Would you rather be a cowboy, a pirate or a samurai?
Found this question on an Instagram reel as dating advice for girls if they don't know what to talk about and that men have a lot of opinions about this. Let's see if she's right.
Pirate! CGP Grey has a great video on how pirate ships worked. They were a lot more democratic and fair than the merchant marine which worked their crew to the bone and paid them peanuts.
Forgot to mention the part where that democratic society is upheld by the fact that you can (and will, if you're an asshole) be stabbed dead by nearly anyone you interact with. Your own crew, your "customers", the law, rival pirates, all of them have a will and a way of removing you if you don't play fair. This is great for ensuring a fair society, only at the constant imminent risk of death.
Although to be fair I suppose cowboys and samurai were also pretty frequently in deadly dangerous conditions.
Most of the the time cowboys and ranch hands were in danger from their herd stampeding, or the occasional cattle thief. It's very hard work, and not nearly as romantic as Hollywood makes it out to be.
Though if you like camping you might like an old school cattle drive.
On a tour of HMS Victory in Portsmouth, UK (Nelson's ship at the Battle of Trafalgar) the tour guide explained that commissioned officers had never ventured into the darkness below the deck, and if they did and ended up with their throat slit it would have been considered a self inflicted injury. And that was a ship ostensibly on the right side of the law.
Samurai's lives belong to their masters. I couldn't live that way.
Pirates live by killing and stealing. I couldn't live that way.
That leaves cowboys. Certainly not the glorious and romantic life Hollywood makes it out to be, but generally honest work toward specific goals and freedom otherwise, which'd be fine.
Reminds me of a neighbor I had years ago who was an archaeologist.
He said once that archaeologists are basically cowboys with degrees - that the work they do is often just sort of a way to get out into the middle of nowhere and camp for weeks at a time and get paid for it.
Samurai. Literal nobility, regular baths, nice clothes, fitted armor, regular training, and at least during the Edo period, low risk of actually having to go into battle (doesn't apply during the prior periods of course). Good food, good rice wine, poetry and music, good literature, intellectually stimulating conversations.
Contrast a cowboy - saddle sores, dust, caked sweat from weeks without baths, cholera, gangrene, bandits, native raids, long hours, and the blazing desert sun.
And the pirate: nothing to eat but hardtack and freeze-dried cod until you make port or board a merchantman, hunted by the Royal Navy, surrounded by fellow pirates who haven't bathed since the last port call, constantly alternating between seasickness and landsickness, cramped quarters belowdecks, constant risk of drowning, and when you finally go on a raid, you're getting shot at by grapeshot and 16-pounder roundshot at effectively point-blank range.
Joke's on you. Anyone can be a literal pirate right now, no boat required. Just grab a BitTorrent client and off you go. 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Honestly, I'd choose that technically correct option because it's probably the one that makes it easiest to get and maintain insulin, which I need to live.
I came in here for this comment. When the choices are "criminal fighting the immensity of the ocean", "guy named for all the cows and famous for shooting/being shot by other cow guys", and literal nobility, it's a solid deal. Of all three, one has the lowest chance of death, highest quality of life, and you pretty much got to do whatever you wanted depending on the era. The law that let you kill offending lower classes for twenty days of house arrest was only struck off the books in the mid 19th century.
I have not but I did read Shogun by James Clavelle. It is an epic novel and quite a good read. I should check this one out. I am quite curious about it.
Can I be Hasekura Tsunenaga, the samurai who went to Mexico? That way I could be a cowboy samurai. Plus I could be a pirate during the journey from Japan to Mexico. ✓ ✓ ✓
Cowboy literally just means rancher. It was not a particularly good job in the wild west and it's only marginally better now.
Samurai were well respected, well paid, and had social status. The downside is that they needed to kill people or die trying when their boss said to, which doesn't sound like fun to me.
Pirates also have the problem of having to do violence on a regular basis, but without the glamour and respect of being Samurai.
Surely a pirate in the Caribbean or the Philippines wouldnt be too awful as you wouldn't be out at sea that much and close to land. For me it's the exploration and discovery that appeals to a life of piracy, but in reality I imagine it would be an absolute dog shit existence, especially compared to that of a samurai (minimal bloodshed unless there's a war) or cowboy (you look after horses on a ranch). However, many pirates just did a stint and then returned back home, so what's 2-3 years of making booty and having PTSD from cannon fire/pillaging.
