An important question to ask that you are leaving out is “What are my alternatives to this course of action?”
The comparison of consequences requires an alternative set of consequences to compare to. Considering the question “Should I be in graduate school?” The answer may well be different if the alternative is getting a decent job than if the alternative is starving unemployment.
The listing of alternatives also helps catch cheating. If the alternative is implausible and disastrous (Stay in grad school or be a hobo) then it is likely that Checking Consequentialism isn’t being done seriously.. The alternative compared needs to be a serious answer to the question “What would I do if I couldn’t/wouldn’t do this?”
I think an “Improv to Rationality” class would be very fun and interesting. I don’t know how WELL the games would work to teach the desired skills, but I definitely think it would make the lessons more memorable, AND you’d be able to add the phrase “Team-Building” to your class description. You can sell anything if you promote it as “Team-Building.” :P
A game that would teach how to look for alternative options (see parent) could be “New Choice”. In this game, a scene is played out, with the moderator occasionally demanding a new choice(s) from the players. (Video Example (includes 15 sec commercial)).
Not only would it teach about not becoming too set on a current course of action, but could have the lesson of: “When thinking up alternative actions, don’t just stop at one or two. Instead imagine a moderator yelling “New Choice!” at you. Keep thinking up new alternatives until you get to crazy-land (i.e. “Here’s a cat from my pants”)
Another sub-skill mentioned, was the ability to recognize bad rationalizations (i.e. “I will feel bad if I quit something I put so much effort into.”). Perhaps one way to learn to recognize these, is to do bad rationalization ON PURPOSE, to see what it feels like. A good game for that is “Challenge in a Minute”.
In this game, a two-sided silly debate is chosen, such as pirates v. ninjas, or Coke v. Pepsi. All the players line up and challenge each other’s arguments. Arguments are supposed to start somewhat seriously (“Ninjas are sneakier”) and devolve over the course of the game (“I don’t like his pants”). (It’s easier to just watch a video, than explain the rules.)
Participants could then brainstorm what it felt like to come up with the bad rationalizations. I would expect answers like: Grasping at straws, Searching your brain for things to support your position, Being proud of clever retorts, etc. Participants could then ACTUALLY try to answer the debate question (ninja v. pirates, or whatever) in teams, and then discuss what it felt like to actually try to find the answer. I would expect answers like: Defining the problem, Not knowing the answer, Looking for sources, Being willing to change my mind (debate question must be sufficiently silly that most people would be willing to change their mind.)
Note: I’ll admit that I worked backwards for this. Instead of thinking “What’s the best way to teach consequentialism?”, I thought “It would be awesome to do an Improv Rationality class. How can I relate some improv games to the lessons we’re trying to teach?” So this solution probably isn’t optimal.,..But it IS fun!
Being proud of clever retorts, etc. Participants could then ACTUALLY try to answer the debate question (ninja v. pirates, or whatever) in teams, and then discuss what it felt like to actually try to find the answer.
Short exercise. Does anyone actually think pirates stand a chance against professionally trained assassins? I thought the only reason people defend pirates is because it’s a way to say both of them (or their identity-memes) are just so damn cool.
puh-lease. There were pirates vs. ninjas debates on the Internet long before Reddit existed.
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.
And this site’s software based on Reddit. Is “WELCOME TO REDDIT” even worth saying when there’s a “powered by reddit” icon on the bottom-right of the site?
Now, back to the local version of pirates-vs-ninjas, which sometimes looks deceptively like discussion of rationality...
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. It’s not like anyone’s tried to claim something insane, like that Twilight Sparkle is the best pony, or a plane on a treadmill will be able to take off, or that billy goats are not delicious.
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”.
Perhaps even better, a wind-powered car can travel faster than the wind downwind! link
This seems to imply that you have some other mechanism for the plane to take off than by harnessing that very mechanism with enough efficiency and elegance that it can generate lift to take off engine free, powered by wind, with the direct force of the wind actually counting against it. Either that or you evaluate engineering coolness very differently.
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.
Short exercise. Does anyone actually think pirates stand a chance against professionally trained assassins? I thought the only reason people defend pirates is because it’s a way to say both of them (or their identity-memes) are just so damn cool.
What are we talking about here? Ninjas didn’t normally kill in open combat (nor did pirates if they could help it) and pirates didn’t generally fight in set piece battles on land. In order to give a serious answer to such a question, you would first need to specify a combat situation: 17th century-style naval combat (of which the outcome would be largely dependent on the state of Japanese versus Portuguese maritime technology), open field daylight desert island team combat, single combat (with or without firearms and at what distance?), coastline castle siege, covert assassination of captain/quartermaster aboard a ship, etc...
