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July 17, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:37:29

5223 THE TRUTH ABOUT PIRATES!

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux takes you on a deep dive into the wild history of pirates - what is the truth about some of the most romantic - and dangerous - men (and women) of the high seas?Join the Freedomain community!https://freedomain.locals.com/

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	Hi there, this is Stephan Molyneux from Freedom Inn.
	Hope you're doing well.
	This is The Truth About Pirates.
	And pirates, of course, hold a central figure in the imaginations of young boys and girls everywhere.
	And, of course, we're fascinated by pirates as adults.
	I'm going to tell you why you have this fascination and what pirates represent, why they're so important to us, and what wisdom they can hold towards us.
	And I suppose this presentation started about 50 years ago for me, when I was growing up, hearing about war, reading about war, being told about war.
	Of course, I grew up in England in the 60s and 70s, so war was a big topic and people told me their stories and so on.
	And of course, like anybody who hears these stories, at some point, don't we all get this thought or this funny idea, which is shoot a guy without a uniform on,
	Life in prison, destruction of your reputation.
	However, shoot a guy with a uniform on.
	Medals, pensions, ticker tape, parades, and a hero forever and ever.
	Amen.
	And this is a really powerful question.
	Which is, do we live in a matrix or a delusion fundamentally characterized by the reshaping of morality according to magical words?
	Are there writs from the government that can turn you from a pirate into a helpmate in the war against evil?
	Is there a uniform that can turn you from a murderer into a hero?
	Are there outward appearances that can change that somehow completely, not only change, but utterly reverse our moral judgments?
	What is the difference?
	For instance,
	Why do we love pirates so much?
	Or why are we so curious?
	What is the difference between a pirate and a navy?
	Is it the costumes?
	Is it the flags?
	Is it the wax seal from the king?
	The writ of permission?
	Is it social convention?
	Is it the law?
	Magical words on books?
	What is it that transforms someone from a pirate to a navy or back again?
	These are all foundational questions because the real matrix that we live in is manipulated morality.
	There should, of course, be one moral law for all human beings, just as there is one law of gravitation.
	And the inverse square law does not change depending on the continent you're on, the fact that gases expand when heated does not change yesterday to today.
	There should be one moral law for everyone.
	And authors, I find this fascinating, whenever I'm reading a deep book on literature and so on, I always find it quite
	spine-prickingly exciting when someone starts to raise this question.
	Raskolnikov raises this question in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment where he says Napoleon slaughtered millions to achieve his goals and he's considered a world-shaping hero.
	I kill one old horrible porn broker and I am suddenly an evil guy.
	And this also shows up in the Mario Puzo's The Godfather, the novel, where Don Corleone is saying, yes, there are a few people that get killed as a result of our activity, but we are nothing compared to the evil people who killed millions over the course of a war.
	This happens in Macbeth as well, right?
	Macbeth slaughters
	people by the dozens or hundreds and then kills one other guy with a crown on his head and suddenly it's the worst thing in the known universe.
	St.
	Augustine, this is a theological philosopher from the Middle Ages, he wrote a book called The City of God and he tells a story in this.
	I want you to work this into your bones.
	It's fascinating.
	I'm fanatical about this question, so I hope that you'll bear with me as we go through it.
	So this is what he said.
	He said, Indeed, that was an apt and true reply, which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized.
	For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, What do you mean by seizing the whole earth?
	Because I do it with a petty ship.
	I am called a robber, while you who does it with a great fleet are styled emperor.
	What is the difference?
	Navies and pirates.
	We're going to dive into that and into many other fascinating details about pirates.
	So let's get to it.
	Pirates are often depicted as swashbuckling characters dressed in flamboyant clothing, speaking in colorful language, brutal and ruthless, engaging in acts of violence.
	Looting and murder.
	Though often portrayed as adventurous and fun for storytelling, they're equally seen as chaotic and disorganized.
	Men set on fulfilling their lusts.
	A merry life and a short one, attributed to the pirate captain Bartholomew Roberts.
	It was and is seen as noble to serve in a navy, however, where one may be ordered to kill, steal or destroy.
	But being a pirate is seen as foolish or wicked.
	So we're going to compare and contrast navies to pirates.
	Who had more freedom?
	Who had more rewards?
	Who had greater autonomy?
	So pirates tend to be either romanticized or demonized regardless.
	Let's dig into the facts and find out.
	Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
	So there was something that only really ended in the 19th century called impressment.
	Oppressed gangs, as it was more commonly known.
	And this was recruitment of sailors by force, kidnapping.
	It was a practice that directly affected the U.S., even one of the causes of the War of 1812.
	So what did this mean?
	Well, during wartime, the British Navy forced men into service, kidnapped them and put them on ships.
	Residents of seaports lived in constant terror of the government press gangs patrolling waterfronts, raiding taverns and prisons, of course.
	And images from the time show armed gangs kidnapping men in their beds or smashing into weddings, barging into weddings and hauling the groom out for sea slavery, much to the consternation of his bride-to-be.
	Now, Samuel Johnson, a great essayist of the time, wrote this, being on a ship is being in jail with the chance of being drowned, or as I'm sure they pronounced it back then, drowned-ed, drowned-ed, drowned-ed?
	Something like that.
	And how bad was it?
	How bad was it?
	Well, we get to the actual death rates, but you had very little control.
	You'd think, oh, well, maybe I'm very good at sword fighting, and I'm very good with a pistol, and I'm good at hiding, so I'll be fine.
	However, only 8.3% of sailors in the casualty list of 1810, only 8.3% of sailors were killed due to enemy action.
	41.7% were killed by accidents or injuries.
	50% of deaths were caused by illnesses.
	Of course you have, you know, sweaty men without soap bound up in a below decks, poorly or barely ventilated area and any illness is going to just spread like wildfire.
	And one of the reasons they needed these press gangs was in the 18th century, British desertion rates on naval ships were about 25% annually, so every year you lost one out of four sailors.
	At the time of the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805, I regret that I have but one life to give for my country, over half the Royal Navy's 120,000 sailors were enslaved.
	They were captured, kidnapped, and enslaved.
	Now, the reason why, of course, 41.7% of deaths were by accidents was men were entitled to a gallon of beer and a half pint of rum every day.
	Every day!
	Gallon of beer and a half pint of rum every single day.
	They ate hardtack, and they had some better food at times, and in their hardtack there was added weevil lava protein, so not only do you get kidnapped away from your bride, but you're fed ground-up lava as well.
	So you got smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, of course venereal disease from when they went into shore and so on.
	And it was just brutal.
	The number of compound fractures, traumatic avulsions of limbs.
	Naval surgeons were fantastic at amputation and you'd have whole bathtubs full of limbs from them being hacked off because they couldn't really do anything in terms of in wartime or in battle or even in the middle of an accident situation.
	They basically just hacked off everything they could find.
	They would cauterize until that was
	How bad was it?
	Why was there a desertion rate of 25%?
	Because it could save your butt.
	So in the West Indian naval campaigns, the mortality rate on ships could approach 50% from disease alone.
	Just from disease alone.
	So half the sailors on a regular basis would die.
	So yes, of course, they would try and bail and risk being a fugitive.
	Obviously that's a bit of a sprint through, but that's your navy at the time.
	Okay, so.
	Pirates were not as disorganized and chaotic as you might think.
	So there's this, and I'm also working on a presentation called The Truth About the Wild West.
	Now, here's the story that you generally get.
	There are these crazy, peg-legged, one-eyed pirate guys with funny hats and parrots on their shoulders, and they're insane, and they're drunk, and they're random, and they're chaotic, and anytime anybody looks at them funny, they just kill them, so they're just mad, and chaotic, and sociopathic, and psychopathic, and disorganized, and you know, um...
	You know, sailors with the whistles and the uniforms and the salutes and the straight backs are there to save you from this chaos and violence and so on.
	Again, it's the same thing with, you know, the sort of Black Bart guy with an eyepatch without the parrot, of course, in the Wild West.
	He comes to town, he's shooting up the place, raping all the women, and the friendly neighborhood sheriff comes along and protects you from the bad guys.
	So, the argument from a voluntarist standpoint, the argument from the universality of
	The non-aggression principle and property rights would predict that in the absence of government rules and laws and punishments, people will create their own forms of organization that in general are superior.
	Both superior in terms of the fact that they're not always enforced at the point of a gun, and also superior in the fact that they tend to be more mutual in terms of the relationship between the leaders and the followers.
	That the followers have more control on a pirate ship than they ever could
	So, if spontaneous self-organization is the great hidden secret of history, we are going to expose it.
	So, of course, Webster's defines piracy as an act of robbery on the high seas.
	Robbery being larceny from the personal presence of another by violence or threat.
	Though robbery, larceny and theft are often used interchangeably, they have specific meanings.
	Robbery is larceny from the person or presence of another by violence or threat and larceny is the unlawful taking of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently.
	So robbery is maybe sort of more like a knife to the ribs in an alley whereas larceny is breaking into your house maybe while you're on vacation and stealing your stuff.
	So how far back do we go in terms of piracy?
	Well, accounts of piracy go as far back as the 14th century before Christ, with an inscription that was found which recounts the necessity of fortifying the Nile Delta against seaborne raiders during the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
	Probably the second or the first had to deal with it too.
	To do a little bit of time whiplash, this is an amazing story.
	Julius Caesar was captured by pirates
	In 75 BC, he was sailing to the Greek city of Rhodes when his vessel was seized.
	The pirates demanded a ransom of 20 talents, about half a million dollars, today for his release.
	However, Caesar felt insulted by this amount and insisted that they raise the demand to 50 talents, about 1.25 million, more suitable for his status.
	His retinue quickly raised the money and he was released.
	Now that
	You may be cool, I may be cool, we'll never be as cool as Julius Caesar demanding that they more than double his ransom because of his status.
	So after his reliefs, Caesar assembled a small army and a fleet.
	He captured the pirates and crucified them as he promised while in captivity.
