Truth About Pirates

 

I often cite CGPGrey videos about various topics, including the one about piracy. 

While pirate video is rather relevant to the times we live in now and issues we face, its actually very inaccurate about realities of Golden Age of Piracy. So, I decided to write here about actual history of piracy.

To begin with a little bit of background. Spanish and Portuguese were first to discover and colonize new world. Treaty of Tordesillas divided it among themselves precisely to avoid information leaking to other kingdoms of Europe. Thus, by the time French and English found out about Americas, Spanish already hogged up and garrisoned pretty much everything of value with only few small barren islands in the Caribbean remaining unclaimed.

To make matters worse, Spanish found a lot of silver in the area and begun mining it. Seeing how Spanish ship all that silver in loaded to the brim galleons, got Frech and English really upset with envy. However soon they figured out a simple solution to this problem, just steal the silver. After all trip from Maracaibo in Spanish Main to Sevilla in Spain is long and perilous, and Spanish shipped their silver completely unguarded, so if it will get lost to pirates they will not even find out when and how. Thus, piracy was born.

First pirates were probably members of French and English navy, who hoisted the black flag to avoid getting their kingdoms entangled if something went wrong. The money they made from captured Spanish silver was so huge, soon everyone started doing it and piracy boom begun.

The amounts of silver, Spanish shipped was so huge, French and English navies soon found themselves short of personnel and ships, so they began recruiting volunteers, private captains with ships and crews. Soon private crews started plunder Spanish shipping on the high seas. These privateers (or corsairs in French terminology) came from all walks of life and were actively encourage and supported by French and English governments.

To give privateers assurances of support and at the same time entitle government to the fraction of what they could plunder, French and English issued so called "letters of marque and reprisal". These papers could make anyone a sort of "private" member of the navy, thus in theory guaranteeing them protection of French or English crown as well as entitle them to be treated as prisoners of war in the event of capture by the Spanish. Most importantly however they allowed them to access to ports of the issuing country. When in some peace treaties you see phrase "prohibit unrestricted issue of letter of marque and reprisal", it is about this practice.

French issued these letters to pretty much anyone with a ship and a crew without asking it how they obtained ship or the money. That is how French colony of Tortuga became known as pirate haven. Colony economy consisted entirely of taxing the booty, these privateers would bring.

English instead prefer their own traders. Back then it was possible to form fully legal joint stock company for the purpose of pirating. Such company could openly sell its stock on London stock exchange to raise money to buy a ship, hire crew and then go to the new world to plunder on high seas.

From legal perspective this privateering was considered capturing prizes of war and legal documents refer to it in such terms. Letters of marque were legal vehicle that allowed law to treat piracy as legitimate combat. That is how famous pirates, like Sir Francis Drake got their knighthood and other forms for recognition from government.

Eventually however Spanish got a gist of what is going on and threatened France and England with war if they do not stop this piracy. Unfortunately for Spanish, profits from piracy were so huge, French and English would rather stay in perpetual war than stop the plunder.

Thus, Golden age of Piracy truly begun. All sorts of ships and crews would steal Spanish silver and then turn it over to French or English on Tortuga or Jamaica, who offered them full support, assistance in repair and resupply and so on.

On their end Spanish refused to recognise letters or marque as legitimate prove of military status, threatening pirates with noose if they got caught. They also ramped up security of their treasure fleets, making it harder to for pirates to plunder them. 

Finally Spanish eventually found out where pirate friendly French and English ports in the new world were located and sent their armada to level both Port Royal and Tortuga to the ground. That did not stop the piracy however as when Spanish left, French and English simply came back and rebuild.

This is how majority of all pirate crews operated. Sure, there were occasional rouges who attacked everyone and port in wilderness, but these were rare. They make for a good story, but not for a good career option, as rouge pirates would pretty much always end up caught by one or other side and executed.

On the other hand, privateering was a way to riches and even social advancement. It was a business that people who counted money for living would invest into. Yes, there was risk that Spanish will capture you, but back then risk of perishing in a storm was likely higher.

Plunder-fest would occasionally come to a pause when French or English needed an alliance with Spanish for some war in Europe. On such occasion governors of Tortuga and Port Royal will instruct privateers to halt attacks on Spanish. Pirates would temporarily turn to other activities such as cutting wood in Belize. However, once that war will be over, the pirating will resume.

The definitive end of Golden Age of Piracy unexpectedly also came from Europe. War of Spanish Succession eventually placed French Bourbons on the throne in Spain. That turned France from enemy into a friend of Spain. 

Not willing to further damage now friendly Spain, France begun cracking down on piracy. Near overnight Tortuga turned from pirate heaven into a hostile port.

Pirates fought back and re-established themselves in New Providence on Bahamas. This time they were actually independent and unaffiliated with any power. Their settlement flew black flag. However, that was short lived.