If I’m a trained covert assassin and I find myself in the middle of a 17th century-style naval combat involving Japanese vs. Portuguese marine technology, it seems what I ought to do is attempt to covertly board the enemy vessel and assassinate its captain. If I’m a trained covert assassin and I find myself in the middle of open field daylight desert island team combat against trained shock troops, it seems what I ought to do is run away and come back in about twelve hours and try again.
More generally, part of what a sufficiently trained combatant is taught to do is control the combat situation, rather than take it as a given.
I am talking about ninjas and pirates in any situation which doesn’t involve giving all the ninjas idiot balls. So, for example, the ninjas don’t swim out to sea and start throwing shurikens at pirate ships.
The best pirates could do if they somehow got advance notice that the ninjas were out to get them is to hide and stay away from any land the ninjas have access to (and can maintain reasonable intelligence on). Meanwhile they are almost no threat at all to the ninjas.
Suppose for some reason a stalemate with pirates hiding from the ninjas and restricting themselves from any activities that would give the ninjas a chance to catch them doesn’t count as “ninjas are clearly better”. Even then it would take very little time for the ninjas to gain sea based dominance too. They are a paramilitary organisation with government support. They’ll quickly get better ships, easily get sailing training or just conscript sailors and then go hunt down the pirates.
If ninjas and pirates get into conflict the pirates just lose. Fortunately for pirates they aren’t out to win—they are out to get booty. Pirates prey on the weak or undefended and avoid fighting the powerful—be it ninjas, armies, navies, heavily defended settlements or sith lords. They also make sure they don’t do anything that pushes them across the threshold of being a nuisance to the powerful and a serious threat that needs to be dealt with by elite forces. (Like ninjas.)
Pirates were often privateers, which fit that definition very well.
Furthermore, the overlap between piracy and warfare meant that many pirates served in paramilitary forces before, after, or during their pirate days. For an illustration, note this description of the Battle of New Orleans, including a prominent pirate acting as an irregular military advisor / commander, and many of his compatriots serving even in land-based artillery companies.
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.
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.
Well, piracy was a huge thing in Japan and China and so on, so if there were any conflicts between them, they could have been recorded. But I don’t see why they would have been- typically, there was no significant benefit to killing a pirate captain (rather than sinking his boat or hanging him and all of his crew), and so assassins would only be employed against people whose deaths were meaningful enough (generals, title-holders, etc.). Similarly, I doubt ninja would transport valuable cargo all that frequency, and typically it was Japanese pirates preying on Chinese vessels anyway.
I mean, pirate just means “sea bandit” but evokes the image of mostly European sea bandits at a time when navies were based far away, coastal land was essentially free, and cargoes were really valuable, because that’s when there was a veneer of excitement over lowlifes murdering for fun and profit.
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.
Pirates were also professionals at killing people; they made their livings by attacking people and taking their stuff.
The question of “Wikipedia pirates vs. Wikipedia ninjas” is still confused. Under what circumstances are they fighting? Are the ninjas inexplicably crewing a ship? Are the pirates stopping in at port? Has Omega arranged a 5 v 5 pirate/ninja arena deathmatch?
Are we talking about real pirates and ninjas, or fantasy pirates and ninjas?
Real pirates and ninjas. Fantasy pirates and ninjas are of course equally awesome, with the pirate persona perhaps having more potential for injecting individual charisma. Because a ninja who is complaining that the rum is gone just seems incompetent.
It is my position that any debate about ninjas vs pirates that is maintained must be about declaring the coolness of fictional pirate and ninjas. (Which is a perfectly respectable passtime!) Anyone who actually thinks real pirates aren’t just ridiculously worse than ninjas is not thinking very well at all.
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.
Yes, ninjas can beat Japanese pirates of that period—if for some reason the ninja’s masters decide that having a bunch of pirates that mostly attack neighboring countries is a bad thing. And, if you allot enough time to mount a campaign, give them a map and an even more highly unlikely set of orders they could beat any other pirates of their time period too.
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.
(unless the ninjas are sailor-ninjas on a navy ship—for some reason, despite the fact that any Japanese power with a navy never employed ninjas as far as has been recorded)
Was not my counterfactual scenario. It was someone else describing a counterfactual where ninjas are travelling by sea to a ninja-convention. My only contribution there was to (implicitly) assert that the counterfactualising operation that preserves the most probability mass to produce that scenario would not result in ninjas travelling on unarmed ships.
To say that anyone who doesn’t think real pirates aren’t “ridiculously worse [in an unspecified manner] than ninjas is not thinking well at all” seems quite absurd to me, and smacks of “ninja fanboyism”.