	This act of punishment was seen as a form of leniency as he first had their throats cut before crucifying them.
	The pirates had initially taken his promise as a joke, but Caesar followed through with his threat.
	A Roman talent between 70 and 100 pounds today, usually denoted in gold.
	So, you know, just pro tip, if you do capture some guy who's a leader, particularly a military leader, and he promises to crucify you and then demands that you raise his ransom, you might want to let him go.
	It's just a thought.
	So, we do have to talk a little bit about a piece of eight.
	Pieces of eight.
	It's a common unit of account amongst the pirates we will focus on.
	We need to know what that means.
	The Spanish dollar, also known as a piece of eight, was a silver coin of approximately 38 millimeters in diameter, worth eight Spanish reales.
	It was minted beginning in 1497 with 25.563 grams, 0.8219 troy ounces of fine silver.
	I'm going to go out on a limb here, since they didn't have atomic weigh measure scales, that this was something more generic for them at the time.
	So the Spanish dollar was worth about five and a half shillings in early America.
	What does that mean?
	Well, a day's skilled labor, carpenters say, was roughly three shillings a day from the 1600s to the 1790s.
	Can you imagine 150 to 200 years of stable prices?
	Unimaginable, right?
	A farmer might make around 200 shillings a year, a carpenter 600 shillings a year.
	One shilling got you a steakhouse dinner, beef, bread, beer, and tip.
	So in general, throughout all of human history, an ounce of gold is a good suit, and an ounce of silver is a steak dinner.
	So the weekly rent of a furnished room was about two shillings.
	Land around Boston, Baltimore and Charleston was around $30 per acre.
	Rent was around $4 a month.
	So that's what we're talking about.
	So just try to sort of keep it in your head that one shilling is a steakhouse dinner.
	And one Spanish dollar is, I don't know, 11 dinners.
	And I know it's a little tough, right?
	A day's skilled labor, three shillings a day.
	Or, you know, rent four bucks a month for a decent place.
	All right.
	Here's my pronunciation challenge.
	A thalassocracy or thalatocracy is a maritime empire or a state that enforces its rule primarily via
	Naval power.
	Of course, the ancient Greeks initially employed the term thalassocracy to depict the ruling system of the Minoan civilization, which relied on its naval strength for its power.
	The ancient Phoenicians, a thalassocracy, engaged in maritime trade and colonization efforts.
	But they were also notorious for their piracy activities along with the republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa in the Middle Ages.
	The Portuguese, of course, Spanish, Dutch, and British were all thalassocracies at one point.
	Arguably, the U.S.
	rests a substantial amount of its imperial power on its navy.
	Generally, it's not as visible to people inside the empire as it is visible to people outside the empire.
	Now, piracy was complicated, too, because there was something called privateers, which was not just a video game in the 90s, but many states throughout history engaged in what is essentially licensed or legal piracy, known contemporarily as privateering, where they allowed private ships to prey on the ships of specific enemies.
	So here you see evil, but, but, if you get a nice little piece of paper from the king, totally moral and in fact praised.
	So, initially permits were issued by a government to individuals who had suffered losses due to the actions of another nation.
	These individuals were then authorized to seek out and capture ships flying the flag of the offending nation.
	The captured vessels and their cargo could be sold at auction to recoup the losses suffered by the individual.
	Later, these licenses became known as Letters of Mark and Reprisal.
	Mark refers to the license or permit.
	Reprisal refers to the act of seeking retribution or compensation for the losses.
	So again, they're pirates if it's the enemy who has given permission for private people to attack your ships.
	They're privateers if it's the other way around.
	So again, we got this rotating.
	Everyone thinks that this, like, modern language redefinition stuff is disnew, this sort of postmodern stuff.
	No, no, no.
	They're always redefining things in the past so that our side is the good side, your side is the bad side, right?
	You know, terrorist, freedom fighter, that kind of stuff.
	All right.
	So in 1243, King Henry III of England introduced what would later be recognized as privateering commissions.
	These initial licenses granted private individuals the authority to capture the enemies of the king at sea.
	In exchange for their services, the privateers and the crown would share the spoils obtained from such endeavors.
	This allowed governments to either supplement their naval forces or forgo developing said naval forces at all to begin with.
	They did not have to crew or repair the private ships, which were often faster and more agile than traditional naval vessels, making them effective in harassing and capturing enemy ships.
	By the 16th century, the practice of licensing privateers during times of war had become prevalent throughout Europe.
	There were several efforts to end the practice, but they were never ultimately successful until the later 19th century.
	So, yeah, I mean, they were basically mercenaries.
	And of course, this is what the government does, right?
	They say, well, you know, we got to tax you to provide for your protection.
	However, funny story, it turns out that we really need to subcontract out that protection to a bunch of mercenaries or private supply companies or whatever, right?
	Which is interesting, right?
	So it's like having a business model that says, okay, we're going to have a restaurant and then we're going to have a whole class of people and they charge twice the price of the meal to deliver your order to the waiter, right?
	So you got a $40 steak dinner.
	And, well, one shillig, I guess, worth a steak.
	You've got a $40 steak dinner, pay me $80 and I'll bring your order to the waitress.
	It's like, well, can't I just talk to the waitress myself?
	No!
	Absolutely not.
	So we're going to use pirates and privateers interchangeably because people went back and forth.
	The terms went back and forth and, of course, many, if not most, famous pirates began their careers
	Ass privateers.
	So they were legal pirates and then they were like, what do I need this stinking badge for?
	What do I need this stinking piece of paper for?
	I'm doing the job anyway.
	Why should I go and share my booty with the king?
	If the king's not taking any risk himself, why am I going to go and share my booty with the king?
	I'm just going to tear up this piece of paper and eliminate the middleman, so to speak.
	Okay, so spontaneous self-organization.
	It's not chaos on a pirate ship.
	To maintain discipline and cohesion pirates established codes or articles of agreement.
	These are contracts to establish and regulate their dealings and their organization.
	Details of these pirate codes varied from ship to ship, but they generally followed similar lines.
	Here are some of the common provisions found in pirate codes.
	Now, of course, I know for most of you, right?
	This is where the big objection comes up, and I understand the objection.
	I had it myself as well, and I get where you're coming from.
	But Steph, but Steph, Steph, Steph, Steph.
	Don't you know that without the government you can't enforce contracts?
	Sorry to make you laugh.
	This statement is only said by people who've never tried to use the government to enforce a contract.
	And if you ever do try to use the government to enforce a contract, you may be tempted to think of...
	Other ways of doing things.
	Contracts are enforced all the time.
	The vast majority of the rules in your life are enforced not through law, but through social mechanisms of conformity, ostracism, approval, disapproval, and so on.
	So, we'll get to how they're enforced, but what are some of the common provisions found in pirate codes?
	Distribution of plunder!
	The code determined how the captured loot would be divided among the crew.
	The captain usually received a larger share, while the rest of the crew received an equal or proportionate shares, right?
	Of course, the captain was providing the ship and the expertise, the experience, he's hiring people, and so on.
	So, Captain Edward Lowe and George Louther penned, and I quote, Article 1.
	The captain is to have two full shares, the quartermaster is to have one share and one half,
	The doctor made Gunner and Boatswain one share and one quarter.
	Right, so of course the rest of the crew got one share.
	And there were strict codes for compensation for injuries.
	They had provisions for compensating crew members who were injured in battle.
	The amount of compensation increased with the severity of the injury.
	Captain John Phillips.
	Article 8.
	If any man shall lose a joint in time of an engagement,
	Shall have four hundred pieces of eight, if a limb, eight hundred.
	So the loss of a joint would translate to three and a half years of skilled wages.
	If you lost a limb, seven and a third years of skilled wages.
	And remember, of course, people didn't exactly live to be a hundred a lot of times in these days, so this was a significant chunk of time.
	Election of a captain.
	We can only dream that modern democracies could work this effectively.
	The captain of the pirate ship was elected by the majority of the crew.
	Oh, so that's interesting.
	So sometimes he would bring his own ship and sometimes, of course, he would be elected by the majority of the crew.
	If the crew was unhappy with the captain's performance, they could depose him.
	Just remove him from office or power.
	This was different from a mutiny or a murder.
	Decision-making.
	Oh, interesting.
	The crew collectively decided on the destination of each voyage and whether to attack a particular ship or raid a coastal village.
	The captain did not have absolute authority in these matters.
	Can you imagine that
	The government wants to start a program, go to war, poke some wasps nest overseas, and they have to actually ask the citizens if they want to do it and go along with it.
	And they don't get to do it without the citizens.
	Like, every single decision.
	It's incredible, right?
	Try and think of this in the Navy, right?
	The Navy comes up with some harebrained scheme to go and attack some place that's a disaster, or sail into some storm, and you say, I don't think we should, no matter how many of you as the crew say that, it happens, or you get killed.
	Would you get more freedom as a pirate, or in the Navy?
	Captain Bartholomew Roberts, or Black Bart,
	And I quote, Article 1.
	Every man has a vote in affairs of moment, has equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity, not an uncommon thing among them, makes it necessary for the good of all to vote a retrenchment.
	Punishments.
	So the code outlined the punishments for breaking the rules.
	These punishments could include marooning, stranding the offender on a deserted island, flogging, or even death.
	In fact, there were kids as young as eight years old on these ships, and they would be leaned over the cannon and beaten.
	Dispute resolution.
	In case of disputes or doubts about the interpretation of the code, a jury was appointed to explain the laws and bring a verdict.
	We'll go into more detail about this later.
	So it wasn't arbitrary.
	The captain couldn't just say jump and everyone said how high.
	This guy's punished, okay.
	If he disagreed...
	Then there was a whole jury that occurred.
	Now, this is a little bit of a dog's breakfast.
	It's a gathering of various historical accounts at various times, and this could vary, of course, but these were the general articles of agreement.
	Black Bart on dispute resolution.
	Article 8.
	No striking one another on board, but every man's quarrels to be ended on shore at sword and pistol.
