TRUTH OR MEME

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>muh a/c
>muh modern medicine
>muh hygiene

>>2221276
Meme.

>>2221276

Roman Emperors had villas all over the place and could visit places with cooler climates whenever the fuck they wanted. They also had access to the best food of the time, and limitless boipucci.

It's up to how much you value your iPhone and Porn, I guess.

>>2221282
>>2221283

He's got a point though, if you were a Roman Emperor or Egyptian Pharaoh, odds of dying young were pretty good. Just by being associated with the Emperor was enough to get your ass killed if shit went bad. The average person in America doesn't have to worry about being assassinated.

>>2221276
>Egyptian pharaoh or ancient Roman Emperor
Worshiped as a god, unlimted sex, your own army

>Average modern man
Wage slave, debt ridden, seen as source of all evil by women and minorities

It depends on what you value. If bossing people around and having them flatter you is worth more to you than any material thing, then for you the emperor is better off. But that's pretty much the only way that's true.

truth or meme
>old-timey pirates just wanted to live free and self-governed and weren't just greedy pricks with a particular set of skills and nowhere else to go

>>2221276
there were advantages and disadvantages, higher life expectancy versus servants to tend to your every whim

>>2221317

Stede Bonnet believed this but that's because he was an idealistic aristocrat that believed in adventure and personal glory. He was also almost killed by his crew multiple times because he was so incredibly inept.

Most pirates according to The History of the Buccaneers of America (literally the only book on Piracy you need, given when it was written and the thoroughness on the topic), were in it because they were tired of being pressed into service by the press gangs of Britain, France, and Spain.

If they were going to live shitty lives at sea, they were going to make sure that the empires that had fucked them over, or attempted to fuck them over bled for it.

As for the whole self-governance thing, this was just an attempt to be recognized as a sovereign state in order to have some sort of say in negotiations and rights. Rather than just being flat out murdered after being tried by kangaroo courts, as was usually the case when they were arrested.

Finally, like all groups, there were extremely bloodthirsty crews who fucking murdered everyone just because. One account in the book makes mention of a group of pirates who came across a town, ordered that they pay a ransom or they'd attack, the town coughed up all the money, and then the next day the pirates came back and murdered everyone anyway.

For most though, they just wanted to make some money and then discretely try to sneak back into their country of origin. There is multiple accounts of this happening successfully.

>>2221317
They wanted to survive. One of the roman leaders actually gave them place to live as alternative plus killed anyone who did piracy so after that there wasnt much of pirates. Carrot and whip werks.

>>2221364
>like all groups, there were extremely bloodthirsty crews who fucking murdered everyone just because
>like all groups
Thank you for the good info, sincerely, but are you just a pirateboo justifying their murderous ways with a "that humans for you" outlook? :D

>>2221396

Not really.

The conduct of pirates was actually pretty well mannered. They never really had to force anyone into service (outside those with specialized skills such as carpentry, and doctors). Most sailors gladly changed sides without even being prompted because the ship's captains (even if they were private endeavors) were brutal assholes, and the pay was miserable. Most of the poor in England at the time were either sailors or farmers. Because of this, the value of their labor was for shit.

The potentially lucrative nature of being a pirate was overwhelmingly seen as a better path in life than a miserable sea dog that would likely die from malnutrition or illness. It was recorded that one in every three sailors were expected to die while on their various voyages. And losses of up half the total crew wasn't an uncommon occurrence. And this was if everything went well!

In the overwhelming number of recorded incidents of pirate attacks, the "attacks" were just warning shots, boarding actions to see who wanted to join up, and then the taking of cargo. In that order.

However, these unspoken rules of engagement were only followed if their target didn't fight back, or surrendered when prompted. If they didn't, then it was the way of the sword. Ships, however, were rarely sunk by pirates because new ships were always seen as valuable commodities. The Bahamas was for shit in terms of good lumber, and given the ports were rudimentary at best, there was very little that they could do in the way of repairs. Full refits were unheard of. Pirates literally ran their ships until they fell apart.

>>2221396
>>2221428

Also, most pirate vessels were like the overloaded trains you see in Indian. This was due to the relatively short trips they were to taking, given that roving longer distances became more and more dangerous for a variety of reasons. This included weather (there was a disastrous voyage to New England that destroyed one of the largest pirate fleets ever assembled just as it got there, killing basically everyone), a higher incidence of running into a Man o' War, and supplies running short before they could find anyone to raid.

Pirate doctrine favored tons of dudes on board so that even at a distance the pirates could terrorize their foes with battle songs, shouting, raucous noise, and vulgar attire. This was usually enough to convince other crews into just giving up. If it didn't work, then they could board with the numerical advantage that the other vessels didn't have. Thereby increasing the total odds of success.