Ashley Olsen Spotted Sporting $39,000 Backpack By The Row

[Razgovory]

Here's a modern retelling, thanks to Unsolved Mysteries, however it's painfully real this time. Even though it's true crime, it's the sort of things a modern Stephen Crane or Robert Service would have learned of and muttered "dumb Swede".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f37BN502_hg

Watching it at first, I never thought of this as "dumb Swede" per se. But now in hindsight it's true that the two were repeatedly advised not to hitchhike due to the risk, even by American and Swedes alike, and they shrugged it off thinking they would be allright.

I wonder if UM did pander to that character stock template in the way they constructed and edited this segment, by focusing on the fact that they were Swedish and, thus, naive.

I used to love that show as a kid.

[Drakken]

I used to love that show as a kid.

Knock yourself out, there are plenty of segments on Youtube. 

[Drakken]

Well they did come across the ocean from Sweden and settle in Minnesota.

It's pure coincidence: Minnesota is actually in Dakota language, not a transfiguration of "Sweet Memories" in Swedish.

[Neil]

I think that if there is a billion people too many in this planet, and this billion need to go, it is better if they are from the 3rd world.
3rd world people are not as self-aware as we are. Very few of them read books, create art, new technologies, etc.
If it weren't from the West they would still eating each other waiting for their Rennaisssance Event to occur.

If a billion people have to starve, let them be the uncivilized ones that aport very little to human advancement and our ultimate goal of Reaching For The Stars becoming a Galactic Civilization.

There are actually about six-and-a-half billion too many.  Some First-Worlders are going to have to go too, and what was the Second World and the Third World should both be almost entirely depopulated.

[grumbler]

Well they did come across the ocean from Sweden and settle in Minnesota.

Garrison Keiler explaied that (in the case of Norwegians, but the story would be the same for Swedes) along the lines of "they settled in Minnesota because the soil and climate reminded them of Norway, forgetting that it was the climate and soil of Norway that had driven them to America in the first place."

[Slargos]

Well they did come across the ocean from Sweden and settle in Minnesota.

Garrison Keiler explaied that (in the case of Norwegians, but the story would be the same for Swedes) along the lines of "they settled in Minnesota because the soil and climate reminded them of Norway, forgetting that it was the climate and soil of Norway that had driven them to America in the first place."

Overpopulation, famine and poverty drove them from Scandinavia, certainly not the climate.

What a preposterous notion. 

Oh, I see. He's a comedian. Nevermind then. 

[Razgovory]

Really?  Norway is a bigger country then say Poland yet there are many more Poles then there are people in Norway.  Why?

[Slargos]

Riddle me this, you obtuse little cunt: Sweden has the exact (well, more or less) same climate and soil conditions as Norway does yet is able to sustain a far larger population. Why is that?

[Razgovory]

Maybe the Climate and the Soil aren't quite exactly the same?

Sweden: 6,894,100 acres of arable land.

Norway: 2,229,000 acres of arable land.

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Norway-AGRICULTURE.html

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Sweden-AGRICULTURE.html

[Slargos]

What does the climate and soil type have to do with the amount of arable land?

[DGuller]

Nice try, Slargos, but "Dumb Swede" is still just a myth.

[Razgovory]

What does the climate and soil type have to do with the amount of arable land?

Can't grow crops on bad land.  Arable land is a major factor in historical population growth.  The more land that is useful for farming(the soil and the climate), the higher your historical populations will be since historically population has been limited by food production.  There are exceptions of course, but generally that's the way it goes.

[Malthus]

Nice try, Slargos, but "Dumb Swede" is still just a myth.

Some of our own resident foumites do try their best to give that stereotype legs, though ... 

[Slargos]

Le sigh.

What causes Norway to have relatively less arable land than Sweden is the rather higher percentage of naked bedrock. IE mountains.

The other differences in top soil are marginal. In fact, some of the most arable land in Scandinavia is in Norway.

Arguing that "the climate" or "the soil" are the reasons why Norwegians left Norway for the Americas is obtuse beyond belief.

By the same token, the reason Norwegians left Norway is actually the Big Bang.

[The Brain]

How curious to believe that it was the climate which drove people from Scandinavia.