Am I one-fifth Pirate?

[elpollo]

Well, almost certainly not, no, but that's not really the issue. As a joke I made the comment "I'm one-fifth Pirate", then almost immediately questioned it. Is it possible? I didn't think that you could be "one-fifth" anything. Then I thought about it some more, tried to solve a simple equation, then realised my equation didn't take everything into account. I need help.

The problem:

So, yeah. The problem is that some combination of parents (assuming Pirate is in your blood) making a One-Fifth-Pirate. One Pirate and one Non-Pirate will give birth to a Half-Pirate. Two Half-Pirates make a Quarter-Pirate and (and this is the bit I failed to take into account) a Half-Pirate and a Pirate make a Three-Quarter-Pirate.

Parameter wise (assuming anyone wants to take this on) you've got 17 generations (I like to think that if I am One-Fifth-Pirate then I'm descended from Blackbeard, and no true Pirate would ever sleep with anyone when they were under the current British age of consent) with which to do this, but an unlimited population (well, we'll say a few billion since Pirates get about, but I assume that will be enough).

[Dogmantra]

I am pretty sure there is no power of two that's divisible by five, thus you cannot be one fifth pirate.

The only fractions you can have for heritage are x/2^n where x >= 2^n and n is any old number.

When 2^n is divided by 5, there is always a remainder.

[Player_Zero]

I am pretty sure there is no power of two that's divisible by five, thus you cannot be one fifth pirate.

You can form a series of powers of two to tend towards a fifth however. You would just need infinite ancestors.

[elpollo]

Ok, awesome. Thanks for the quick reply.

[Dogmantra]

You can form a series of powers of two to tend towards a fifth however. You would just need infinite ancestors.

Which we don't have so I guess that's the problem solved then.

[snoopy13a]

Hmm,

If 205 of your 1024 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents (10 generations) were pirates, you'd be 20.02% pirate. That's essentially 1/5.

If you went back 11 generations, you'd get closer. 12 even closer, etc

17 generations would be 131072 ancestors (assuming no in-breeding which would probably occur going that far back). If 26215 out of your 131072 greatX15 grandparents were pirates, you'd be 0.2000046 pirate. That's practically 1/5.

[Trazoi]

Sure you can, if you're prepared to approximate!

Your father's grandfather is a pirate. This makes him one quarter pirate (25%).
Your mother's mother's grandfather was also a pirate. This makes her one quarter pirate too (25%).
Your mother's father's great-great-grandmother was a pirate. This makes him one sixteenth pirate (6.25%).
That makes your mother 15.625% pirate.
So with your father 25% pirate and your mother 15.625% pirate, you will be 20.3125% pirate. Which can easily be approximated as one-fifth pirate.

Arr.

[Eldan]

However, if we assume 20-25 years per generation...
Hmm. We would actually get more than 10 generations back to the high age of piracy. Should work.

[Boo]

(I like to think that if I am One-Fifth-Pirate then I'm descended from Blackbeard, and no true Pirate would ever sleep with anyone when they were under the current British age of consent)

According to a number of relatives in my family, I'm a descendant of Edward Teach. I don't have any evidence to support this however.

[Player_Zero]

Which we don't have so I guess that's the problem solved then.

Not necessarily. Because you see, you cannot inherit being a pirate. Reproduction does not work that way.

Someone is 1/5th pirate if they are a pirate 1/5th of the time. Not if one of their ancestors took up the profession.

[Yarram]

Not necessarily. Because you see, you cannot inherit being a pirate. Reproduction does not work that way.

Someone is 1/5th pirate if they are a pirate 1/5th of the time. Not if one of their ancestors took up the profession.

I'd dispute this. What if 1/5 of them is a pirate all the time?

No. I think the only way to be 1/5 pirate, is to be 1/5 pirate.

[Player_Zero]

I'd dispute this. What if 1/5 of them is a pirate all the time?

Like... A haunted pirate arm?

[elpollo]

According to a number of relatives in my family, I'm a descendant of Edward Teach. I don't have any evidence to support this however.

Damn, I've been trumped.


Not necessarily. Because you see, you cannot inherit being a pirate. Reproduction does not work that way.

Someone is 1/5th pirate if they are a pirate 1/5th of the time. Not if one of their ancestors took up the profession.

Yeah, this whole thing stemmed from a joke so I'm going to allow it.

[Dogmantra]

Someone is 1/5th pirate if they are a pirate 1/5th of the time. Not if one of their ancestors took up the profession.