I had never really considered it before daenerys proposed the idea of actually considering the question. I don’t particularly accept the charge “in an unspecified manner” but I certainly haven’t gone into detail. It roughly pertains to how one reasons about counter-factual and hypothetical situations. One can either take the counterfactual as an excuse to make up whatever story suits your position or you can apply the counterfactualizing operation in a manner that preserves the most probability mass.
I consider this question a valid diagnostic tool in that regard. In fact I went ahead and used it as such. I made this very meta-claim on facebook and when anyone disagreed I unfriended them. I call it either “evaporative cooling of styles of thinking in my chosen peers” or “being grumpy and getting rid of people who are likely to say annoying and wrong things in the future”.
Was not my counterfactual scenario. It was someone else describing a counterfactual where ninjas are travelling by sea to a ninja-convention. My only contribution there was to (implicitly) assert that the counterfactualising operation that preserves the most probability mass to produce that scenario would not result in ninjas travelling on unarmed ships.
I edited that; I think the daimyos did have their own navies. I’m not actually certain about that, though, and I don’t feel like looking it up. Maybe someone who knows more Japanese history can contribute. In either case, I don’t think it’s possible to say which is more probable, since whether they book passage on a merchant ship, or are sent with a naval ship by a master who controls both, depends entirely on the circumstance we concoct. Historically, they could have done both, if daimyos did have navies.
And in my experience the way people go about concocting such circumstances (in general, over all counterfactuals) matters a lot to me both in terms of how much respect I can maintain for them as a thinker and how much I can tolerate their presence. For the purpose of answering a specific question not all concocted circumstances are equal!
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.
Does anyone actually think pirates stand a chance against professionally trained assassins?
Technically, both pirates and ninjas, as they are depicted in popular folklore, are fictional entities. While people named “pirates” and “ninjas” did exist (and do exist to this day), they bear little resemblance to grog-swilling scallywags or black-clad wire-fu artists or what have you. Thus, before we can answer your question, we need to nail down exactly what you mean by “pirates” and “ninjas”; what capabilities you expect these fictional combatants to possess, and then go from there.
Technically, both pirates and ninjas, as they are depicted in popular folklore, are fictional entities.
We already specified that we aren’t talking about the fictional entities. We’re talking wikipedia pirates and wikipedia ninjas. That’s what you get by default if you taboo ‘real’.
Thus, before we can answer your question, we need to nail down exactly what you mean by “pirates” and “ninjas”; what capabilities you expect these fictional combatants to possess, and then go from there.
As far as I’m concerned the question is trivially resolved to an answerable counterfactual, even more trivially answered and in general a solved problem. The whole “spin it into a deep question of ambiguity and definition” is one of the first things I discarded as part of the “ACTUALLY try to answer the question” part daenerys’s game under “Being proud of clever retorts, etc.”
It is my evaluation that a group who does not execute the reasoning within the minute or so allotted:
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.
And, according to my analysis of daenerys’ game this constitutes an all too common failure mode for the aforementioned reasons. My estimation of the capabilities of lesswrong participants to handle this sort of question was grossly misscalibrated.
It sounds like you’re saying, “no one is smart enough to comprehend my brilliant point, despite the fact that it’s 100% clear and obvious since I am such a great communicator”. I believe there may be alternative explanations for people disagreeing with you, however...
It sounds like you’re saying, “no one is smart enough to comprehend my brilliant point, despite the fact that it’s 100% clear and obvious since I am such a great communicator”.
If I said something that means that then I am indeed as bad at communicating as you insinuate. I actually maintain that I haven’t made much of a point at all and thought that my initial claim verged on patronizing for stating the obvious.
I also note that the problem isn’t that “no one comprehends”… from what I have seen most people here do. It is a matter of whether there are enough exceptions that the conversation can still get derailed into failure modes. Surely you at least agree that the conversation in this thread has been derailed at places? For example, this immediate context appears to include fairly unadorned indicators of disrespect. Nobody likes to hear those—even when they are plain and sincere expressions of the level of disagreement.
and thought that my initial claim verged on patronizing for stating the obvious.
What’s obvious to one person may sound ridiculous to another. Often does, in fact.
Surely you at least agree that the conversation in this thread has been derailed at places?
What, do you mean the original thread, or the pirate vs. ninja thread ? Heh. Anyway, the answer is “yes” to both.
For example, this immediate context appears to include fairly unadorned indicators of disrespect.