England did not want to be at war with both France and Spain to continue the plunder. England also found new way of making money in the new world, running sugar and cotton plantations, using West African slave labor. Finally French likely offered them something like share of profits from Spanish treasure fleets, if they turn on pirates.

Times were changing and safety of shipping routes were more important that theoretical booty from occasional daring raid. 

All that sealed fate of piracy in the Caribbean. Eventually, now cozy and friendly with each other, the three kingdoms went on to destroy New Providence. England later colonised it to deny pirates any free land to base themselves on. Age of Piracy came to an end only to be remembered in fiction.

Difference between Behaving Modestly and Dressing Modestly

Recently there began a trend towards wearing grandma style clothes and hair among women. That is probably a response to criticism that girls became too slutty and immodest. However, grandma style clothes are not the solution to the problem, especially if it's a behavioural problem. 

There is a difference between dressing modestly and behaving modestly. One can dress modestly but behave immodest. Take for example Ada from Black Lagoon, she wears nun's habit but acts like your average bar hopping, booze drinking street girl.

It is also possible to dress immodestly but act modestly. Examples are all over the place, as anime industry generally works to create such girls on industrial mass production scale. However, to illustrate the point, take Shino from .hack/Roots. She wears stockings with exposed garters and upper tights (zettai ryōiki) but behaves very humbly and modestly.

If you needed any more hints as to which type men prefer, then I will just give the answer, it's the latter. Girls should dress pretty and sexy but behave modestly and humbly. It's the Japanese manners, not body shape or even clothes (though kimono has certain appeal too) that are so attractive to men. Japanese girls are taught to behave modestly, and they do. Western girls should learn to behave Japanese and not dress grandma.

How Boomer Popular Culture Ruined Women

 

Back in my teens I liked music videos like these. I was annoyed by stuffy rules my parents and school were imposing on me and wanted to get away from it all. Here in these videos girls ditch annoying school for a road trip and a beach. I too wished I could just ditch school and parents and spend the rest of my life in on Antalya beaches. The best memories of my early life all come from resort hotels and towns, a happy break from a dreary school with its bulling classmates and pressing obligations.

Couple of dozen years later, looking at these videos now as an adult, I noticed something I used to overlook in the past. No, I did not change my mind about school or resort hotels. 5 star resort hotels are the best thing in the world and school I wish I could forget. 

Just to clarify education in Australia was a mixed bag experience, fresh from Russia I mostly liked study in Australia. Looking back at it now, I can see flaws here as well. Flaws compare to how it could be, not compare to education in Russia.

 

In contrast education in Russia is pretty much all bad with no redeeming qualities. People who say Russian education is best, are blinded by patriotism morons who do not know jack shit. Studying in Australia only made it more apparent who most of what Russian 'education' make students do is utterly pointless waste of time. 

On top of that there is also bulling and other unpleasant interactions with classmates. There is no bulling problem in Australia, at least I did not experienced bulling in Australia. Only in Russia schools utterly fail to do anything problem students bulling classmates.

However back to original topic. The problem with these videos, that I noticed many years later, is gender relationships and female behavior in general. Back in the days I did not look at it from sexual perspective, so fresh look exposed this problem. Aerosmith particularly likes to make music videos like these. Other musicians of the era do it too but the way Aerosmith depict such things make it more obvious than others. 

Aerosmith members are all early boomers by age so you can their music boomer music. Even younger musicians can sometimes be considered part of boomer pop culture, as it is likely boomers who control who get to be signed to record labels and promoted and who does not.

The problem is that girls in these videos could get away with anything. It is always girls who do various things and men in these videos either accept it or downright encourage it.

Such wild unhinged and uncontrollable females is not something any reasonable man would want to date, much less marry. Maybe boomers liked girls like these, but Millennials do not.

I am not criticizing these videos because of nudity, exposed bras and so on. I personally like porn and do not see problems with sexualizing and objectifying female body.

What I am talking about girls should not be proactive or initiative in a relationship. This video gets gender relationships backward. 

Girls should dress pretty but behave like a weak fragile flower that has no agency or control over its life. Feminists decry the fact that "men objectify women". However, for a woman to look attractive in male eyes, she has to be objectifiable. She has to look more like an inanimate object that can simply be claimed and used as man sees fit rather than a person with its own emotions and desires. These videos make women to behave exact opposite of that.

I like Maledom BDSM precisely because it allows to make women more of an object using BDSM gear. Gagged, blindfolded and well restrained women getting infinitely closer towards the objectifiable ideal women than without these things.

However, BDSM alone cannot do it. Women have to show predisposition towards being tied up and controlled by a man. It should be easy to picture her sitting there quietly in chains and restrains. Good woman is someone who does not and cannot control her life and lets man control her instead. Her fate is not in her own hands, but in my hands alone. That is how I like women.