How can you be a Pirate 1/5th of the time? Surely you are always a pirate, just not pirating currently.

[Trazoi]

Like... A haunted pirate arm?
An arm isn't heavy enough by itself. A leg though is about 10% of your typical body weight, so if you have two genuine pirate legs you're one-fifth pirate.

[elpollo]

An arm isn't heavy enough by itself. A leg though is about 10% of your typical body weight, so if you have two genuine pirate legs you're one-fifth pirate.

That would explain why they all have to wear peg-legs. People like me keep running off with the real ones.

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

How can you be a Pirate 1/5th of the time? Surely you are always a pirate, just not pirating currently.

Once a pirate, always a pirate!

[Rutskarn]

An arm isn't heavy enough by itself. A leg though is about 10% of your typical body weight, so if you have two genuine pirate legs you're one-fifth pirate.

Guys, elementary. Peg legs.

Just, the whole legs are pegs.

[Prime32]

What if you got organ transplants from pirates that make up 20% of your body mass?

Also, Gilgamesh. No one's mentioned Mr. "two-thirds god" yet?

[TheThan]

Family history states that I had an ancestor that was on the mayflower. He was a crew member not a settler though and apparently according to legend, he became a pirate shortly after they landed at Plymouth Rock. But that’s just legend and family history, no idea how true it really is, but I believe it, mainly because I have no reason not to.

[Telonius]

Well, almost certainly not, no, but that's not really the issue. As a joke I made the comment "I'm one-fifth Pirate", then almost immediately questioned it. Is it possible? I didn't think that you could be "one-fifth" anything. Then I thought about it some more, tried to solve a simple equation, then realised my equation didn't take everything into account. I need help.

The problem:

So, yeah. The problem is that some combination of parents (assuming Pirate is in your blood) making a One-Fifth-Pirate. One Pirate and one Non-Pirate will give birth to a Half-Pirate. Two Half-Pirates make a Quarter-Pirate and (and this is the bit I failed to take into account) a Half-Pirate and a Pirate make a Three-Quarter-Pirate.

Parameter wise (assuming anyone wants to take this on) you've got 17 generations (I like to think that if I am One-Fifth-Pirate then I'm descended from Blackbeard, and no true Pirate would ever sleep with anyone when they were under the current British age of consent) with which to do this, but an unlimited population (well, we'll say a few billion since Pirates get about, but I assume that will be enough).

... okay, this is just weird. Just yesterday I was running a Sunday School class where a girl said she was 1/5 pirate and 1/6 princess. Is there some kind of greater 1/5 pirate meme going on that I don't know about?

[Cealocanth]

I didn't do any real math here but I doubt that you can have pirate blood at all. What constitutes as pirate blood? If a pirate stops being a pirate does he still have pirate blood? Pirate is just a title in my opinion, and, although you can be 1/2 Irish because your mother is from Ireland, you can't be 1/2 pirate because your father was from Pirateton.

PS. Are pirates really the type to have children anyway? What are the chances that a pirate would take the time to give birth to your ancestors, especially because women were not allowed onboard.

[Mando Knight]

... okay, this is just weird. Just yesterday I was running a Sunday School class where a girl said she was 1/5 pirate and 1/6 princess. Is there some kind of greater 1/5 pirate meme going on that I don't know about?

Reality is playing a huge prank on you. The rest of us can't tell you the whole story. :smalltongue:

[The Rose Dragon]

Also, Gilgamesh. No one's mentioned Mr. "two-thirds god" yet?

They are gods. It is highly possible two of them might impregnate a woman with one child, or one might be impregnated by two different people with one child. They are not human, so they do not necessarily reproduce the way humans do. Also, they are fictional, so there is that, too.

But pirates are real and human. They reproduce like humans, and thus you must explain 1 / 5 piracy biologically, assuming piracy works like ethnicity.

[Raistlin1040]

If a pirate stops being a pirate does he still have pirate blood?
Once a pirate, always a pirate, matey.

[Thajocoth]

What if you got organ transplants from pirates that make up 20% of your body mass?

Also, Gilgamesh. No one's mentioned Mr. "two-thirds god" yet?

My response to this was "Wait, he's not 2/3 god..." Then I realized I was thinking of Gargamel. Darn fictional characters and their similar names...

To answer your question, there are a few ways to be 1/5 pirate:

#1 - Plunder 1/5th of the booty you find and pillage 1/5 of the places you go to.

#2 - Spend 1/5th of your waking hours raping, pillaging and plundering. (Works out to roughly the same math as #1, but time might be easier to divide than things, gold & women.) Also, rape is bad, don't do that.