	So this is how things would be running in this situation.
	All right, so getting into the details of specific pirate codes, we'll drill deep on one.
	They were not as carefree as one might have suspected.
	So some captains forbade gambling.
	I also noticed this when I was working on The Truth About the Wild West, that many towns forbade gun ownership in the town.
	Captain John Phillips, Article 3.
	If any man shall steal anything in the company or game to the value of a piece of eight, he shall be marooned or shot.
	Black Bart.
	No person to game at cards, or dice, or money.
	Often crewmen were forbidden from risking starting a fire below deck.
	For obvious reasons, Captain John Phillips said, 6.
	That man that shall snap his arms or smoke tobacco in the hold, without a cap to his pipe, or carry a candle lighted without a lanthorn, shall suffer the same punishment as in the former article, shall receive Moses' Law, that is 40 stripes, lacking one on the bare back.
	Snapping arms.
	Yes, that's a fine question.
	I'm afraid I don't know.
	I don't know what that is.
	It seems it's likely working on or maintaining their firearms in such a way that might risk starting a fire.
	If you know, let me know.
	I couldn't find the exact definition.
	But don't do it on a pirate ship in the 18th century.
	Do not snap your arms.
	Look at that.
	There were articles against rape and the distractions of sex.
	Captain Phillips again.
	Article 9.
	If at any time you meet with a prudent woman, that man that offers to meddle with her without her consent shall suffer present death.
	Ah, that's the patriarchy.
	Rape a woman and you get killed.
	Black Bart.
	No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them.
	If any man were to be found seducing any of the latter sex and carried her to sea disguised, he was to suffer death.
	Entertainment in the form of musicians was important as well, and addressed in the code of Bartholomew Roberts.
	Article 11.
	The musicians to have rest on the Sabbath day, but the other six days and nights, none without special favor.
	I mean, it wasn't exactly a bleeding-edge, death-cutless cruise ship, but it also wasn't exactly the opposite of that either.
	Discipline and readiness for engagement was heavily regulated among pirate crews, right?
	So the guys up there in the top of the crow's nest looking for stuff, you've got to be ready to do it all the time.
	Black Bart.
	Four.
	The lights and candles to be put out at eight o'clock at night.
	If any of the crew after that hour still remained inclined for drinking, they were to do it on the open deck.
	Article Five.
	To keep their peace, pistols, and cutlass clean and fit for service.
	Right.
	Yes.
	How do you enforce things without the government staff?
	Boy, I've never heard that one before.
	I'm not trying to be bitter.
	It's just been a little repetitive and I've been at this for over 40 years.
	Alright.
	Pirate contracts were enforced through a combination of social norms, peer pressure, and the threat of punishment, up to and including death or expulsion from the crew and their society.
	The pirate crews organized hierarchically with varying roles to enforce, clarify, and adjudicate their code.
	Quartermasters were elected by pirate crews to serve as the principal officer and first line of pirate law enforcement.
	In charge of allocating provisions, selecting and distributing loot, and resolving conflicts among crew members, quartermasters played a crucial role in maintaining order and enforcing the pirate code within the pirate community.
	They were the heavily bearded, often one-eyed Karens of the floating Death Cutlass cruise lines.
	Captains retained absolute authority in times of battle, enabling pirates to realize the benefits of autocratic control required for success in conflict, right?
	So, the crew voted on whether to go attack a ship.
	Once the attack was underway, the captain had absolute authority.
	Pirate juries!
	I'm sure that they were all called Tom Fitton.
	While the code itself was often developed and agreed upon collectively by the crew, it was ultimately the captain's responsibility to ensure that the code was followed.
	And of course, if you were a competent pirate ship member dude, you could choose from a wide variety of pirate ships.
	And so you'd only find one that you understood the rules, that you agreed with the rules, and so on.
	So it was different from just being born into a place and having the rules change arbitrarily.
	For example, Captain Vane, V-A-N-E, not the Sin of Pride, Captain Vane was accused of cowardice when he ordered not to engage a French man of war.
	A vote was held, and Captain Vane was deposed and replaced by Calico Jack Rackham.
	Vane and those who sided with the Captain were given a small sloop and provisions to provide for themselves and expelled.
	Here's some other examples.
	In August 1720, Captain Edward England... Boy, this is gonna be confusing at all, is it?
	Captain Edward England and his first mate, John Taylor...
	confronted three ships, two Dutch and one English East India Company ship.
	Taylor chased the Dutch ship while Edward England battled the English ship called Cassandra.
	Cassandra's captain ran it aground, leading to the crew being stranded.
	The loot from Cassandra worth 75,000 pounds included an antique map of Madagascar and the Indian Ocean.
	90 people were killed aboard the Fancy, which was Captain England's
	Flagship and boy, there's about we've got a British ship captained by England called Fancy I really feel I need to drink my coffee with my crumpet finger and little finger raised So after several days when the starving crew of the ship Cassandra the one that ran aground emerged from the woods Taylor sought revenge however Captain England showed compassion and released them to sail away on the Fancy in response Taylor rebelled
	So, I get it.
	It's a little confusing, but he gave him one of the ships because you can't take over a ship and sail it away, right?
	So a vote was held.
	Captain England was replaced as captain and marooned along with three others on Mauritius, near Madagascar.
	England, former Captain England and his companions, built a raft from scraps and reached Augustine's Bay, Madagascar.
	England survived for a short time, begging for food, and died around the end of 1720.
	So, yeah, showing compassion can be tricky throughout history as a whole.
	And now, Edward England was captain.
	Taylor was his first mate, though Taylor commanded the second ship.
	They were pirates, not privateers.
	Now, the Golden Age of Piracy was a period from about the 1650s to the 1730s.
	It refers to a period of intense piracy activity, particularly in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, though we will focus on the Atlantic.
	So the first notable acts of piracy in the Atlantic was at the hands of Sir Francis Drake, 1540 to 1596.
	Actually, it's pretty long.
	Pretty long time for a pirate.
	Hey, I'm that old.
	Drake began his career as a politician, but soon turned to piracy and privateering.
	In other words, he became a more honest politician.
	In 1563, he embarked on his first major expedition raiding Spanish settlements in the Caribbean.
	Of course, he was considered a pirate, an evil pirate to the Spanish, but Drake was lauded as a hero back in England.
	This is how you know you're in the realm of reverse moral judgments.
	One of Drake's most famous exploits was his attack on the Spanish treasure ship, the Cacafuego, in 1579.
	The capture of the ship's valuables brought him great wealth and fame.
	In recognition of his achievements, Queen Elizabeth I knighted him aboard his ship, the Golden Hind.
	The Golden Hind is, of course, also the name of my alternate OnlyFans channel.
	Now!
	Golden Age of Piracy?
	What happened?
	Well, many from the Old World sought freedom and a new life in the Caribbean and brought with them their culture, including that of common law.
	Their culture heavily influenced that of the pirates to come.
	In the early 1600s, French settlers in the Caribbean were not treated well by Spanish authorities.
	The Spanish had strict trading laws that allowed only Spanish merchants to trade with the colonists of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.
	This led to constant smuggling and new attempts at colonization by England, France, and the Netherlands.
	So...
	Common law.
	It's a big topic, but I'll just touch on it really briefly.
	So common law refers to laws or rules that are developed through trial and error over a constant period of time, rather than statutes or written codes.
	So judicial decisions accepted by the general population or precedents and so on.
	It originated in England, been adopted by many countries, including the US.
	Common law is constantly evolving through decisions made by judges in various cases.
	So yeah, that's common law.
	The French settlers on the shared island of Saint Christophe, Saint Kitts, were mostly Catholics, while the French presence in Northwest Hispaniola, or Haiti, was made up for French Protestants who had settled there without Spain's permission to escape Catholic persecution.
	Spain did not approve of these settlements and considered them illegal.
	So just remember, free trade as a concept didn't really develop even in people's ideas until
	18th century and didn't really spread until mid to late 18th century, 19th century.
	The idea that a country would benefit from free trade was really first figured out by
	England and it opened up its trade.
	It said that our big treasure is going to be by foreign traffic.
	They called it foreign traffic which was just trade.
	The idea that you wouldn't just allow your own merchants to benefit and that you'd get much more efficiency tax revenue.
	I mean the basis of the British Empire was some limited amounts of free trade just as the basis for the Netherlands wealth was the first stock market and the fact that they had trade there that was relatively free.
	So this is kind of a new idea and of course we're still tangled up in
	Managed trade.
	Trade restrictions versus free trade at the moment.
	So, cost-benefit.
	Navy versus piracy.
	Government versus non-government gang, right?
	So, Navy Sailor.
	What have we got here?
	The wages for Navy Sailor.
	This is 18th century.
	22 shillings, 6 pence a month.
	What did a pirate make?
	Well, it's tricky.
	So you can't really get a very accurate, and of course it varied, right?
	The most notorious pirate captains are estimated to have amassed tens of millions of dollars in wealth over their careers.
	The lowest estimates of the lowest earners are hundreds of thousands of dollars in today's value.
	So, quite often the captain only took two or maybe three times as much as the crew.
	You can make very rough guesses as to what the average pirate was taking in, in wealth.
	So...
	Not bad.
	Not bad at all.
	So the moral hazards for the Navy sailor and the pirate were much the same, but the pirates got to choose their moral hazards.
	The Navy sailors did not.
	Punishments were similar between sailors and pirates.
	So let's look at this.
	Loss of limb.
	So if you lost a limb as a Navy sailor, you would get 133 shillings and 133 shillings a year.
	For the Pirate, you get 4,400 shillings right away.
	Loss of two limbs, a little bit more than double for the Navy, double for the Pirate.
	300 shillings for the Navy, Sailor plus 300 shillings a year, the Pirate would get 8,800 shillings.
	I mean, an absolute fortune.
	Autonomy, Navy, Sailor, pretty much zero.
	But Pirate, you had an equal vote.
