With our pirate crew becoming too big, the captain grew very concerned about splitting all the treasure - we continued to split it equally, but, of course, each crew member got less and less with the time.
When the captain got sick of it, he gathered all the crew and made an announcement:
Pirates! There are already 999 of you in my crew! That's way too much!
I gave each of us a different number from 1 to 1000 according to how much you do for the crew. I myself got the 1000, and Michael, the one sleeping in that corner, got the 1.
From now on we will each day vote on executing the lamest member of our crew, in the order: 1, 2, 3, etc... The one who is judged doesn't vote! If the strict majority (> 0.5) of others decides to execute the lamest member, we do so, and then continue. If not - we stop the process altogether.
That is a completely democratic way to clear the crew of the weakest members. The ones alive will totally benefit from it, for their share in the treasures we pillage will highly increase!
Given that every pirate was very clever and predictive, how many pirates died in the process?