Patronizing posts tend to invoke that kind of an atmosphere. In any case, you keep saying that disagreeing with your conclusions is a “failure mode”. You may well be right, but so far, I’m not convinced that this is the case. I am prepared to be convinced, however.
In equal numbers? At sea? Are the ninjas manning a ninja-vessel?
Why would the ninjas try to fight pirates at sea? Are they intellectually disabled ninjas? Clearly they would wait until the pirates land, get ridiculously drunk and start carousing (and raping and pillaging if they are into that sort of thing). Then poison them or stab them in the back.
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.
Sacrilege! Next you will be telling me you don’t care about astronauts vs cavemen either! (If they are fighting in space the cavemen lose. Just sayin’.)
Maybe they’re just sailing on their way to a ninja convention, when suddenly—bam, pirates!
(Laughing.)
And the pirates board the ship trying to take the loot when suddenly the ninjas casually slaughter all the pirates, board their ship (the pirates probably crippled the ninja ship before boarding) and sail the pirate ship away.
Mind you I’m still giving an idiot ball to all the ninjas for sailing in a ship that isn’t heavily armed.
I think the group with practice winning naval engagements would more likely win the naval engagement.
And by this you mean the Navy vessel that is transporting the ninjas would more likely win the naval engagement? (The engagement that the pirates would never initiate because they are experienced in not picking fights that they will lose).
Or are we still talking about the landlubber ninjas who have never learned to sail that are for some reason trying to sail themselves across a sea for conference purposes? I’m imagining them up in the rigging comically trying to sail and needing to use all their ninja agility to dodge the yardarms that are swinging around wildly as they try to figure out which way they are supposed to pull the ropes...
Basically, pirates can beat ninjas if they load up their cannons with idiot balls for ammunition and the ninjas eagerly run out to catch them.
Most people are landlubbers. Most landlubbers going on a voyage would be on a passenger ship, not a navy vessel. I see no reason either of these wouldn’t apply to ninja. In this particular situation—one or several ninja on a passenger vessel raided by pirates—I expect the pirates to win. Of the circumstances where ninja and pirates would be in the same place at the same time, this seems to be the most likely where the pirates would have the edge.
Most people are landlubbers. Most landlubbers going on a voyage would be on a passenger ship, not a navy vessel. I see no reason either of these wouldn’t apply to ninja.
I suggest that the reference class ‘most people’ is the wrong reference class from which to make predictions about ninja tactical decisionmaking.
I think you overestimate the importance of ninjas to the people who command navies.
The warlord Oda Nobunaga’s notorious reputation led to several attempts on his life. In 1571, a Kōga ninja and sharpshooter by the name of Sugitani Zenjubō was hired to assassinate Nobunaga. Using two arquebuses, he fired two consecutive shots at Nobunaga, but was unable to inflict mortal injury through Nobunaga’s armor.[51] Sugitani managed to escape, but was caught four years later and put to death by torture.[51] In 1573, Manabe Rokurō, a vassal of daimyo Hatano Hideharu, attempted to infiltrate Azuchi Castle and assassinate a sleeping Nobunaga. However, this also ended in failure, and Manabe was forced to commit suicide, after which his body was openly displayed in public.[51] According to a document, the Iranki, when Nobunaga was inspecting Iga province — which his army had devastated — a group of three ninja shot at him with large-caliber firearms. The shots flew wide of Nobunaga, however, and instead killed seven of his surrounding companions.[52]
The reference class of “most people” is a better starting point than maximum entropy. Particularly in light of the fact that significant visible differences of behavior would work against the whole secrecy thing.
I think the relevant reference class is “trochees with a ‘vs.’ between them”, and you can find many such engaging debates on the Internet. I’m skeptical that anyone would care to compare pirates and ninjas if they were called something else.
I was mistaken. I’m amazed how much debate the question prompted here even with this framing. I really thought it was just a closed question.
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?
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.)
An important question to ask that you are leaving out is “What are my alternatives to this course of action?”
The comparison of consequences requires an alternative set of consequences to compare to. Considering the question “Should I be in graduate school?” The answer may well be different if the alternative is getting a decent job than if the alternative is starving unemployment.
The listing of alternatives also helps catch cheating. If the alternative is implausible and disastrous (Stay in grad school or be a hobo) then it is likely that Checking Consequentialism isn’t being done seriously.. The alternative compared needs to be a serious answer to the question “What would I do if I couldn’t/wouldn’t do this?”
I think an “Improv to Rationality” class would be very fun and interesting. I don’t know how WELL the games would work to teach the desired skills, but I definitely think it would make the lessons more memorable, AND you’d be able to add the phrase “Team-Building” to your class description. You can sell anything if you promote it as “Team-Building.” :P
A game that would teach how to look for alternative options (see parent) could be “New Choice”. In this game, a scene is played out, with the moderator occasionally demanding a new choice(s) from the players. (Video Example (includes 15 sec commercial)).
