Asklemmy

But I already am a pirate?

Pirate! CGP Grey has a great video on how pirate ships worked. They were a lot more democratic and fair than the merchant marine which worked their crew to the bone and paid them peanuts.

How to be a Pirate Quartermaster

Cowboy, no contest.

Samurai's lives belong to their masters. I couldn't live that way.

Pirates live by killing and stealing. I couldn't live that way.

That leaves cowboys. Certainly not the glorious and romantic life Hollywood makes it out to be, but generally honest work toward specific goals and freedom otherwise, which'd be fine.

Samurai. Literal nobility, regular baths, nice clothes, fitted armor, regular training, and at least during the Edo period, low risk of actually having to go into battle (doesn't apply during the prior periods of course). Good food, good rice wine, poetry and music, good literature, intellectually stimulating conversations.

Contrast a cowboy - saddle sores, dust, caked sweat from weeks without baths, cholera, gangrene, bandits, native raids, long hours, and the blazing desert sun.

And the pirate: nothing to eat but hardtack and freeze-dried cod until you make port or board a merchantman, hunted by the Royal Navy, surrounded by fellow pirates who haven't bathed since the last port call, constantly alternating between seasickness and landsickness, cramped quarters belowdecks, constant risk of drowning, and when you finally go on a raid, you're getting shot at by grapeshot and 16-pounder roundshot at effectively point-blank range.

Samurai, any day. raises cup of green tea

I think I would be a samurai. Samurai, while fierce warriors, were also poets and great appreciators of the arts.

Cowboy.

I want to sit at a campfire, eat my bowl of chili, then curl up in my blanket under the stars and in the morning boil myself a nice pot of coffee.

You can keep the cow stuff though.

I need an option that includes air conditioning.

Ninja. They are so good at hiding that you probably don't even see it as one of the options.

Can I be Hasekura Tsunenaga, the samurai who went to Mexico? That way I could be a cowboy samurai. Plus I could be a pirate during the journey from Japan to Mexico. ✓ ✓ ✓

Cowboy literally just means rancher. It was not a particularly good job in the wild west and it's only marginally better now.

Samurai were well respected, well paid, and had social status. The downside is that they needed to kill people or die trying when their boss said to, which doesn't sound like fun to me.

Pirates also have the problem of having to do violence on a regular basis, but without the glamour and respect of being Samurai.

All in all, I'd probably choose samurai.

Cowboy would seem the safest of the options. Pirates typically had scurvy because of a lack of fruit, and samurai’s would have to fight, sometimes be impaled and is generally very bloody. A cowboy can just fuckoff to a saloon

If all options were safe and had no risk to them and you’d live your life without risk; samurai. Cause they’re cool as fuck and I love the armor

Cowboy - Pros: lowest chance of death, honest work for honest pay. Cons: hard work for low pay

Pirate - Does internet piracy count? I get seasick to easily to be the boat kind. Also the death.

Samurai - Maybe an Edo period samurai, when they were mostly bureaucrats.

I am already a pirate.

Surely a pirate in the Caribbean or the Philippines wouldnt be too awful as you wouldn't be out at sea that much and close to land. For me it's the exploration and discovery that appeals to a life of piracy, but in reality I imagine it would be an absolute dog shit existence, especially compared to that of a samurai (minimal bloodshed unless there's a war) or cowboy (you look after horses on a ranch). However, many pirates just did a stint and then returned back home, so what's 2-3 years of making booty and having PTSD from cannon fire/pillaging.

Cowboy. I don't know enough about samurai, and I know too much about pirates

Yes I am a pirate, 200 years too late. The cannon don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder. I'm an over 40 victim of fate arriving too late.

Arriving too late.

I'm a man and don't have strong opinions about this, so count this as one vote against it.

What year for samurai, and what rank? Samurai in 1590 were very different from samurai in 1850; after the warring states period ended, samurai quickly lost everything except their pride. Merchants - nominally the lowest class (burakumin were outside of the class system) - had far more wealth and real power than the samurai in the years preceding the Meiji restoration. A low-ranking samurai around 1820 would be a life of poverty that was still filled with class and social obligations; not cool.

Overall, probably a ranch hand (cowboy was a derogatory term). Yeah, the pay was shit, and it was hard work, but you got to be outside all the time.

Pirate by a mile, I don't know why just the freedom or the fact I really enjoyed the Black Flag game.

yes. yes i would.

Id be a cowboy. Just a rancher landlord with guns. Its probably the closest of the 3 with a peacefull lifestile since killng is not that necesary. And i could be a modern day cowboy with a truck and an automated farm house and i still would be a cowboy since i work with cows, have guns and wear a hat sometimes.

Are there no Pirate Cowboy Samurais?

Pirate and cowboy would both be really hard, dirty and deadly. So I'd go with samurai. They're basically just the ruling aristocracy, for most of their time they've never had to fight. So lots of money comfort and safety beat the more freedom you have for the other two.

I would be a pirate. Because the other word for pirate treasure is Booty. (Beastie boys influence, I guess)

Just throwing this out there, you can literally be a cowboy or a pirate today right now. The only barriers to entry are willingness and the minor physical ability they require. Samurai is unfortunately impossible.

People dress up as cowboys now. Go to your local Walmart.

Speaking of, why the fuck aren't they shamed into the shadow realm like I would be if I dressed as a samurai while getting the bread and milk?

Anyway that's my answer, Samurai.

When thinking of each, if it was in a world where life is good and I'm living in the picturesque lifestyle that comes to mind for each one, then probably a Pirate.

Sailing the open seas is the picture that comes to mind and it's the most "romantic" to me.

A movie pirate. The kind that gets to sail, have adventures, but never seems to do any killing or pillaging.

It's a toss up between cowboy and samurai.

For Samurai it would depend on when. Samurai became defacto nobility, but they began in the 8th century as just mercenaries hired by local nobles to protect their estates.

But a cowboy is a life in the open air on a ranch. Hard work for sure, but hard work doesn't bother me.

I want to be a pirate literally cuz I'm in the middle of watching one piece