What year for samurai, and what rank? Samurai in 1590 were very different from samurai in 1850; after the warring states period ended, samurai quickly lost everything except their pride. Merchants - nominally the lowest class (burakumin were outside of the class system) - had far more wealth and real power than the samurai in the years preceding the Meiji restoration. A low-ranking samurai around 1820 would be a life of poverty that was still filled with class and social obligations; not cool.
Overall, probably a ranch hand (cowboy was a derogatory term). Yeah, the pay was shit, and it was hard work, but you got to be outside all the time.
For Samurai it would depend on when. Samurai became defacto nobility, but they began in the 8th century as just mercenaries hired by local nobles to protect their estates.
But a cowboy is a life in the open air on a ranch. Hard work for sure, but hard work doesn't bother me.
In the early years of their existence they were just mercenaries, but they had horses (expensive) and were pretty much only hired by nobility (decent accommodations)
By the end they were automatically nobility themselves, even to this day if you were still a "samurai" you'd either be a descendent of a wealthy family or a famous figure for 1 reason or another. Not a bad life
Just throwing this out there, you can literally be a cowboy or a pirate today right now. The only barriers to entry are willingness and the minor physical ability they require.
Samurai is unfortunately impossible.
Id be a cowboy. Just a rancher landlord with guns. Its probably the closest of the 3 with a peacefull lifestile since killng is not that necesary. And i could be a modern day cowboy with a truck and an automated farm house and i still would be a cowboy since i work with cows, have guns and wear a hat sometimes.
Pirate and cowboy would both be really hard, dirty and deadly. So I'd go with samurai. They're basically just the ruling aristocracy, for most of their time they've never had to fight. So lots of money comfort and safety beat the more freedom you have for the other two.
Because cowboys unlike your weird understanding of what a cowboy "is," actually still exist. Some of the people at your local Walmart are literally blue-color workers with the job title "cowboy." Now why you would want those laborers banished to "the shadow realm" is obviously some kind of perverted understanding of class in american society that you need to work out for yourself. Hopefully you can understand that actual cowboys exist to today, but Samurais, since they are dependent on feudalism, cannot and do not exist any longer.
Samurai. They were freaking rich, ate good food and married well. They did good deeds and shit and had plenty of time for self reflection and improvment.
When thinking of each, if it was in a world where life is good and I'm living in the picturesque lifestyle that comes to mind for each one, then probably a Pirate.
Sailing the open seas is the picture that comes to mind and it's the most "romantic" to me.
Pirates wiped their asses after a shit with a rope. The same rope was used by the entire crew and never switched. I would not enjoy being a pirate. Not at all.
All would actually suck if these are the realistic versions, but Cowboy would suck the least, at least as a violence-averse person (if you're not violence-averse I understand why you'd pick Samurai.)
Movie versions, I'd still go Cowboy. I'd get stir crazy on a boat and I don't like answering to people like Samurai need to.
Cowboy you get to live a normal life in modern times compared to the other two. A modern day pirate is a shitty 3rd world existence and a samurai means being in Japan. I’ll take Cowboy with a loving wife and kids raising cattle and in the evenings getting to stream 4K content with Starlink on my OLED tv eating amazing BBQ anyday.
I want to be a samurai. I wanted to be one since I was a kid, and I want to be one even more after having read Hagakure. I even try to live up to a lot of the same ideals Yamamoto Tsunetomo laid out in the book about what it meant to be samurai. It's almost the same idea as medieval chivalry; but more intense and without the religious overtones.
A cowboy. I was born in the western US and spent some of my young life on a cattle ranch. It's hard work and at the end of the day, there's a sense of accomplishment.
Not interested in being a pirate, stealing isn't my thing. I don't like the idea of slicing and dicing people, so samurai wouldn't work for me either.
Not even considering being a pirate makes me wonder what you were thinking about? Like being in a fictional world is most awesome thing that can happen to you ever. But also for real their life isn't that bad as being scalped alive
My presumptions says that they don't have great healthcare nor food... And in the fictional world, you'll get hanged unless it's something like One Piece (which would be cool I guess)
Pirate is definitely out - I don't really care to be surrounded by guys 24/7 on a crowded and dirty ship. Samurai maybe but I'd go with "Cowboy". Has the best chance for a somewhat modern life and many chances to meet women...
tough choice. all super cool. all equally tough jobs for their own reason. i guess cowboy because i have not been on a boat long enough and have not practuced swordplay as much