• @DarkCloud
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      25 days ago

      Fun fact, IKEA funded the brutally repressive Romanian secret police.

  • @[email protected]
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    825 days ago

    The Italian restaurant is there because no-one could stop the Normans before they reached Sicily.

    • @CptEnder
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      425 days ago

      They just simply conquered until they found good food, then stopped.

  • @Etterra
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    725 days ago

    To be fair, those churches had a lot of loot, and priests give great XP.

  • @[email protected]
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    625 days ago

    I know there is absolutely tons of historic evidence of viking pillagers, but I do want to point out that, with that evidence aside for just a moment, most or all of what is written about them in historic texts was written by the people who wiped out almost their entire culture and replaced it with christian theocratic monarchy.

    They get a bad rap.

    • Zloubida
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      -125 days ago

      Nobody wiped their culture. Their culture evolved, and other cultures influenced this evolution, as they influenced the culture of their neighbors.

      • @Viking_Hippie
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        225 days ago

        other cultures influenced this evolution

        Specifically, the Catholic church influenced most of Scandinavia by persecuting and murdering people who kept to the old ways.

        • Zloubida
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          125 days ago

          Your main source for that is Snorri Sturluson, a Christian who wrote 200 years after Scandinavia’s conversion. He invented those murders in order to paint the pagans as stupid and stubborn people, needing violence to accept what he believed to be the truth. Historically, the conversions weren’t, with a few exceptions, violent in Scandinavia.

          Scandinavia’s conversion is more the result of an internal power struggle.

          • @Viking_Hippie
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            025 days ago

            Your main source for that is Snorri Sturluson, a Christian who wrote 200 years after Scandinavia’s conversion

            Nope, my main source is the fact that that was the way that the Catholic church “converted” countries as well as “apostates” and “heretics” in places they already controlled.

            Christianity didn’t become a major religion and political force through the quality of its message. It did so through the quantity of its violence.

            Scandinavia’s conversion is more the result of an internal power struggle.

            If by “internal” you mean some Scandinavian rulers being forced to convert at the point of a sword and then trying to do the same to the rest, sure. That’s a really weird definition of the word, though.

            • Zloubida
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              225 days ago

              Yeah, you have no other source than your biases, then.

              • @Viking_Hippie
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                -125 days ago

                If you ignore the source known as “most of the history of Europe” then sure, I have only my biases 🙄

                • Zloubida
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                  225 days ago

                  It’s not a source.

      • @[email protected]
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        24 days ago

        Oh lol, okay, tell me about the phonology of norn and younger futhark used in the age of vikings? How about any self-description of iron-age viking society before 1066, anything at all? Who were their leaders, how were rights allotted? Nothing remains but their versions of catholic prayers and before that their versions of oral germanic traditions like norse mythology, which was much more widespread.

        Basically, we know nothing about them that they told us themselves, in fact their systems of writing have only been properly compiled in the last century but the language is still entirely extinct.

        Because of Crusades. Because of Catholic Crusades on Vikings.

        • Zloubida
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          224 days ago

          There never was any crusade in Scandinavia.

  • @DarkCloud
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    425 days ago

    Ahhh, Lindisfarne, good times.

  • @steeznson
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    25 days ago

    I was in Copenhagen earlier this year and the most striking thing about visiting was how many people there were with young kids pushing prams around. Would need to examine the statistics to see if this is actually true but I wonder if the fertility rate is higher due to a better social policies / financial support for families.

    Edit: Have just looked at the rates on the wikipedia demography page for each country. It’s higher in the UK 1.61 vs 1.55. Maybe the visible difference is due the amount of maternity/paternity leave being offered by employers.

    • velox_vulnus
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      225 days ago

      Isn’t pram, stroller and buggy like a rich-people thing? I’ve yet to see one in real life in my country - although I’ve seem them in movies and animations.

      • @jaybone
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        525 days ago

        Strollers used to be these cheap little things. Now they’re like SUVs. Where are you located where they don’t use strollers?

        • velox_vulnus
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          225 days ago

          India, to be more specific, west and south-west coast and south-western Deccan areas. I’ve never seen them used in any of the localities I’ve moved (we’ve moved quite a lot). Never was my baby cousin (who’s in his teens now) nor my oldest cousin’s children seen with strollers or prams. I’d assume maybe in posh areas in tier-1 cities, like, Worli, Vasant Kunj and Indranagar?

          • @jaybone
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            325 days ago

            So like 40 years sgo, in the US, strollers were just these cheap little things, collapsible plastic frames with some heavy fabric to sit the kid in. The new ones are all super big and fancy and have whatever safety features. I would have guessed in areas where the newer kind are not available, they would at least use the older style of stroller. (As they would be less expensive, more portable, easier to produce, less footprint on the street/sidewalk.)

      • @steeznson
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        325 days ago

        Prams can be quite expensive, like £1000 for some models in the UK. I think cheaper models can be 10-15% of that price though and they are pretty essential for having young kids.

        Presumably the social security in a Scandinavian country would be enough to let any parent buy one. Probably the same in the UK although our benefits system is much more stringent.

  • @iamtherealwalrus
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    325 days ago

    Nobody expects the Spanish Scandinavian inquisition!