Not only would it teach about not becoming too set on a current course of action, but could have the lesson of: “When thinking up alternative actions, don’t just stop at one or two. Instead imagine a moderator yelling “New Choice!” at you. Keep thinking up new alternatives until you get to crazy-land (i.e. “Here’s a cat from my pants”)
Another sub-skill mentioned, was the ability to recognize bad rationalizations (i.e. “I will feel bad if I quit something I put so much effort into.”). Perhaps one way to learn to recognize these, is to do bad rationalization ON PURPOSE, to see what it feels like. A good game for that is “Challenge in a Minute”.
In this game, a two-sided silly debate is chosen, such as pirates v. ninjas, or Coke v. Pepsi. All the players line up and challenge each other’s arguments. Arguments are supposed to start somewhat seriously (“Ninjas are sneakier”) and devolve over the course of the game (“I don’t like his pants”). (It’s easier to just watch a video, than explain the rules.)
Participants could then brainstorm what it felt like to come up with the bad rationalizations. I would expect answers like: Grasping at straws, Searching your brain for things to support your position, Being proud of clever retorts, etc. Participants could then ACTUALLY try to answer the debate question (ninja v. pirates, or whatever) in teams, and then discuss what it felt like to actually try to find the answer. I would expect answers like: Defining the problem, Not knowing the answer, Looking for sources, Being willing to change my mind (debate question must be sufficiently silly that most people would be willing to change their mind.)
Note: I’ll admit that I worked backwards for this. Instead of thinking “What’s the best way to teach consequentialism?”, I thought “It would be awesome to do an Improv Rationality class. How can I relate some improv games to the lessons we’re trying to teach?” So this solution probably isn’t optimal.,..But it IS fun!
Short exercise. Does anyone actually think pirates stand a chance against professionally trained assassins? I thought the only reason people defend pirates is because it’s a way to say both of them (or their identity-memes) are just so damn cool.
Well, and now the question “How can we teach the skill Check Consequentialism?” has degenerated into an erudite debate on pirates vs. ninjas.
I have never, ever been tempted to say this before on LW but WELCOME TO REDDIT.
Edit: The conversation seems much more intelligent than average Reddit, but I still think we’re solving the wrong problem here.
Edit 2: And now, no longer feeling as encouraged by the 150 comments I saw when I checked back in.
On the plus side, I’ll concede we’ve demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that “pirates vs. ninjas” can be an argument -generator for all audiences.
puh-lease. There were pirates vs. ninjas debates on the Internet long before Reddit existed.
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.
And this site’s software based on Reddit. Is “WELCOME TO REDDIT” even worth saying when there’s a “powered by reddit” icon on the bottom-right of the site?
Now, back to the local version of pirates-vs-ninjas, which sometimes looks deceptively like discussion of rationality...
Is he allowed to be surprised when lesswrong porn happens?
I think porn itself has somehow managed to stay off Less Wrong long enough to warrant surprise.
But no, it’s not warranted to believe that porn about Less Wrong does not exist. Rule 34.
I’ve joked in the past about writing YudkowskyxBostrom slash fics; I swear to Bayes, if people keep annoyingly discussing LW porn, I will write it!
Please include a threesome with Vassar.
Pass the brain bleach.
I’d write it, but I’m too busy working on that fic where Harry has to marry Draco to save someone from Azkaban.
Corollary to Rule 35. You have to now.
It’s not porn, but did you see Yvain’s drawing?
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that. Though for maximal thread derailment, the image really should’ve appeared right in your comment.
Are you trying to spoil our fun?
Besides, it’s not like we’re having really ridiculous thread-derailing discussions. It’s not like anyone’s tried to claim something insane, like that Twilight Sparkle is the best pony, or a plane on a treadmill will be able to take off, or that billy goats are not delicious.
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”.
Perhaps even better, a wind-powered car can travel faster than the wind downwind! link
This seems to imply that you have some other mechanism for the plane to take off than by harnessing that very mechanism with enough efficiency and elegance that it can generate lift to take off engine free, powered by wind, with the direct force of the wind actually counting against it. Either that or you evaluate engineering coolness very differently.
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.
What are we talking about here? Ninjas didn’t normally kill in open combat (nor did pirates if they could help it) and pirates didn’t generally fight in set piece battles on land. In order to give a serious answer to such a question, you would first need to specify a combat situation: 17th century-style naval combat (of which the outcome would be largely dependent on the state of Japanese versus Portuguese maritime technology), open field daylight desert island team combat, single combat (with or without firearms and at what distance?), coastline castle siege, covert assassination of captain/quartermaster aboard a ship, etc...
