fezziwig comments on SotW: Check Consequentialism - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 March 2012 01:35AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (311)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Nornagest 29 March 2012 05:47:31PM *  6 points [-]

The identity-memes are the only reason the question even exists. Historical pirates were mostly desperate or ambitious but otherwise ordinary sailors, and usually had pretty short careers. Historical ninja were usually dirt-poor burakumin without much in the way of reliable support, and -- in common with a lot of other historical assassins -- were individually used more as ammunition than as soldiers. I'm having a hard time coming up with a reasonable scenario in which they (as opposed to the pop-cultural image of either one) would have any incentive to fight, and if you stretch to create one the outcome would be almost completely determined by the circumstances.

Comment author: fezziwig 29 March 2012 06:48:12PM 1 point [-]

Historical pirates were mostly desperate or ambitious but otherwise ordinary sailors...

Even that's pretty time-period dependent; check out e.g. Jean Lafitte's utterly ridiculous career.