	Again, if we take the morals out of it, which, you know, the morals are somewhat reversal and questionable.
	If we take the morals out of it, which would you choose, right?
	Pirates and naval officers alike would be signing up to literally commit assault, theft, and destruction of property.
	Punishments.
	Both have been subject to corporal and capital punishment.
	Though pirates at least allowed for ostracism as opposed to a death sentence in some cases.
	Pirates were also judged by their peers.
	In the Navy, it's a top-down hierarchy with very little appeal.
	Autonomy.
	As a naval officer, one's life is ultimately subject to the captain and crown.
	As a pirate, one could vote on all matters of importance and had much greater influence over their lives and the rules that regulated them.
	Pirates could also leave the employ of one captain and work for another.
	Didn't really get that when it came to being in the Navy.
	Now, you can say, ah, yes, but somehow the Navies were better.
	Like, OK, that's the stuff you've swallowed, the stuff you've absorbed.
	Navies were better.
	OK.
	If you believe that there's some massive moral difference between private pirates and a government Navy, riddle me this, Batman, if you dare, then why were governments so eager to pay the private pirates to do their dirty work?
	Why?
	If having a navy is just infinitely morally better than hiring a pirate, why did governments continually hire pirates instead of growing navies often to do their dirty work, right?
	It doesn't really make much sense.
	It's like saying mercenaries are bad, but the government hires a huge number of mercenaries.
	You gotta pick a lane, right?
	Now...
	Remember we said back here you get a certain amount of money per year for the rest of your life and your widows would get that too for a while.
	And in the British Navy there was this thing called the Chatham Chest.
	It was a fund established in 1590 to provide pensions to disabled seamen from the Royal Navy.
	Sorry.
	No, no.
	See, here's the thing.
	You just give a massive amount of money to the government and they'll totally keep it safe for you.
	And they won't spend it.
	They won't use it as collateral to borrow money.
	They won't put in dusty IOUs in the place of actual gold.
	It'll be totally safe.
	Just give the government all your money and there'll totally be a big, big ass retirement pension for you when you get older.
	So pensions were awarded based on a predetermined scale.
	Each pensioner received an upfront lump sum typically equivalent to one year's pension known as smart money.
	The Chatham chest experienced severe difficulties throughout its existence.
	One major issue was the misappropriation of funds.
	I really believe that this is the only time in history when that actually happened.
	In the early 1620s, King Charles I seized the contents of the chest to pay off unrelated debts.
	Additionally, despite the security measures in place, large quantities of funds went missing over the years.
	Sorry.
	Were they replaced with treasury bills?
	Who knows?
	Another problem was that seamen's wages were often lower than the official rates, while the payments to the chest remained fixed.
	This meant that many seamen had to contribute more than required amount, causing financial strain.
	So by 1690,
	I guess a century after it was established, some pensions were as much as three years outstanding.
	So yeah, well, sorry that you had your limb blown off, but we'll get you some money in a couple of years.
	Good luck.
	Good luck with all that.
	All right, the Buccaneers.
	You know, it's funny because I love doing this kind of research because I know these words, but then I find out what they actually mean.
	So the French settlers who were attacked by the Spanish fled Hispaniola to settle on Tortuga.
	Sorry, we're just returning from our brief interlude there.
	They would survive by hunting local game like wild oxen and smoking the meat.
	I don't know, do you really hunt oxen?
	I mean, they're blindingly white and they stand around like statues.
	It's not exactly like taking down a hummingbird with a blow dart from a kite.
	So in French, the practice is called, this practice of hunting the local game and so on, and smoking the meat, the practice is called boucaniers.
	Boucaniers.
	This led to the term and their name, the Buccaneers, because British people have to anglicize everything.
	Bonjour, mademoiselle!
	The skills these settlers developed to survive in the Caribbean wilderness eventually translated into piracy.
	There was better oxen with two legs on ships in the ocean.
	So the Buccaneers operated with the partial support of non-Spanish colonies in the region.
	Their activities were often legal or partially legal and there were irregular amnesties from various nations.
	And the Buccaneers often sailed without wages, and they would accumulate their spoils over a couple of months before dividing them.
	The reason for that is that if you divide them a lot of times too early, the sailors would just go and whore and drink their money away.
	Because they knew how to live back then.
	Their crews, the Buccaneer crews, operated as democracies, with the captain being elected by the crew.
	The captain was expected to be a leader and fighter, actively participating in combat alongside the crew.
	Can you imagine?
	Whoever declares the war, but this is the Napoleon thing, he rode front and center, right?
	Spoils were divided into shares, with officers receiving more shares if they took greater risks or had special skills.
	Jean Lavasseur, I feel like he should be singing in Les Mis, was a Norman nobleman and Huguenot, who was appointed by the French authorities in 1642 to remove the English and govern Tortuga in northwest Hispaniola, modern Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
	However, Levasseur went rogue and declared total independence, setting up his own mini-state.
	So the Huguenots were French Protestants who adhered to the reformed or Calvinist tradition of Protestantism.
	Calvinism is a fairly dour belief system which has a predestination and a very tiny minority of people actually getting to heaven.
	The term Huguenots became widely used by the mid-16th century and may have originated from the name of the Genevan burgomaster Bessasson Hugues, a Swiss political leader.
	I love Switzerland.
	I love the culture.
	I love the country.
	I love the people.
	I love the languages.
	And the flag is a big plus.
	Sorry, just had to slip one dad joke into the whole presentation.
	We're back.
	So, the Huguenots, the term was often employed to describe individuals associated with the Reformed Church of France during the period of the Protestant Reformation.
	While the romantic notion of pirates burying treasure on isolated islands and wearing extravagant clothes has some basis, in fact, often pirate wealth was accumulated through the sale of items stripped from captured ships, such as ropes, sails, and block and tackle.
	I guess they went and started their own football teams?
	I don't know.
	So, with a force of a hundred men, that's an old song, the swords of a thousand men, Levasseur built an impressive fortress called Fort de Rocher, which had more than 40 cannons for defense.
	His fortress overlooked the harbor and became a stronghold against Spanish attacks.
	The Spanish sent a fleet of six ships to oust Levasseur, but his castle was well designed and his cannons made the port impregnable.
	So this is another interesting point when you think about it, right?
	War and armies and navies and so on, they're just other government programs.
	They suffer from all the inefficiencies of government programs.
	And when you have private forces going up against government armies,
	Often the private forces will win, and it doesn't matter the funding, it doesn't matter the weaponry.
	I mean, you can look at a wide variety of guerrilla movements throughout the 19th and 20th and 21st centuries and how they defeat the majority.
	The much larger, better armed, better funded army, like the traditional, you know, guys in the desert in flip-flops in a pickup truck beating out, you know, F-16s and so on.
	So, government armies and navies are ridiculously inefficient, and the only reason that they look evenly matched is that they're usually going up against other government armies and navies, which are equally inefficient.
	So you've got, in a sense, DMV versus DMV battle, and they're both equal because they're both inefficient, if that makes any sense.
	So here's a private guy, and the government can't beat him.
	So Tortuga served as welcoming base for buccaneers of various nationalities.
	Over the following decade, Levasseur profited greatly from his share of the plunder acquired in what would eventually become the most significant pirate sanctuary in the Caribbean.
	So again, the language changes.
	So the government says, oh, here's a piece of paper.
	Now you can be a legal pirate.
	We just want part of your booty.
	We want a chunk of your butt, right?
	Part of your booty.
	Now, of course, Levasseur sets up his own government and does exactly the same thing, but he's a pirate.
	It's the same thing, right?
	Later, Levasseur's reign in Tortuga was marked by cruelty and madness.
	Power corrupts!
	Yes, power corrupts.
	He banned Catholic services, burnt down the church in Tortuga, and exiled the priest.
	He also kept prisoners in an iron cage called Little Hell, where they were cramped and unable to fully stand.
	In 1652, Levasseur met his downfall when he was shot and stabbed by two of his own entourage.
	Would have been better off staying a pirate.
	All right, Captain Henry Morgan.
	He was a Welsh privateer and pirate who lived from around 1635 to 1688.
	Wasn't that the Great Fire of London?
	I think it was.
	He was born into a prominent family in Monmouth, Wales.
	Thank goodness it was one of those Welsh cities that doesn't sound like some epileptic nickname for an Aztec god.
	He was born into a prominent family in Monmouth, Wales and had two distinguished soldier uncles.
	Morgan followed in their footsteps and became a soldier himself.
	In 1654, Morgan joined an expeditionary force sent from Britain to capture Hispaniola.
	Although the mission was unsuccessful, they decided to attack Jamaica instead, because anyway, the wind blows, like literally, because, you know, they're sailing ships.
	So Jamaica was defended by only a few Spanish soldiers.
	The British forces were successful in capturing the island and it became a British settlement and an important base for the Royal Navy and privateers.
	This led to the establishment of what would become Port Royal Jamaica, a significant pirate haven.
	Morgan quickly rose to prominence as a privateer, participating in numerous raids and attacks against Spanish targets.
	He was known for his daring exploits and strategic planning.
	I had daring exploits, I do not have strategic planning.
	You know, just comparing myself to a pirate, like I went and got tear gassed covering the anti-communist riots in Hong Kong.
	Strategic planning, well, I got deplatformed a couple of years ago.
	So, you know, 50-50.
	So one of his most notable, this is Morgan's achievements, was the Sack of Kampesh in 1663, which was so successful that the King of England banned similar raids due to political fallout.
	Despite the ban, the governor of Jamaica, Thomas Moody Ford, continued to support Morgan and other privateers, using them to defend the island against Spanish attacks.
	Morgan carried out raids on Spanish ships and towns across the Caribbean, accumulating vast wealth and becoming one of the richest pirates of his time.
	So if you're really competent and you are a government dude, going private, going rogue and so on, I mean, if you're super competent, you really want to spend the rest of your life working with government workers.
	I don't know, Elon Musk running the DMV does not seem to be a particularly good use of his talents.