Not sure I agree.
If I’m a trained covert assassin and I find myself in the middle of a 17th century-style naval combat involving Japanese vs. Portuguese marine technology, it seems what I ought to do is attempt to covertly board the enemy vessel and assassinate its captain. If I’m a trained covert assassin and I find myself in the middle of open field daylight desert island team combat against trained shock troops, it seems what I ought to do is run away and come back in about twelve hours and try again.
More generally, part of what a sufficiently trained combatant is taught to do is control the combat situation, rather than take it as a given.
I am talking about ninjas and pirates in any situation which doesn’t involve giving all the ninjas idiot balls. So, for example, the ninjas don’t swim out to sea and start throwing shurikens at pirate ships.
The best pirates could do if they somehow got advance notice that the ninjas were out to get them is to hide and stay away from any land the ninjas have access to (and can maintain reasonable intelligence on). Meanwhile they are almost no threat at all to the ninjas.
Suppose for some reason a stalemate with pirates hiding from the ninjas and restricting themselves from any activities that would give the ninjas a chance to catch them doesn’t count as “ninjas are clearly better”. Even then it would take very little time for the ninjas to gain sea based dominance too. They are a paramilitary organisation with government support. They’ll quickly get better ships, easily get sailing training or just conscript sailors and then go hunt down the pirates.
If ninjas and pirates get into conflict the pirates just lose. Fortunately for pirates they aren’t out to win—they are out to get booty. Pirates prey on the weak or undefended and avoid fighting the powerful—be it ninjas, armies, navies, heavily defended settlements or sith lords. They also make sure they don’t do anything that pushes them across the threshold of being a nuisance to the powerful and a serious threat that needs to be dealt with by elite forces. (Like ninjas.)
This also applies to my paradigm of “pirate”.
You might be thinking of privateers.
Yes. There was a very blurry distinction between the two while England wanted to encourage piracy against France.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Pirates were often privateers, which fit that definition very well.
Furthermore, the overlap between piracy and warfare meant that many pirates served in paramilitary forces before, after, or during their pirate days. For an illustration, note this description of the Battle of New Orleans, including a prominent pirate acting as an irregular military advisor / commander, and many of his compatriots serving even in land-based artillery companies.
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.
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.
Even that’s pretty time-period dependent; check out e.g. Jean Lafitte’s utterly ridiculous career.
Well, piracy was a huge thing in Japan and China and so on, so if there were any conflicts between them, they could have been recorded. But I don’t see why they would have been- typically, there was no significant benefit to killing a pirate captain (rather than sinking his boat or hanging him and all of his crew), and so assassins would only be employed against people whose deaths were meaningful enough (generals, title-holders, etc.). Similarly, I doubt ninja would transport valuable cargo all that frequency, and typically it was Japanese pirates preying on Chinese vessels anyway.
I mean, pirate just means “sea bandit” but evokes the image of mostly European sea bandits at a time when navies were based far away, coastal land was essentially free, and cargoes were really valuable, because that’s when there was a veneer of excitement over lowlifes murdering for fun and profit.
Nornangest!History seems to be different to Wikipedia!History. My limited familiarity only extends to the latter.
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 sort of assumed half the pirate crew would just BE ninjas in disguise, and then the other half would just be dead.
Pirates were also professionals at killing people; they made their livings by attacking people and taking their stuff.
The question of “Wikipedia pirates vs. Wikipedia ninjas” is still confused. Under what circumstances are they fighting? Are the ninjas inexplicably crewing a ship? Are the pirates stopping in at port? Has Omega arranged a 5 v 5 pirate/ninja arena deathmatch?
Are we talking about real pirates and ninjas, or fantasy pirates and ninjas?
Amongst other advantages, fictional pirates have the devil’s own luck.
Real pirates and ninjas. Fantasy pirates and ninjas are of course equally awesome, with the pirate persona perhaps having more potential for injecting individual charisma. Because a ninja who is complaining that the rum is gone just seems incompetent.
It is my position that any debate about ninjas vs pirates that is maintained must be about declaring the coolness of fictional pirate and ninjas. (Which is a perfectly respectable passtime!) Anyone who actually thinks real pirates aren’t just ridiculously worse than ninjas is not thinking very well at all.
Why would real ninjas fight real pirates ? Isn’t that the job for the Coast Guard, or the ancient Japanese equivalent thereof ?
