different rationalist skill.

or a plane on a treadmill will be able to take off,

Reading this prompted me to ask myself a similar question:

Could wind powered plane on the ground traveling directly downwind take off? My answer is yes, and science is awesome! but I expect I'd get into arguments about it with even my educated friends who would say "no".

They are a paramilitary organisation with government support.

This also applies to my paradigm of "pirate".

Let's say the pirates have a secret, semi-fortified island base. Ninja objective is to eliminate the threat of pirates to local shipping; pirate objective is to escape with as much of the loot as possible, or failing that, a workable ship and their lives. Ideally the pirates would also like to have a base from which to operate, but such a location is only really useful if it hasn't already been located by enemy forces.

Presuming you're talking about my take on ninja I'm informed mainly by martial arts lore, which (outside the schools calling themselves ninjutsu, which incidentally are almost all modern inventions) is probably a little more interested in demystifying the tradition than the Wikipedia authors are. The wiki definitely puts a more glamorous spin on it, but reading between the lines I don't see too much that's actually incompatible with my take -- note the emphasis on infiltration and sabotage rather than combat, and that the field agents were mostly drawn from the lower class.

I can't believe you missed the chance to say, "Taboo pirates and ninjas."

"Pirates versus Ninjas is the Mind-Killer"

Doesn't work - the accent is on the second syllable.

Taboo pirate ninja badger mushroom narwhal!

Oooh yes. Upvoted for awesomeness.

We're talking wikipedia pirates and wikipedia ninjas.

As far as I understand, these two groups have never fought each other in any engagement, having neither the motivation nor the skills to do so. I cannot envision a realistic and deliberate ninja vs. pirate engagement, unless one or both of the parties were drunk or stoned out of their minds. Naturally, I'd assumed you were talking about fictional scenarios.

Why would real ninjas fight real pirates ? Isn't that the job for the Coast Guard, or the ancient Japanese equivalent thereof ?

Real pirates and ninjas.

If we are being "real" then it only makes sense that the historical ninja would be fighting wokou, which are Japanese pirates of the period.

Worse in what manner? In individual combat? A pirate crew vs. an association of ninjas?

From the comments I've read so far, I think the hypothetical situations you've used to determine that ninjas would win are grossly weighted in favor of ninjas. For example, you've already said it can't be any sea-based conflict (unless the ninjas are specially-trained sailor-ninjas on a navy ship, instead of being passenger ninjas booking passage on a merchant ship, as most would do if required to travel by sea if traveling by sea is incidental to their main function - being, in this case, assassination), "because why would ninjas be at sea?" Yet it can be "drunk pirates in whorehouses, unaware they are being targeted, vs ninjas that know exactly where they are and can get to them in time."

Your ninjas also have unrealistic government support (they were usually employed by noble families or daimyos, not imperial forces, and considered quite expendable - see hairyfigment's comment below), "better" ships than the pirates (AFAIK almost impossible, considering the naval technology the sides would be using), the ability to obtain whatever training is required (no time limit? the pirates cannot buy training too?), are aware of the conflict while the pirates aren't (or would they be getting drunk on land? well - maybe), etc.

A distinction should be made between a strict determination of fighting prowess - pirates vs ninjas in equal numbers in open combat - and the sort of situation you seem to be thinking of, wherein we try to be as realistic as possible, and all factors (such as whether or not ninjas would be at sea, and a sailor's propensity to get drunk) are considered. The latter is a lot more difficult to figure out, since so much would depend on circumstance (as in your drunk pirate example). This should also include allowance for the favored methods of both sides - pirates fighting at sea, ninjas not charging forward in open combat but assassinating and infiltrating - though you only seem to make the latter allowance.

For the former situation, I believe pirates could possibly win. They have better guns, and contrary to popular assumption, pirates could be very skilled in swordsmanship and general brawling. A lot of them were ex-navy, and in any case you wouldn't survive long as a pirate without obtaining some competence. Ninjas might be trained in espionage and assassination, but that doesn't include open combat, and they'd likely have less experience with it than pirates. They were trained in swordmanship as well, though, and quite possibly more thoroughly (but in some cases inadequately!), and bows could be as good or better than guns at many points in our possible time-range.