	So the more talented you are, the more impatient I'm sure you get with the other government workers around you, the more you want to go private, go pirate.
	Right, since Captain Morgan was one of the most successful and notorious pirates and privateers.
	Pirates slash privateers.
	See, get the double entendre there, because they use swords.
	Pirates slash privateers.
	Sometimes, privateers slash pirates.
	Okay, I could do that forever, so let's stop now.
	So let's look at his code in full, because he was very, very successful.
	All right, I looked up how to pronounce this.
	X. Quamellon.
	X. Quamellon?
	No, it's X. X. Quamellon, a French writer and author of one of the most important source books of 17th century piracy, writes that the Buccaneers, and I quote, agree on certain articles which are put in writing by way of bond or obligation, which everyone is bound to observe.
	And all of them, or the chief, set their hands to it, right?
	They all agree and sign it.
	Although Exquimelin does not number the articles, the following approximately reflects his description of the Buccaneer laws.
	1.
	The fund of all payments under the articles is the stock of what is gotten by the expedition, following the same law as other pirates.
	That is, no prey, no pay.
	Right?
	So I guess they were contingency-based, like the lawyers.
	It's like, if we win, we will get you stuff.
	2.
	Compensation is provided the captain for the use of his ship and the salary of the carpenter or shipwright who mended, careened and rigged the vessel.
	The latter usually about 150 pieces of 8.
	A sum for provisions and victuals is specified usually 200 pieces of 8.
	The salary and compensation is specified for the surgeon and his medicine chest usually 250 pieces of 8.
	3.
	A standard compensation is provided for maimed and mutilated buccaneers.
	Thus they order, for the loss of a right arm, six hundred pieces of eight, or six slaves.
	For the loss of a left arm, five hundred pieces of eight, or five slaves.
	My gosh, as a lefty, this kind of anti-left bigotry!
	Okay, okay.
	For a right leg, five hundred pieces of eight, or five slaves.
	For the left leg, four hundred pieces of eight, or four slaves.
	For an eye, one hundred pieces of eight, or one slave.
	For a finger of the hand, the same reward as for the eye.
	So remember, pieces of 8, 5.5 shillings translated to almost 2 days of skilled labour.
	150 to 200 shillings could be the annual earnings of a low skilled worker, a farmer with 200 shillings and so on.
	So there is your
	There is your code, right?
	And they would actually pay it, right?
	As opposed to the government, which would make you wait for a couple of years and cross your fingers.
	Well, depending on how many you'd lost, cross your finger?
	One finger?
	Who knows.
	All right, to continue.
	Four.
	Shares of booty are provided as follows.
	The captain or chief commander is allotted five or six portions to what the ordinary seamen have.
	The masters made only two, and officers proportionate to their employment.
	After whom they draw equal parts from the highest even to the lowest mariner, the boys not being omitted.
	For even these draw half a share, by reason that when they happen to take a better vessel than their own, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to the ship or boat wherein they are, and then retire to the prize which they have taken."
	Right, so it was their job to burn down the ship that you were abandoning because you took or grabbed a better ship.
	So that's, I assume, somewhat risky.
	Because it was gunpowder, right?
	Uh, five.
	In the prizes they take, it is severely prohibited to everyone to usurp anything, in particular to themselves.
	Yea, they make a solemn oath to each other not to abscond or conceal the least thing they find amongst the prey.
	If afterwards anyone is found unfaithful who has contravened the said oath, immediately he is separated and turned out of the society.
	Right, so you can't pocket a ring.
	You've got to put everything... I mean this is, you know, back when I was a waiter we had the busboys and everybody would take their tips and put it... put 10% of their tips in for the busboys and it was an honor system and actually worked pretty well.
	So by 1668, Henry Morgan had become admirable... I'm sorry, Admiral of the Brethren of the Coast.
	That's something to do with Dungeons and Dragons.
	Oh no, Wizards of the Coast.
	primarily Protestant privateers of English and French origin.
	The Brethren of the Coast were active in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, with Tortuga and Port Royal being their main bases of operation.
	They were issued letters of marque which allowed them to raid Catholic, French, and Spanish shipping and territories.
	Right.
	It's piracy!
	Except for Magic Piece of Paper.
	Magic Piece of Paper means complete moral reversal.
	Morgan's most famous raids include the capture of Puerto Principe in Cuba and the capture of Puerto Bello in Panama, where I assume he found some gorgeous hats.
	His men stayed in Puerto Bello for two months, looting and seizing a significant amount of treasure.
	Morgan's attack on Panama violated a peace treaty that had been signed between England and Spain in 1670.
	Hmm.
	So he got in trouble.
	Ostensibly, Morgan did not know of a peace treaty that had been signed between England and Spain in the summer of 1670, which recognized English rule in Jamaica and banned privateering attacks against the Spaniards.
	It's a funny thing, you know, when you go back in time to just remember how absolutely appalling the communications capacities were of the world, really, up until the Telegraph.
	So Morgan's attack on Panama violated this treaty, and he was subsequently arrested and summoned to London for trial.
	You see, this is battle of the matrix papers, the redefinitions of morality.
	You can attack the Spanish!
	Here's your piece of paper that says you can do it.
	Oh, wait, what?
	So there's another piece of paper that says he can't?
	You cannot attack the Spanish!
	We're going to try you, because it's warring pieces of paper.
	So during his trial, Morgan was able to prove that he had no knowledge of the treaty which secured his acquittal.
	He argued that he'd acted under the authority and commission of St.
	Thomas Mody Ford, the governor of Jamaica.
	Despite the violation of the peace treaty, Morgan was treated as a hero by the general populace and the leading figures of government and royalty, including King Charles II.
	Now, of course, the kings like mercenaries because mercenaries get things done unlike their inefficient armies and navies.
	The people like the pirates because the pirates represent a way out of the moral matrix, where what is virtuous and evil is defined in the moment by the needs of the powers that be.
	Now, after his acquittal, Morgan was knighted as a Knight Bachelor in November 1674.
	So he's a good pirate!
	He's a pirate with a piece of paper, so he gets knighted.
	The other guys get their heads cut off.
	No paper defense, no life.
	He returned to the colony of Jamaica shortly afterward and served as the territory's Lieutenant Governor.
	Or, as they would say in other places, Lieutenant Governor.
	He also served on the Assembly of Jamaica until 1683 and acted as Governor of Jamaica on three occasions in the absence of the current Post Holder.
	Bad pirate!
	Good pirate!
	Pirate broke treaty!
	Now pirate privateer!
	Good!
	Buccaneer!
	Bad!
	Anyway, the wind blows, right?
	And he gets all the glories known to man because he's a pirate with paper.
	Later in life, Morgan purchased several thousand acres of land in Jamaica and set up his own sugar plantations.
	He was happily married for over 20 years and had connections with high society in London.
	He died on August 25th, 1688.
	He was suffering from the accumulated effects of tropical fever, dropsy, and alcoholism.
	His health had been deteriorating, but he refused to abandon his dissolute lifestyle.
	He continued to drink excessively, which led to a return of his symptoms.
	I suppose that
	If you're dedicated to that amount of chaos, subservience, subsequence and violence, maybe you don't take care of your liver so much.
	Now, it's worth noting that Morgan's portrayal in history has been affected by a memoir published by the aforementioned Alexandra Exquimelin, a former shipmate of Morgan's.
	Exquimelin accused Morgan of widespread torture and other offenses.
	Morgan won a libel suit against the book's English publishers, but Exquimelin's portrayal has influenced history's view of Morgan.
	Despite this, Morgan's life was romanticized after his death in 1688 and became the inspiration for pirate-themed works of fiction across various genres.
	Yeah, you know, winning a libel suit.
	I mean, Joseph McCarthy won a libel suit for, I think, $11,000, which was quite a lot back in the day, for a newspaper article that was considered the most libelous thing many lawyers had ever seen.
	But did it really affect his long-term reputation?
	Not so much.
	People see what they want to see.
	All right.
	So during the golden age of piracy,
	And, you know, it's nice that it's called the Golden Age because, you know, gold was involved.
	The Republic of Pirates emerged as a dominant force.
	It was located in Nassau on New Providence Island in the Bahamas.
	Now, of course, it's financial piracy through unnumbered bank accounts.
	But back then, there was a little bit more lead and cannon involved.
	The Republic of Pirates operated under a pirate code, which mandated that the crews within the Republic would democratically elect their ship leaders and maintain a certain level of respect and decency towards other pirate crews.
	So, spontaneous self-organization is better than enforced rules.
	Repeat after me!
	Spontaneous self-organization is better than enforced rules.
	You know, it's a funny thing, too.
	Like, this goes all the way back to my childhood, because I sometimes wonder how I went mad with the concept of freedom and voluntarism, non-aggression principle, property rights.
	It had a lot to do with the fact, this is totally a segue, but I hope it makes sense to you.
	So, when I was a kid, I was just one year after the end of the baby boom, so tons of kids around.
	I lived in an apartment building with tons and tons of kids around, all these other apartment buildings, lots of places to play.
	So we would get together, we had no money.
	We were broke, had no money for anything.
	So we'd get together and we'd invent our own games.
	There was no rules.
	Video games have all these rules.
	There were rules enforced at the arcades.
	And of course, if you're playing sports, there's often an umpire of people watching all these rules.
	We would not only make up our own rules, we'd make up our own games.
	And the enforcement of these rules was voluntary and peaceful.
	And if kids didn't respect the rules,
	We would all arrange to meet where those kids wouldn't be.
	We would not let them play in our games.
	And that's how we enforced our rules.
	So not only did we not have any rules or any formal games, we didn't have any enforcement mechanism, yet all the rules were perfectly followed almost all the time.
	So spontaneous self-organization.
	Now, kids, everything they go is structured.
	Everywhere they go is structured, right?
	They're going to Chuck E. Cheese.
	They're going to some amusement park.
	They're going to an arcade.
	Everything's structured.
	You don't have to invent your own rules.