Goatee envy. Pirates have much better goatees.
And from what I understand the Japanese pirates were mostly a problem for China, not Japan.
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.
Yes, ninjas can beat Japanese pirates of that period—if for some reason the ninja’s masters decide that having a bunch of pirates that mostly attack neighboring countries is a bad thing. And, if you allot enough time to mount a campaign, give them a map and an even more highly unlikely set of orders they could beat any other pirates of their time period too.
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.
Was not my counterfactual scenario. It was someone else describing a counterfactual where ninjas are travelling by sea to a ninja-convention. My only contribution there was to (implicitly) assert that the counterfactualising operation that preserves the most probability mass to produce that scenario would not result in ninjas travelling on unarmed ships.
I had never really considered it before daenerys proposed the idea of actually considering the question. I don’t particularly accept the charge “in an unspecified manner” but I certainly haven’t gone into detail. It roughly pertains to how one reasons about counter-factual and hypothetical situations. One can either take the counterfactual as an excuse to make up whatever story suits your position or you can apply the counterfactualizing operation in a manner that preserves the most probability mass.
I consider this question a valid diagnostic tool in that regard. In fact I went ahead and used it as such. I made this very meta-claim on facebook and when anyone disagreed I unfriended them. I call it either “evaporative cooling of styles of thinking in my chosen peers” or “being grumpy and getting rid of people who are likely to say annoying and wrong things in the future”.
I edited that; I think the daimyos did have their own navies. I’m not actually certain about that, though, and I don’t feel like looking it up. Maybe someone who knows more Japanese history can contribute. In either case, I don’t think it’s possible to say which is more probable, since whether they book passage on a merchant ship, or are sent with a naval ship by a master who controls both, depends entirely on the circumstance we concoct. Historically, they could have done both, if daimyos did have navies.
And in my experience the way people go about concocting such circumstances (in general, over all counterfactuals) matters a lot to me both in terms of how much respect I can maintain for them as a thinker and how much I can tolerate their presence. For the purpose of answering a specific question not all concocted circumstances are equal!
Damned ninjas! Get off my lawn!
Better your lawn than inside your bedroom! ;)
That’s an entirely different genre.
That one took me a few seconds to decipher! :)
OTOH, fictional ninjas have more Rule of Cool mojo than fictional pirates.
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.
Well, how else can they dispose of their stolen loot?
Or keep their dogs in their yards?
Well, there you have it, then. They can hide behind their magical fences.
I believe Dr McNinja has something to say about this.
Pirates have guns.
Technically, both pirates and ninjas, as they are depicted in popular folklore, are fictional entities. While people named “pirates” and “ninjas” did exist (and do exist to this day), they bear little resemblance to grog-swilling scallywags or black-clad wire-fu artists or what have you. Thus, before we can answer your question, we need to nail down exactly what you mean by “pirates” and “ninjas”; what capabilities you expect these fictional combatants to possess, and then go from there.
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.
Pirates and ninjas taboo—oh my!
See, in context I was tricked into reading that Taboo, which is totally not natural.
Taboo pirate ninja badger mushroom narwhal!
Oooh yes. Upvoted for awesomeness.
We already specified that we aren’t talking about the fictional entities. We’re talking wikipedia pirates and wikipedia ninjas. That’s what you get by default if you taboo ‘real’.
As far as I’m concerned the question is trivially resolved to an answerable counterfactual, even more trivially answered and in general a solved problem. The whole “spin it into a deep question of ambiguity and definition” is one of the first things I discarded as part of the “ACTUALLY try to answer the question” part daenerys’s game under “Being proud of clever retorts, etc.”
It is my evaluation that a group who does not execute the reasoning within the minute or so allotted:
Ninjas vs pirates?
These guys vs these guys.
Ninjas
Next question.
… has simply failed at the rationalist game and requires more practice.
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.
And, according to my analysis of daenerys’ game this constitutes an all too common failure mode for the aforementioned reasons. My estimation of the capabilities of lesswrong participants to handle this sort of question was grossly misscalibrated.
It sounds like you’re saying, “no one is smart enough to comprehend my brilliant point, despite the fact that it’s 100% clear and obvious since I am such a great communicator”. I believe there may be alternative explanations for people disagreeing with you, however...
If I said something that means that then I am indeed as bad at communicating as you insinuate. I actually maintain that I haven’t made much of a point at all and thought that my initial claim verged on patronizing for stating the obvious.
I also note that the problem isn’t that “no one comprehends”… from what I have seen most people here do. It is a matter of whether there are enough exceptions that the conversation can still get derailed into failure modes. Surely you at least agree that the conversation in this thread has been derailed at places? For example, this immediate context appears to include fairly unadorned indicators of disrespect. Nobody likes to hear those—even when they are plain and sincere expressions of the level of disagreement.
