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The truth about pirates.
here's the deal. its come to my attention that some people now believe that pirates did not wear eye patches to cover injured eyes, but rather to keep one eye adjusted to the dark for quick vision when going below deck. this is an unsupported myth and pirates never did this!!!!!!!!! i guess this was done in world war two naval warfare, but pirates back in the day definitely did not. leave a comment down below in the comment section down below, what is your favorite thing about pirates?
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I mean, there are a lot of reasons for why eye patches could be worn, What came first to my mind when I really thought about is like:
That eye may be partial blind, or IS blind but can still vaguely sense light which becomes annoying over time, so they put an eye patch on it. Now how that eye became blind.. maybe during a fight or something idk
probably many other reasons as well
That eye may be partial blind, or IS blind but can still vaguely sense light which becomes annoying over time, so they put an eye patch on it. Now how that eye became blind.. maybe during a fight or something idk
probably many other reasons as well

i really like that idea. i'm sure there were lots of dangers to pirates eyes. there isn't really evidence that pirates wore eye patches at all, but if they did that would make a lot of sense

That sounds cool, I've never really stopped to think about why pirates might wear the eye patches 👍

Evidence or citation of this?
Mythbusters did their thing about this and confirmed the theory that it would work (more or less). While this is hardly dispositive, it does support the idea that someone sonewhere may have used an eye-patch for such a purpose.
(Yet another theory suggests that at least a few may have been using eyepatches as part of a disguise, which — given the penalties for piracy — does seem beyond the realm of possibility.)
Mythbusters did their thing about this and confirmed the theory that it would work (more or less). While this is hardly dispositive, it does support the idea that someone sonewhere may have used an eye-patch for such a purpose.
(Yet another theory suggests that at least a few may have been using eyepatches as part of a disguise, which — given the penalties for piracy — does seem beyond the realm of possibility.)

rather there is no evidence or citation that it ever occurred. i'm aware of mythbusters and as i said this tactic was supposedly used in world war two, so it is of course possible that some pirate somewhere did this, but it would make sense that a trick would have spread were it invented earlier. in fact, pirates havent been shown wearing eyepatches historically, rather the image coming from later fiction, according to historian rebecca simon. I do like the theory about disguises, do you mean not beyond the realm of possibility?

"do you mean not beyond the realm of possibility?" Yes, poor typing/editing, started as 'seem within the' and got bolloxed during the change…
WRT spread of a technique:
Given that the trick would have provided a combat advantage (and that members of criminal enterprises are often secretive on general principles), I'm not convinced such a discovery would have spread. ['Greek' fire is a much more obvious technology that not only did not spread, but was lost.]
I do agree, however, that the eye-patch to preserve vision trick was likely used by only a very limited number of people (if at all).
[Something similar was regularized during the cold war, with training to close one eye (or otherwise cover it) if one saw a flash, as looking directly at a nuclear fireball (even accidently) could degrade vision for considerable periods of time.]
WRT spread of a technique:
Given that the trick would have provided a combat advantage (and that members of criminal enterprises are often secretive on general principles), I'm not convinced such a discovery would have spread. ['Greek' fire is a much more obvious technology that not only did not spread, but was lost.]
I do agree, however, that the eye-patch to preserve vision trick was likely used by only a very limited number of people (if at all).
[Something similar was regularized during the cold war, with training to close one eye (or otherwise cover it) if one saw a flash, as looking directly at a nuclear fireball (even accidently) could degrade vision for considerable periods of time.]

thats very interesting, and yeah there are definitely a lot of forgotten discoveries. cool!