	And if you don't have years of experience with little kids inventing and enforcing their own rules, you really don't understand the spontaneous self-organization that happens.
	I mean, because we didn't have umpires or formal rules or anything like that, we didn't sit there and stare at each other, oh, I don't know what to do.
	We just come up with our own rules and our own enforcement mechanisms, and this is the way that life could possibly work in the absence of this oligarchical hierarchy that we currently pretend is a society.
	So, end of rant.
	Let us continue.
	Well, end of this rant, anyway.
	So most pirates in the Republic of Pirates were former privateers, right?
	How often does this happen?
	Government trains.
	You know, this is the Mujahideen, right?
	I mean, the Americans trained the Mujahideen to fight against the Soviet Empire and then they went rogue, right?
	At this time, a privateer captain was expected to keep a journal.
	And to hand over all ships and goods seized to an admiralty court to be assessed and valued.
	A proportion of the value went to the sovereign, the rest went to the ship's owners, her captain, and crew.
	In theory, an authorized privateer was recognized by international law and could not be prosecuted of piracy, but the system is wide open to abuse.
	Well, all systems are wide open to abuse, that's the nature of systems, which is why you need the constant reinvention of self-organization to combat
	Anything to combat corruption and abuse.
	Any system that's enforced by violence will become corrupt and abusive, without a doubt.
	History says this beyond clearly.
	In 1706, the event that established the Republic of Pirates was the arrival of a pirate fleet led by the notorious pirate captains Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings in Nassau, Bahamas.
	This marked a pivotal moment when the pirates effectively took control and established a base for their operations.
	Under the leadership of Hornigold and Jennings, the pirates implemented a system of governance and cooperation.
	They ruled Nassau in the same democratic way they were used to ruling their ships.
	Hornigold originally had the idea to form a pirate community in Nassau.
	He recruited former shipmates and drinking buddies who were tired of poverty and the Spanish Coast Guard.
	There's two things to be tired of.
	A lot of people tired of poverty, not so many people tired of the Spanish Coast Guard.
	Their plan was to attack Spanish shipping and enrich themselves in the process.
	They needed a small vessel, a few good men, and a secure base from which to launch their raids.
	Nassau, with its sheltered harbor, was the perfect location.
	It is believed the population of the Republic ranged, this is the Republic of Pirates, ranged between 1,000 and 2,000 pirates.
	Estimates, of course, may not be exact.
	So, the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, also known as Queen Anne's War in 1715, resulted in the demobilization of the Royal Navy and the cessation of privateering commissions.
	The Royal Spanish Succession, the European Great Power Conflict from 1701 to 1715.
	The start of piracy in the Bahamas can be traced back to 1696, when Henry Avery, a privateer, arrived in Nassau Harbor aboard his ship, the Fancy.
	Which was brimming with plundered riches from Indian trade vessels.
	No relation to previous fancy, I believe.
	In order to secure their operations, Avery enticed Governor Nicholas Trott with a substantial offering of gold, silver, and the vessel, the fancy itself, which was still laden with elephant tusks and 100 barrels of gunpowder.
	This arrangement solidified Nassau as a safe haven for pirates, despite occasional displays of piracy suppression by various governors.
	Over time, the pirates gained significant power and influence, although on paper, the legal authority of the governors remained intact, right?
	So, if you bribe the powers that be, you can do just about anything that you want.
	Now, Henry Jennings did not originally set out to be a pirate, but was motivated to join the Republic of Pirates in Nassau, primarily because of his involvement in a global conspiracy to overthrow George I and put James Stewart on the British throne.
	He was a wealthy and successful merchant captain who initially intended to salvage loot from the wrecks of the Spanish treasure fleet.
	However, instead of salvaging, he launched an assault on the Spanish salvage camp and stole a significant amount of gold and silver.
	This illegal raid led him to Nassau, where he offended rival pirate leader Benjamin Hornigold.
	Now, Jennings offended Hornigold by relieving him of one of his prizes, a small Spanish trading sloop shortly after arriving in Nassau.
	Jennings had nearly 200 well-armed men and at least two sloops under his command, making it difficult for Hornigold to resist.
	Some of Jennings' men moved aboard the prize vessel, relieving the crowding on the other sloops.
	This action likely caused tension and strained relations between Jennings and Hornigold.
	Now,
	Getting the wrecks of the Treasure Fleet underwater, that's fine, but the assault on the Spanish salvage camp, you know, it's a lot easier to steal people who've already got the property than to go and get the property yourself.
	It's a lot easier to steal the guy coming back from gold panning than to actually gold pan yourself.
	But the assault on the Spanish salvage camp was not a legal act as a privateer because, remember, privateering was only authorized during times of war.
	At the time of the assault there was no ongoing war between Britain and Spain, therefore their actions were considered acts of piracy rather than legitimate privateering.
	So this is paper layers, right?
	Because there's not a piece of paper saying that war between the collective fiction of England and the collective fiction of Spain
	Which is war of individuals against individuals.
	Because there was no piece of paper saying that was happening, the other piece of paper saying it was okay to attack the Spanish was also not happening, and therefore this is like the equivalent of the reverse card in UNO.
	Oh, you think you can do it?
	No, you can't.
	You can't do it.
	This piece of paper is not valid because that other piece of paper has not been activated.
	I mean, uh...
	All of human history appears to be largely beheading through the paper cuts of treaties and declarations of war.
	Jennings became a leading figure in the pirate enclave of Nassau and earned the respect of the pirate rank-and-file due to his skills in capturing prizes and leading assaults.
	However, it is important to note that Jennings refused to attack English vessels setting himself apart from other pirates in this regard.
	In 1717, Woods Rogers was appointed royal governor of the Bahamas by King George I and tasked with bringing an end to piracy in the region.
	See, pirates, super helpful when you give them the right pieces of paper and set them upon your enemies, when you're trying to profit from trade rather than war,
	Pirates turn from good privateers back to bad pirates and now you got to stop them through force.
	Whereas before you were protecting their right to do violence against others through force.
	So it's a kind of an inception of paper warping, moral reversal nonsense.
	So Woods Rogers implemented various measures to combat piracy, including offering a pardon to all pirates who turned themselves in.
	Now, there were many famous pirates operating out of NASA who were part of the Republic of Pirates.
	It's really, really hard to find accountings of any of their specific codes or organizing laws, but there's no reason to assume that those general laws would be different from anything else.
	I mean, people generally will copy-paste rather than invent from scratch.
	Like, you know why the width of
	The railroads throughout the world tends to be about the same because the railroads mirror the ruts of Roman chariots, which were that wide because of the horse's width.
	So literally we have train tracks because of the width of horses arses, not just in the Roman Empire, but I guess ever since it's not like horses have changed that much.
	So yeah, people just copy paste as a whole rather than reinvent things so we can assume that they're similar to everything else.
	Now Benjamin Hornigold was captured by the British and accepted a royal pardon and turned pirate hunter, actively assisting in the capture of his former comrades.
	Charles Vane, another prominent pirate captain, we mentioned him, was captured by pirate hunter Jonathan Barnett in 1718.
	Calico Jack Rackham, known for his association with the famous female pirate Anne Bonny,
	Was captured by him in 1720.
	Both were eventually tried and hanged in Jamaica.
	Yes.
	Shall we spend a moment on this?
	Not a huge number, but there certainly were female pirates.
	So let's talk about a female pirate or two.
	Because, well... It's a little hot, isn't it?
	I think it's a little hot.
	Alright.
	Anne Bonny was a notorious pirate who lived in the 18th century.
	She was born in Ireland, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy lawyer.
	To hide her parentage, her father dressed her as a boy
	And had her pose as his law clerk.
	Can you unpack the reasons why?
	I'm sure we can imagine them, right?
	So, later she moved to America and married a sailor.
	She then journeyed to the pirate-infested island of New Providence in the Bahamas, where she abandoned her husband and became involved with the pirate Calico Jack Rackham.
	Because even then, some women, they like the bad boys.
	Have you seen the pictures of women twerking in front of men's prisons, trying to drive their incarcerated men mad with lust?
	Yeah.
	So some...
	I was just talking to a listener just yesterday.
	He violently assaulted and wanted to kill another boy in high school and then a lot of girls wanted to sleep with him.
	It's this 50 Shades of Grey thing.
	It is a dark heart of certain aspects of female nature that no man go unattended and very few return from.
	So I just I map the outskirts.
	I don't go deep into the heart of it.
	But yeah, she's like, oh, deadly murderous pirate.
	Open the legs, right?
	Actually, probably didn't creak at that point.
	But you know what I'm saying?
	So Mary Read was a female pirate who lived in the 18th century.
	She was born in England and was raised as a boy by her mother.
	She later disguised herself as a man and served as a sailor and foot soldier.
	She eventually joined the crew of Calico Jack.
	Mary Read's true gender was eventually discovered by Anne Bonny and they formed a close relationship.
	Whatever you want to mean by that.
	So yeah, Mary Read spent most of her youth disguised as her deceased half-brother.
	So that her penniless mother could scam the boy's grandmother.
	One of Reed's most famous exploits came in October 1720 when she and Bonnie fought like banshees during an attack by pirate hunters.
	If there's a man among ye!
	She supposedly screamed at the male buccaneers cowering below decks who'd been caught off guard and were drunk.
	Ye'll come up and fight like the men ye are to be!
	So yeah, she was a
	She was pretty wild, I guess.
	Ah, yes.
	Always the way of avoiding consequences.
	Oh, is there a war?
	I'm so sorry, I got pregnant.
	Oh, am I out of money?
	Oh, so sorry, I got pregnant.
	All right, let's talk about pirates in early America, because the two have a relationship that's actually quite strong.
	So the Puritan communities in Ireland and the fledgling colonies of Jamestown, Bermuda, New Plymouth, and Boston played a role in the protection and support of piracy during the early stages of the English overseas expansion.
	Basically, any time Ireland gets to stick it to Profitius Albion to England, they will do it as a whole.
