Cowboy - Pros: lowest chance of death, honest work for honest pay. Cons: hard work for low pay
Pirate - Does internet piracy count? I get seasick to easily to be the boat kind. Also the death.
Samurai - Maybe an Edo period samurai, when they were mostly bureaucrats.
Ninja. They are so good at hiding that you probably don't even see it as one of the options.
A movie pirate. The kind that gets to sail, have adventures, but never seems to do any killing or 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.
No thanks. I'm a coward. I just want to sit on my ass all day and browse lemmy
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.
Samurai, any day. raises cup of green tea
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.
Cowboy, no contest.
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.
IDK, getting to spend a ton of time camping sounds kinda romantic/glorious.
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.
And yeah - I can see the appeal.
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.
I am already a pirate.
my answer too
I need an option that includes air conditioning.
All right, I'll throw hedge fund manager in there.
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. ✓ ✓ ✓
Samurai gets paid by the fedual lord. Easy choice.
But I already am a pirate?
Yarrr beat me too it
Fictionally, a samurai. But for real, I guess cowboy is the most sane option...
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)
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.
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.
All in all, I'd probably choose samurai.
From what I like the most? Defebatly pirate, cause I could be another pirate Queen and that sounds dope
From whats the least icky one? Samurai after it became a social status and a symbol of nobility with the occasional murdering
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.
Cowboy. I don't know enough about samurai, and I know too much about pirates
pirates supported same-sex marriage, so I’ll go with that 🏳️🌈
yes. yes i would.
This is the way.
All three - pirate against capitalism, cowboy against society, and samurai because their swords are awesome and they bathe.
I'm a man and don't have strong opinions about this, so count this as one vote against it.
Lol I was thinking the same, neither sounded really appealing to me but it's not like I'd start a fight over it.
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
People dress up as cowboys now. Go to your local Walmart.
Speaking of, why the fuck aren't they shamed into the shadow realm like I would be if I dressed as a samurai while getting the bread and milk?
Anyway that's my answer, Samurai.
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...
someone’s got a case of the not-gays...
It's a toss up between cowboy and samurai.
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.
I think it would depend on "when" for all three of them.
Get the wrong date for Cowboy and instead of lying next to a campfire, you're nursing your rodeo injuries in your trailer home.
Get the wrong date for Pirate and you'll find yourself cradling a semiautomatic in a speedboat off the coast of Somalia.
Samurai kinda always bangs though.
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
You've convinced me. Samurai for me too.
Be would mean now and here? Or the and there (where they existed)?
Your choice :)
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