What’s obvious to one person may sound ridiculous to another. Often does, in fact.
What, do you mean the original thread, or the pirate vs. ninja thread ? Heh. Anyway, the answer is “yes” to both.
Patronizing posts tend to invoke that kind of an atmosphere. In any case, you keep saying that disagreeing with your conclusions is a “failure mode”. You may well be right, but so far, I’m not convinced that this is the case. I am prepared to be convinced, however.
In equal numbers? At sea? Are the ninjas manning a ninja-vessel?
Why would the ninjas try to fight pirates at sea? Are they intellectually disabled ninjas? Clearly they would wait until the pirates land, get ridiculously drunk and start carousing (and raping and pillaging if they are into that sort of thing). Then poison them or stab them in the back.
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.
Sacrilege! Next you will be telling me you don’t care about astronauts vs cavemen either! (If they are fighting in space the cavemen lose. Just sayin’.)
Maybe they’re just sailing on their way to a ninja convention, when suddenly—bam, pirates!
(Laughing.)
And the pirates board the ship trying to take the loot when suddenly the ninjas casually slaughter all the pirates, board their ship (the pirates probably crippled the ninja ship before boarding) and sail the pirate ship away.
Mind you I’m still giving an idiot ball to all the ninjas for sailing in a ship that isn’t heavily armed.
I think the group with practice winning naval engagements would more likely win the naval engagement.
And by this you mean the Navy vessel that is transporting the ninjas would more likely win the naval engagement? (The engagement that the pirates would never initiate because they are experienced in not picking fights that they will lose).
Or are we still talking about the landlubber ninjas who have never learned to sail that are for some reason trying to sail themselves across a sea for conference purposes? I’m imagining them up in the rigging comically trying to sail and needing to use all their ninja agility to dodge the yardarms that are swinging around wildly as they try to figure out which way they are supposed to pull the ropes...
Basically, pirates can beat ninjas if they load up their cannons with idiot balls for ammunition and the ninjas eagerly run out to catch them.
International ninja conferences would be fun, though. (Once the transportation difficulties were ironed out.)
Most people are landlubbers. Most landlubbers going on a voyage would be on a passenger ship, not a navy vessel. I see no reason either of these wouldn’t apply to ninja. In this particular situation—one or several ninja on a passenger vessel raided by pirates—I expect the pirates to win. Of the circumstances where ninja and pirates would be in the same place at the same time, this seems to be the most likely where the pirates would have the edge.
I suggest that the reference class ‘most people’ is the wrong reference class from which to make predictions about ninja tactical decisionmaking.
I think you overestimate the importance of ninjas to the people who command navies.
The reference class of “most people” is a better starting point than maximum entropy. Particularly in light of the fact that significant visible differences of behavior would work against the whole secrecy thing.
I have a higher standard than maximum entropy.
I was mistaken. I’m amazed how much debate the question prompted here even with this framing. I really thought it was just a closed question.
I’m amazed at your amazement.
I’d have expected at least this much out of any such silly comparison, even here. Try:
Raptors vs. Jesus
Twinkie vs. cockroach
Star Trek vs. Pop Tarts
Or any other conflict between trochees.
Most of your amazement can be explained by you thinking that that ‘pirates vs ninjas’ belongs in the same reference class as:
That seems utterly ridiculous. Are you being disingenuous or are you serious?
I’m being serious. See http://xkcd.com/856/
I think the relevant reference class is “trochees with a ‘vs.’ between them”, and you can find many such engaging debates on the Internet. I’m skeptical that anyone would care to compare pirates and ninjas if they were called something else.
I don’t think the trochee pattern is so critical to these debates. Cavemen vs. astronauts is a notorious counterexample.
Cavemen is a trochee. Astronauts is a dactyl, which is why it’s less funny, but still close enough to a trochee.
Well cavemen are well-known in the literature for their pterodactyl-defeating skills, so I suppose that would generalize to other dactyls.
I wonder why no one ever phrases it cavemen vs. spacemen.
Oddly, I don’t think I’ve encountered anything vs. astronauts before.
I retract my statement. I’ve seen the entirety of Angel.
Come to think of it the only times I’ve heard the debate is between Angel and Spike and Bones and Booth. I hadn’t caught the easter egg until now.
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.)
A self-taught dirty fighter/swashbuckler against a professional assassin with quality weapons and poinsions isn’t much of a fight.
Exactly!
Upvoted for delicious ironic ambiguity.