	Piracy, in part, was a response to what was seen as oppressive social hierarchies at the time.
	Pirates, by flaunting social graces and wearing flamboyant clothing above their social stations, subverted the rigid class structure of colonial society.
	This defiance of social norms and expectations can be seen as an early form of rebellion against authority and a desire for individual freedom.
	So, just a minor brief aside.
	Philosophically speaking, this is a philosophy show, after all.
	I mean there's two ways of looking at the world.
	There's a way of looking at the world as individuals acting and ignoring costumes and words written on paper and hats and crowns and strange outfits and so on and just looking at
	What King Lear referred to as the bare forked animal, like the child's lollipop drawing of a person.
	There's just people, there's only people in the world.
	And when you look at the world, and that's an accurate way of looking at things, there are only people, then you see people in costumes, you see people sitting higher than other people and pretending to be morally different and so on in some fundamental way.
	You see, you wouldn't as a business owner just write the word profit and say I've made money, right?
	But there's this idea that you write something down on a piece of paper and you completely revert the morality of the situation.
	That which was immoral now becomes moral, that which was moral now becomes immoral, and all of this.
	So there are people who look at the world as a collection of individuals and that can't be manipulated, right?
	Because people are people.
	But then, and this seems to be the majority, probably throughout history, certainly these days, there are people who look at the world through concepts that can be easily manipulated.
	Concepts that can be easily manipulated.
	And therefore, if you write something down different, you've changed reality.
	Language is reality.
	Concepts are truth.
	And looking at things as individuals, looking at things as collectives.
	There are some people who look at the trees and accept the forest as a concept.
	There are some people who only accept the forest as the truth and the trees as dispensable or disposable.
	And so
	Pirates are saying, I don't believe the moral laws that are put in place.
	I don't believe the moral laws.
	How can I go from good to evil to good to evil depending on the whim of another person?
	That's mad.
	That's like imagining, like people can no more rewrite the laws.
	of morality, in fact, in philosophy, in truth, then they can rewrite the laws of physics.
	And there's no writ, no law, no nonsense written down and promulgated and intoned from a podium by deep-voiced and solemn and direct eye contact kinds of people that can reverse the laws of physics.
	There's no one who goes to the beach, who's Irish let's say, goes to the beach
	And mutters the word sunscreen a couple of times during the day and doesn't get a sunburn because the concepts are not reality.
	Concepts are not reality.
	Concepts are not reality.
	They're useful, they're helpful, but they are not reality.
	Concepts are descriptions of reality.
	You eat the physical meal, you don't eat the idea of a meal.
	Now, of course, we don't have a lot of pirates, really, of any, that wrote down their philosophy, or mindset, or values, and so on, because people who are often good at violence are not so good at, you know, thinking and justifying and reasoning, so it's not really, there's not really much that has been recorded from what pirates were actually doing.
	And, of course, there was no place for them to publish anyway, really, right?
	So piracy provided an alternative way of life for those who were disillusioned with the promises of the colonial system.
	Many inhabitants of the colonies, particularly those from lower classes, saw piracy as an opportunity to earn money and escape the ownership of land or business.
	The land in proprietary colonies was becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few, leaving others feeling left out and disillusioned.
	I mean, the idea that you go to an entire new continent, plant a flag, and the whole continent is yours, and then the government has this... the people calling themselves the government have this magical ownership over the entire continent, which they can sell to you for a price, or shoot you if you take it without their permission.
	I mean, it's wild.
	It's a wild concept, philosophically speaking.
	Pirate crews of course operated under their own rules and codes, making decisions collectively and electing their own leaders.
	This democratic structure, albeit within the context of a violent and at the time criminal enterprise, can be seen as a precursor to the ideals of self-governance and individual liberty that would later shape the American Revolution.
	A lot of skepticism about governments in this age.
	And of course, look, what were people saying, right?
	What were people saying?
	What were they seeing?
	They were seeing that the government was perfectly comfortable kicking down the door of your wedding, dragging you from the sobbing, screaming presence of your bride, locking you up in a, as Samuel Johnson said, right?
	The sailing is a prison with the added opportunity of drowning.
	So they would grab your life, throw you in imprisonment to go and, what?
	Get other people's property, other people's territory, other people's land.
	Okay, so it's fine to use ship-borne violence to take other people's property, and it's fine to steal people, to kidnap people, to enslave people, and it's worse than slavery in many ways, because at least a slave owner in an agricultural concern has a preference to keep his slave alive and healthy, because he paid for the slave, whereas the naval leaders didn't have any such incentive other than the efficiency of battle.
	So, when you see this race to color the map various shades of European colors, right?
	The great age of colonialism and invasion.
	They are, well, you can steal people and force them to go and steal other people's property.
	So pirates...
	are the same as navies, but without the magical pieces of paper, which don't change morality.
	And this is how society gets corrupted.
	As governments do stuff that's clearly immoral, other people then say, okay, well, some people will say that's fine then, right?
	And that's just the way things play.
	So quite often, colonial Americans saw pirates as folk heroes.
	So, of course, a lot of the Americans who might have fled Europe had had relatives, you know, brothers, fathers, sons, stripped of their freedoms, people kicking down the doors to the tavern, grabbing people, screaming and holding them off to the death ships of the Navy.
	So pirates were fighting back against this.
	They were pushing back against the Navy.
	They were pushing back against those who had kidnapped your brethren and forced them into slave labor.
	Worse than slave labor, really.
	So yeah, pirates, people have a soft spot for them as a whole, or they did in the day.
	Cotton Mather, the leading Puritan minister in Massachusetts, was infuriated by the support for pirates among the, quote, sinful commoners of Baston.
	He fumed about the level of support and condemned their behavior, considering them to be vile and wicked.
	He believed that the commoners were easily swayed by the hopes of sharing in the pirates' ill-gotten wealth.
	Ah, now this did happen.
	Some colonial officials cooperated with pirates and offered them better prices for their loot than they could get in a safe port.
	Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina granted pardons to Blackbeard and other pirates, allowing them to establish a stronghold on Ocracoke Island.
	This cooperation between colonial officials and pirates weakened the authority and legitimacy of colonial governments and contributed to the increases in piracy.
	And of course America, why was America under the thumb of the British?
	Because the British had a powerful Navy.
	And the pirates undermined the power of the British Navy.
	When South Carolina authorities were preparing to bring the pirate gang to trial, their sympathizers broke the pirates' leader out of prison and nearly took control of the capital, Charleston.
	Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York was accused of colluding with pirates and was deposed due to his infamous relations with pirates such as Thomas Tew.
	Fletcher encouraged pirates to supply New York with luxurious goods in exchange for protection and the use of a local port to refit their ships.
	It is also stated that Fletcher organized Tew's second voyage and planned to use him to plunder valuable cargo in the Indian Ocean.
	So again, we've got an entire world, hundreds of years of colonialism.
	The sun never sets on the British Empire.
	At one point, at its height, a third of the world was under the control of the British, all due to military violence on the seas.
	So people focus on pirates because it's a way of understanding the larger control mechanisms of the world.
	Why is colonialism okay and piracy not okay?
	Why is invading other countries okay, but stealing the profits of that invasion bad?
	And this is a big fundamental question.
	To me, I mean, they're both bad, but that's because I subscribe to one moral law.
	John Paul Jones, not in fact the basis for Led Zeppelin.
	He was a Scottish-American naval officer who lived from 1747 to 1792.
	After deserting his national standard and enlisting under the revolutionists during the American Revolution, he became a commander and was actively involved in fitting out the Ranger, the ship.
	He led marauding schemes and made captures on the European side
	of the Atlantic.
	John Paul Jones, again, not the bassist, was elected to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in 1774.
	From the perspective of the United States and John Paul Jones, the Ranger was a ship of war.
	To Britain they were condemned, of course, as pirates.
	To the crew they operated more as privateers.
	They often refused the captain if they did not see the benefit of his particular
	During the Revolutionary War, Jones achieved several notable victories against the British Navy.
	One of his most famous battles was the Battle of Flamborough Head in 1779, where he commanded the USS Bonhomme Richard.
	Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, Jones successfully captured the British ship HMS Serapis.
	See, again you've got private versus public.
	Private versus public.
	I mean in Canada, here there's a private road called the 407 and there are government roads called the 401.
	407 infinitely faster, 401 is a parking lot in general.
	So,
	John Paul Jones counted John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin among his friends, and illustrations often show Jones hauling up the Navy Jack flag with a rattlesnake insignia and the motto, Don't Tread on Me.
	Did you know?
	Did you know this flag, the Garston flag, was that old?
	His life and career were so influential, he's often referred to as the father of the American Navy.
	Ah, you see?
	Pirates give birth to navies, and navies give birth to pirates, and people pretend they're moral opposites because reasons.
	In late 1775, as the first ships of the Continental Navy readied in the Delaware River, Commander Essek Hopkins issued an instruction directing his vessels to fly a striped jack and ensign.
	The exact design of these flags is unknown, but since about 1880, this jack has traditionally been depicted as consisting of 13 red and white stripes charged with an uncoiled rattlesnake and the motto, Don't Tread on Me.
	John Paul Jones in Great Britain, where he raided his own native soil, he was considered a terrorist.
	In America, where he risked life and fortune in the American Revolution, he was a patriot.
	Though he was never a citizen and was later generally ignored.
	Was he a great guy?
	Well, let's do the 360 and talk about the accusations.
	Well, many of course.
	One of them was in April 1789, Jones was accused of raping a ten-year-old girl named Katerina Stepanova.
	There had been a delay of one day in reporting the rape, which meant the case would ordinarily not continue, because this was in Russia, of course, due to Russian statutory codes considering any such delay evidence of consent.
	But Catherine II, Empress of Russia at the time, intervened directly to allow the legal proceedings to continue.
	Jones responded to the allegations by claiming that he had paid the girl for sex several times, denying that he had deprived her of her virginity, and suggesting she was older than ten.