For the latter, here are a few factors to consider. One, ninjas didn't often attack in groups; sometimes they operated in small teams, but not any as large as a pirate crew. They were not used to wipe out large groups of people, but individual targets. Already we must depart from realism if we want to grant anything like equal numbers; it wouldn't be interesting to think about "one ninja vs a crew of pirates", but it weights the situation in favor of the ninjas if we go beyond "a small group of ninjas vs a crew of pirates". Two, would the pirates be aware they're being targeted by assassins? That would seem to depend on why exactly they're being targeted - a bounty they might be aware of; a covert vendetta for personal reasons, probably not. Trying to think of a realistic reason for the conflict might be a bit difficult. Three, I don't think ninjas could ever requisition ships, but if they could, they would still be at a disadvantage in naval combat considering the superiority of European vessels up until very recently. (It's not like pirates would be exactly inexperienced at naval combat, note.) Four, the pirates might be based at an unknown location, or nowhere at all, leaving the ninjas to attempt to catch them either in the act of raiding a coastal village, or making landfall to obtain supplies. Five, the ninjas might also be based in a location unknown to the pirates, or operating clandestinely; so while I initially considered that the pirates might raid their Ninja HQ, that might not be possible.

So... we might have a crew of pirates making landfall in various locations and attempting to locate and kill a small (<12?) team of ninjas, and said small team of ninjas attempting to catch them in the act and kill them right back. I suppose there is also the possibility of ninjas acquiring a vessel to pursue the pirates, although I can't see how that would end any way but badly for them. They could hardly crew the entire vessel themselves, even if they had sufficient numbers, as they're not sailors. You could give them some year(s) to obtain sailing skill, but then, you could also give the pirates some year(s) to obtain espionage skill. You could give them an unhistorical amount of support and grant them a naval vessel with crew, but now it's not strictly pirates vs. ninjas.

A variety of situations could develop from this: ninjas creep aboard anchored pirate vessel and attempt to assassinate the crew, pirates raid village where ninjas are staying, pirates and ninjas engage in naval combat, land-based combat... I think, as Nornagest says above, it is clear that you have to stretch to come up with a situation in which they're actually engaging in conflict, and if you do, who wins depends entirely on the circumstance you have concocted.

To say that anyone who doesn't think real pirates aren't "ridiculously 'worse' than ninjas is not thinking well at all" seems quite absurd to me, and even smacks of "ninja fanboyism". It's by no means so clear-cut that any pirate-supporter is obviously mentally deficient. And I like ninjas much more, personally. Pirates were awful people who deserve to be vilified, not romanticized. I don't even know why I've put this much effort in supporting them, come to think of it, except my general urge to correct what I see as error. I've been exposed to too much weeabo-ism, perhaps.

Fictional ninjas are handicapped by the fact that they attack one at a time. Fictional pirates, meanwhile, in addition to not suffering from scurvy like you'd expect, have improbably awesome fencing powers.

Most of your amazement can be explained by you thinking that that 'pirates vs ninjas' belongs in the same reference class as:

• Raptors vs. Jesus
• Twinkie vs. cockroach
• Star Trek vs. Pop Tarts

That seems utterly ridiculous. Are you being disingenuous or are you serious?

Like thomblake, I'm amazed at your amazement, but on a different track. Unless you're an expert in the histories of navies, espionage, and other miscellany, why would you expect your intuition to both identify closed questions and the correct answers?

The experts you appeal to are indeed far more impressive than I and I wouldn't dream of claiming their status as my own. That said the fact that very impressive people can answer trivial questions too doesn't make questions non-trivial. (Or useful, for that matter.)

Well, you see what you've done here is you've put me in a situation where I'm in an argument I don't care about, I agree with you, and yet some part of my brain is still playing Pirate's Advocate. Thanks very much.

Maybe they're just sailing on their way to a ninja convention, when suddenly - bam, pirates!

Upvoted for delicious ironic ambiguity.