Why Western Men Choose Asian Women

I was originally writing this as part of why Japanese culture has global appeal article, but this topic became so long, I decided to make it a separate article.

It is almost not a secret that Western world has a serious issue when it comes to making relationships between genders fulfilling. No one with exception of Alt-right openly calls it a problem with society. However, are many anecdotes and jokes about all the stress that drama that comes with a relationship. Too many to dismiss them as just hearsay and not be concerned. Some of the stories about misfortune that comes from marriage and relationships are so horrible that they make people think twice before even trying to date anyone.

In the west both men and women like to put all the blame on the opposite gender. Women think men are weak and have no sexual drive or attraction. They often calling relationship boring and want to escape. Men on the other hand think that women are irrational and impossible to understand. Neither side is satisfied with the opposite gender, and both think it's entirely the opposite gender fault.

Western women find solution to their relationship problem in dating Black men. Unreasonably high popularity of rap music is a reflection of this rather sad reality.

Western men look towards Asian women instead. This demand is so huge, entire Thai cities live entirely of While men looking for Asian women tourism. Some just go to Thailand to have fun with prostitutes, other do bring Thai girls home as wives. Even some relatively popular people do it. 

The only reason this is not on the pages of celebrity gossip magazines only because such magazines are mostly popular with women. Women do not want to read about men choosing Thai women. People generally prefer comforting lies to uncomfortable truth; magazines cater for such demand. Celebrity magazines fabricate stories of select few mainstay celebrities, whose whole life is a clever careful fabrication by editors who just know these stories sell, no matter how untrue. These people maintain fake relationship with an unlikable feminist woman; no real actual man will even look at. Celebrity magazines lie.

As much as media and some celebrities like to assert that "new feminist woman" is the way forward, the reality is that most men do not find "feminist modern" women attractive at all. To center this feminist trend, men want a woman that is polar opposite of a "modern feminist woman". Asian women seem like just such opposite.

Those men who are OK with a "modern feminist woman" will just find themselves a western girl. It is those who want a different kind of girl, look for a girl in other countries. More often than not their search ends on Asia.

However not every Asian country is the same. By extension not every Asian girl is the same. A Chinese is different from a Japanese, Chinese from one province can be different from Chinese from another province.

However, from the distance western men could easily overlook such difference, assuming that all Asian girls are the same. These assumptions give other Asian girls a good chance with a western man.

Broadly speaking western men look for a Japanese or a Japanese-like girl. Japanese culture is the most familiar and most well understood of all Asian cultures. Japanese are known for being humble and polite, traits opposite of bold, assertive, feminist woman. Its these peculiarly Japanese traits that western men want in a woman. Even if they end up with a Chinese or Korean girl, they will pick her based on how Asian (read Japanese she is).

Since there are not many Japanese in the west, other Asian girls got picked too. Many of these are Chinese simply because there are many more Chinese in the west than Japanese or other Asians. However, Chinese is not a necessary good pick for someone who wants a girl who is not like western one in every way. Broadly speaking Chinese culture and identity revolves around assumption that China is great, ancient and well accomplished civilization. As a personality trait this can be called pride, which is the opposite of Japanese humbleness. Not every Chinese is equally prideful however and that will give Chinese girls who are not prideful a much better chance at getting a western man than those who are prideful.

Koreans, Vietnamese and Thais all have their own peculiar cultural traits. Thailand is known as country of smiles and a smile in western culture associated with welcoming and friendly demeanor. Thai are particularly popular among men. Otherwise, prostitution will not be as widespread as it is in Thailand. If a man willing to pay $100 for an hour with a girl, then this girl must be very appealing in his eyes. Yes, morals often look down on prostitution as immoral and low thing to do. Broad society looks down on women who sell themselves for money, but men pay for them because they like them.

If you analyse Thai culture, then you can draw some parallels with Japanese one. Thais can also be considered humble and polite, a be it in somewhat different from Japanese way, but humble enough in western eyes.

As to why western men like humbleness and look for that traits in women, then some might want to explain it with biology and natural instincts. That is true but only partly. I would also add that humbleness offers best guarantee that women will take care of you, your home and your children. Women who lack humbleness will be more likely to neglect their duty to their husband. Most men want a woman who does take care of them and their home. These things are the only benefit woman can bring into man's life. Thus, it's a natural choice for a man to look for a humble woman.

Any other traits in a woman do not produce any good outcomes for a man. Ambitious women will likely divorce him and marry someone else; he will lose a lot of money. A nagging wife will shorten his lifespan with her nagging. A feminist does not even do anything to benefit man in any way. Boldness and assertiveness are not traits men find attractive, women like these traits but men find them repulsive. 

Thus, it's only natural for a man to pick what is best for him: a humble wife. The only option that does not result in a bad outcome for him. In our current society this option is provided by Asian women. Thus, western men choose Asian women. This is the reality of the world around us and a most gainful choice in given circumstances.