	Yeah, not... Again, I know morals have changed, but...
	That's still child rape.
	And so he admitted that he did it, but it's like, she looked older than 10 is not the most moral defense known to man when it comes to this kind of child rape and assault.
	So the Empress Catherine was influenced by international pressure, which resulted in a softening of her attitude.
	As a result, she allowed
	You know, this is the thing too, right?
	So, this is another way that society reinforces some less rational rules, is that the kind of people who are drawn to breaking society's rules are often drawn to breaking all rules, even those very good rules like, you know, don't have sex with children, don't rape children, all sex with children is a rape, right?
	So having people who just stride confidently over social norms, very often they will stride into depths of depravity and immorality.
	And then it's like, ah, you see what happens when people ignore social norms, they end up like this, as opposed to taking a rational analysis.
	Of course, you know, I guess he was somewhat of a philosopher, but certainly not universally preferable behavior style.
	Let's talk about Jean Lafitte.
	He was a French pirate and privateer who operated in the Gulf of Mexico during the early 1800s.
	He was known for his smuggling activities and piracy, capturing ships and selling their cargos, including slaves, to shady merchants in New Orleans.
	Or just merchants in New Orleans.
	I think the shady is pretty much taken for granted, right?
	So what's smuggling?
	So smuggling is when you trade
	Freely!
	Smuggling is when you trade freely without paying the overhead of needing a government seal to legalize your operations, right?
	Lafitte's large fleet and multinational band of pirates, privateers, and smugglers caused havoc in the Gulf of Mexico for a decade.
	But, of course, they gained major pluses because of their diversity.
	However, Lafitte also played a significant role in the War of 1812 when he offered his services to the U.S.
	and helped defend New Orleans against the British attack.
	Lafitte was eventually granted a pardon by the U.S.
	President for his assistance.
	Despite this, Lafitte could not resist returning to a life of piracy and later formed another pirate haven in Galveston Island, Texas.
	Never really thought of Texas as a pirate haven, but I guess it was at least at one point.
	So the current state of privateering, how did it play out, these legal writs for legal piracy?
	Following the conclusion of the Crimean War, the Congress of Paris led to a significant development in the form of the Paris Declaration of 1856, and this did not involve large sunglasses and a small dog-sized purse.
	This declaration, signed by seven European nations initially and later joined by 45 more, marked a collective renouncement of privateering.
	Consequently, privateering was effectively abolished worldwide.
	However, it is noteworthy that the United States did not participate as a signatory to this declaration.
	Article 1 of the U.S.
	Constitution lists issuing letters of mark and reprisal, all the way back to the beginning, in Section 8 as one of the enumerated powers of Congress, alongside the power to tax
	And to declare war.
	However, since the American Civil War, the United States, as a matter of policy, has consistently followed the terms of the 1856 Paris Declaration forbidding the practice.
	The U.S.
	has not legally commissioned any privateers since 1815.
	But wait!
	There's more, surprisingly more.
	So following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the matter of mark and reprisal was brought before Congress.
	Congressman Ron Paul further raised the issue on July 21st, 2007.
	These attacks were classified as acts of, quote, air piracy, prompting the introduction of the Mark and Reprisal Act of 2001.
	This act aimed to grant the President the authority to utilize letters of marque and reprisal specifically against the identified terrorists, rather than engaging in warfare against a foreign nation.
	The terrorists were likened to pirates as they posed a challenge that could not be easily addressed through conventional military means.
	Additionally, on April 15, 2009, Paul advocated the use of letters of Mark to combat Somali pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden.
	However, the bills introduced by Paul did not ultimately become law.
	Amidst the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S.
	Congress contemplated a bill that would have granted authorization for the president to issue letters of Mark in reprisal.
	The objective of this bill was to enable the seizure of yachts owned by Russian oligarchs as a response to the ongoing crisis.
	How an invasion is combated by the seizing of yachts has yet to be fully explained to me, at least.
	So what do we make of all of this?
	Well, you have your own conclusions.
	I've given my own commentary.
	A couple of things that I wanted to say is that when you look at the world
	In a material and moral fashion.
	So morals are often associated with vague abstractions but to me morals and materialism are one and the same thing.
	Two sides of the same coin.
	If you look at the mere material reality and morality of the world there are people in various outfits with guns and swords
	Initiating the use of force.
	The initiation of the use of force, of course, is when you start using violence against someone else and not as a way of getting property back or certainly not self-defense.
	It's the non-aggression principle.
	You do not initiate the use of force against others.
	When you look at the world with a central moral law, non-aggression principle, private property, then it clicks into focus
	And horror ensues.
	This is philosophy in a nutshell.
	The world clicks into focus and deep horror ensues, which is why so many people avoid moral laws and universality and looking at people, not concepts, at individuals, not collectives, right?
	So the government was initiating force against people.
	Because it wanted to underpay its sailors and it was cheaper to steal people and pay them a pittance rather than hire them and have things be efficient.
	Governments could not provide any effective defense for a lot of the trade that occurred and therefore they commissioned people to be privateers.
	When you look at the world as individuals acting, and you judge the world according to a universal moral law.
	And this is not a moral law that you and I would not accept.
	This is exactly the same moral law that we tell four and five-year-olds to respect.
	We respect the moral law.
	What is the moral law?
	Well, don't push kids, don't hit kids, don't throw things at kids, and don't take their stuff.
	Non-aggression principle.
	And respect for property rights.
	You know, if a kid falls over, you see a kid pushing another kid and you say, well, he was pushing me first.
	That matters, right?
	Are you responding to aggression or are you initiating aggression?
	So the funny thing is, is that we say to our kids,
	This is the moral law.
	Don't use force to get what you want.
	Force can be justified in self-defense.
	Respect other people's property.
	This is the moral law.
	We inflict it on kids.
	We talk about it, but we don't talk about it subjectively or locally.
	Well, unless it's cloudy or unless you have a piece of paper written by another kid that can legitimize this use of force.
	Like if you go and steal some kid's phone and then you say, well, no, I wrote myself a note saying it was okay.
	Or another kid wrote me a note saying it was okay.
	You'd say, well, that note doesn't change the moral.
	Nature of what it is that you're doing.
	The piece of paper and the writing doesn't change the moral law.
	The moral law is the moral law.
	It's universal.
	It's absolute.
	So when you look at the world as individuals acting and judge the world according to the simple moral laws that we talk about with kids, it clicks into focus and horror ensues.
	But I don't want to be alone in this horror, so I'm sharing it with you.
	So we can all be horrified together.
	And if enough of us are horrified together, it becomes wisdom rather than alienation and isolation.
	So yeah, would you rather be a pirate or a sailor?
	I mean just in terms of practical questions.
	Would you rather have some say, some judgment?
	Would you rather be promptly paid?
	Would you rather make more money?
	Would you rather be compensated immediately for the sake of injury rather than have to wait years and years and maybe get it at some point?
	All interesting questions.
	Individuals.
	If you look at the death count of navies versus the death count of pirates, you can see that pirates in the 18th and 19th century, much like outlaws in the time of the, quote, Wild West, are largely fictional creations used to threaten the general population with, to say, well, you need protection from these crazy people.
	You need protection.
	And that is how you look at the world as material individuals acting, judged through the lens, actually it's taking off the lens, through the clear-eyed vision of the moral law.
	We claim to value democracy, we claim to value a justice and a fair trial.
	These were much more available, infinitely more available really, to pirates than they were to sailors in the Navy.
	And the last thing that I would say as well,
	I view something like piracy in this context, in this way.
	I hope this makes sense to you and I'm happy to have this idea of course, like all my ideas, critiqued and pushed back and if you have more details or information please of course let me know below.
	So, men will achieve a fork in our life.
	We all face this fork in our lives.
	Which is, if we have a society where we can woo, get married, settle down, raise a family in relative peace, most men will choose the route of family and lineage and fatherhood and wisdom and live that way as a sage to the next generation transferring essential values hard won by thousands of years of struggle to the next
	Generation.
	To live, to love, to raise children, to have honest hard work, to be loved by a woman, to love a woman.
	This is what most men will choose.
	And society in general is wise to give men and women those opportunities.
	Because if men are in a situation where
	Wooing is futile.
	Settling down is either impossible or toxic or too dangerous.
	Then men are no longer invested in stability and property and longevity and continuity and all of that in peace.
	And so if men have the option, and women do it in different ways, we're just talking about most of the powers for men, so we'll talk about men for now.
	If you have the option, the path to family,
	You take that, and your society flourishes.
	If that is blocked, what do you take the path to?
	Well, first you take the path to indifference, and when indifference becomes unsustainable, you turn to rebellion.
	And societies that don't give men a path forward to family will inevitably, in a sense, back them into a rebellious stance.
	Now, right now,
	We're very much in the indifference phase.
	It is my very, very large and great hope, though hope it remains only so far, that society will try to find ways to give people families, because otherwise
	They rebel.
	And that is not a particularly peaceful, manageable, or bloodless change in society.
	And we want to keep things peaceful, reasonable, nurturing, positive, hopeful, stable, and life-affirming.
	And so it is my great hope, as part of this presentation and in general everything I do is to promote peace, reason, the non-aggression principle, and respect for property rights, it is my very great hope that we choose the path of family and not piracy going forward because historically it seems it is a bit of an either-or case.
	So thank you so much for listening and watching.
	I hope you found this helpful.
	If you would like to help out with the show, this was a colossal amount of research, as you can imagine.
	If you would like to help out this show, freedomain.com forward slash donate.
	I would hugely, hugely, hugely appreciate it.
	I would love to do more in-person documentaries, but I do need your help for that.
	So freedomain.com forward slash donate.
	Thank you, my friends.
	Step out, be out.
	Me mateys.
	Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest Free Domain Show on philosophy, and I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
	Please like, subscribe, and share, and all of that good stuff to get philosophy out into the world.
	And also, equally importantly, go to freedomain.com forward slash donate.
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	So thank you so much for your support, my friends.

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