#3 - Have multiple personality disorder across 5 personalities. One of them's a pirate.

[The Extinguisher]

This is the best thread.

I'm pretty sure you could be one fifth pirate if one parent was a full pirate and one parent was a quarter pirate.

Pirates can't really do math see.

[Zeb The Troll]

Pirates can't really do math see.I think this is the most solid answer yet. :smallcool:

[absolmorph]

This is the best thread.

I'm pretty sure you could be one fifth pirate if one parent was a full pirate and one parent was a quarter pirate.

Pirates can't really do math see.
I agree with Zeb, this is the most solid answer so far.

[Coidzor]

Well, whenever I buy rum for myself I become one-fifth pirate over the course of the evening. :smallwink:

[Yarram]

I didn't do any real math here but I doubt that you can have pirate blood at all. What constitutes as pirate blood?

Well, if you find a pirate with the same blood-type as yours (assuming you're the same size), and you remove 1/5 of his blood, and 1/5 of yours, and then you put his blood into yourself, then you have 1/5 pirate blood.

[Amiel]

Along with pirate, you could be a) "one-fifth" ninja (descendant of Genghis Khan), b) "one-fifth" tribesmen (descendant of the original africans), c) "one-fifth" viking (descendant of vikings), d) all of the above.

[Firestar27]

There seems to be a false assumption that your number of ancestors has to be a power of 2. Don't forget, after a few generations, cousins can have kids safely and after enough generations it's not even considered incest anymore by most societies. In fact, after enough generations, many people don't even know they're still related. So there could be some overlap among the family trees. So if there's a power of two that's divisible by 8 with three overlaps, then you'd have a multiple of five. :smalltongue:

[Thajocoth]

There seems to be a false assumption that your number of ancestors has to be a power of 2. Don't forget, after a few generations, cousins can have kids safely and after enough generations it's not even considered incest anymore by most societies. In fact, after enough generations, many people don't even know they're still related. So there could be some overlap among the family trees. So if there's a power of two that's divisible by 8 with three overlaps, then you'd have a multiple of five. :smalltongue:

However, your DNA is not evenly taken from each. You'd still get 1/8th from 2 of them and 2/8th (1/4) from the other 3 each.

[Zen Monkey]

You could be 4/5 pirate. The 1/5 was the part that was sliced off by a ninja, and the remaining portion of you has wisely retired from piracy as a result.

I can't help but think of the South Park where Cartman claims that he is 1/4 lesbian because his grandfather was one.

[Coidzor]

Along with pirate, you could be a) "one-fifth" ninja (descendant of Genghis Khan), b) "one-fifth" tribesmen (descendant of the original africans), c) "one-fifth" viking (descendant of vikings), d) all of the above.

No, no, no. It's One-Fifth of the world that is DESCENDED from Genghis Khan. :smallwink:

[KilltheToy]

), c) "one-fifth" viking (descendant of vikings)

I can actually claim this. I'm 1/8 Norwegian, from the southern coast. Modern day Rogaland, to be exact.

Alright, so they moved here in the 1800s. They probably had some Viking in them. It still counts.

[cattoy]

I'm irate, which makes me 5/6th pirate.

[The Extinguisher]

I'm irate, which makes me 5/6th pirate.

Dammit, you stole the best answer away from me. Well played good sir.


This is still the best thread.

[Rockphed]

Well, whenever I buy rum for myself I become one-fifth pirate over the course of the evening. :smallwink:

Wouldn't you have to steal that rum to pirate a fifth? Or you would have to steal the money with which you bought the rum.

On the subject of having fewer than the maximum number of ancestors, I know for a fact that I am my own 6th cousin. My mother's grand-parents were 3rd cousins, which fact they discovered after their marriage.

I have a (accused) horse-thief, a couple circus performers, and King William of England in my ancestry. I think I could out pirate a pirate if I wanted to.King William only made the list because he stole a whole country.

[Coidzor]

Wouldn't you have to steal that rum to pirate a fifth? Or you would have to steal the money with which you bought the rum.

Nah, it's because whenever I down the fifth I've got a little captain in me. :smallwink:

[Andraste]

PS. Are pirates really the type to have children anyway? What are the chances that a pirate would take the time to give birth to your ancestors, especially because women were not allowed onboard.

Think about what causes children to happen. Yeah, pirates don't do that often :smallamused:

[Asta Kask]

Think about what causes children to happen. Yeah, pirates don't do that often :smallamused:

Only every time they hit a port with ladies of negotiable affection. I.e., every time they hit a port.

[Adlan]

I don't have Ancestors who were pirates.

Smugglers, I do have Ancestors that were smugglers though. One of them got captured, and all the precious liquor stolen as evidence. They blew up Cromer Lock up and stole all the Booze, thus freeing my ancestor, no evidence, charges dropped. :D

[Thanatos 51-50]

PS. Are pirates really the type to have children anyway? What are the chances that a pirate would take the time to give birth to your ancestors, especially because women were not allowed onboard.

This is going to sound absolutely crude, but, in a word: Hookers.

Pirates still had sex, y'know. It's entirely possible, and even quite probable that quite a few pirates sired children.
Plus, there's always the pirates that may have had families ashore. Just because cavorting with women of flexible moral/sexual standards was the cliche didn't mean they all did so.

[paddyfool]

People do not necessarily derive equal shares of all genetic material passed on by all ancestors (at least, not by all ancestors prior to their parents, for whom it's either equal or very close to equal). For instance, a given person may receive all of the genetic material passed on to their father by their grandfather, and none of that passed on to their father by their grandmother (although such a distribution would be very unlikely.

Ordinarily, humans have 22 23 pairs of chromosomes (including the sex chromosomes), and they would have received one set of 23 from their father, and the other set of 23 from their mother. I know of no viable mutation that leaves people with either 20 pairs of chromosomes or 25, but it is possible to have monosomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosomy), and thus have 22.5 pairs of chromosomes, or 45 chromosomes, and it would then be entirely possible to have inherited 9 chromosomes from a piratical grandparent and the rest from non-piratical grandparents. However, I would hazard a guess that you would know about it if you had such a mutation.

Alternatively, it's possible via cross-over mutations to inherit part of one version of a chromosome glued on to part of another. If the crossover is at the same point on both versions and they end up the right size etc., this would often have no ill-effects, and would allow you to have 9.2/46 chromosomes coming from a piratical grandparent, if 1/5 of a piratical chromosome got swapped with 1/5 of a non-piratical chromosome.

Of course, different chromosomes are unequal in size, and in terms on their active effect on your phenotype. But I don't really feel like running the numbers on the first, and the second gets really awkward visavis measurement. Let's not get silly here. :smallwink:

EDIT: Fixed for brain freeze (humans have 46 chromosomes, not 44...)

[Jolly Steve]

There be no one-fifth. You either ain't a pirate,

or you arrrrrr.

[toasty]

Think about what causes children to happen. Yeah, pirates don't do that often :smallamused:

This man, and others, stole my answer.

Seriously. Pirates. Jack Sparrow? He didn't... erm... have relations with women? :smallconfused:

[Amiel]

Seriously. Pirates. Jack Sparrow? He didn't... erm... have relations with women? :smallconfused:
All I know is that he got slapped a lot.

[Kcalehc]

You could also be one fifth pirate by having four others before you, making you the one, fifth pirate... :smallsigh:

Spending 73 days a year plundering on the high seas may also count?

[absolmorph]

All I know is that he got slapped a lot.
To paraphrase Least I Could Do: a wise man doesn't focus on the 99 failures, but on the one success.

[Cealocanth]

From a LARPers point of veiw, If you have one character who's a pirate, and he has a fully fleshed out personality, is his personality now part of your personality. If you have 4 fleshed out characters that makes you 1/5 pirate.

If this is true then I'm 1/4 mysterious druid, 1/4 obnoxious sorcerer, and 1/4 lawfull good dragonborn palladin. Although these numbers may change depending on how often I am someone.

[Rockphed]

All I know is that he got slapped a lot.

Is that what they are calling it these days?


Smugglers, I do have Ancestors that were smugglers though. One of them got captured, and all the precious liquor stolen as evidence. They blew up Cromer Lock up and stole all the Booze, thus freeing my ancestor, no evidence, charges dropped. :D

I have an ancestor who was operating an illegal keg. When the law came to put an end to it, a fight broke out resulting in the liquor spilling all over the ground, ruining both the liquor and the floor. I am given to understand that he tried suing the law-man at the law over the loss and ended up backing down.

[Dr.Epic]

Two Half-Pirates make a Quarter-Pirate

No. Two halve pirates make a half pirate: you are half of each of your parent heritage. So you're half half-pirate on your mom side (quarter) and half half-pirate on you dad side (another quarter). Add the two quarters and you get half.

[Firestar27]

All I know is that he got slapped a lot.

Some people like that. :smallwink: