We southerners fucking poor as dirt, but we can get food whenever we like, because of the great climate. You can find food in the trees, in the countryside,in the sea, etc. That is why the first ancient kingdoms were in southern europe: because survival is not an issue here. Winter is at worst cold. When survival is not an issue, you move on; you create empires, you build temples, schools, you philosophise, you write books, you read them too, and all that. In northern europe people used to struggle a lot to survive, so working hard all fucking day was required to keepliving. Nowadays, that survival is not an issue, northeners still mantain this hard work ethic as cultural knowledge. We southerners never give a shit about much, because as survival was never an issue, we just chilled. All day. And we still do, because it's been in our culture since the first humans inhabited this wonderful place called Southern Europe. So basically, northeners are 100% focused on working their asses off, and we southerners just realx, take our time, and dedicate our time 50% on working and 50% on having fun. Because 50% is more than enough to survive.
Southern Europe developed faster before because the cold North couldn't sustain large agrarian societies to the same degree, and without great agricultural surplus you can't get urban development so easily, and the Mediterrenean enabled easier trade of goods, workers and information.
Christian Lewis
A good sociological view of the North South divide.
Jace Sullivan
>agriculture that does have to do with climate, which is what i'm saying here, so basically you're agreing to some degree But think of Spain and Greece. Spain has vast planes perfect for agriculture, and greece is mostly mountainous. How did Greece develop such a culture when the Iberians and Celts didn't, when Iberia has the better land?
Owen Green
Thanks m8 :)
Hudson Lopez
Greece was closer to the Near East and Egypt, important trade partners. It inherited great culture from those places.
Both Greeks and Phoenicians had colonies in Iberia, btw. And Spain and Portugal suffer from tougher summers.
Thomas Stewart
Yeah, I guess trading is very important. Should've mentioned it too.
>And Spain and Portugal suffer from tougher summers Not enough to fuck up crops. Maybe the southernmost Iberia, but generally it's OK.
And yeah, the colonies where pretty much everywhere. The thing is, why didn't local develop as fast? I guess it's like you said, trading and cultural influence.
Camden Sanchez
So mesopotamians were real fucking working machines considering the environment they lived in?
Alexander King
>Maybe the southernmost Iberia, but generally it's OK. The north has mellower summers, but these are far from the Med.
Connor Martin
What's your explanation for these cultural differences?
Hudson Davis
Wine vs beer. This is all.
Jonathan Ortiz
Pleas elaborate
Gabriel Campbell
>map 9
Aren't the British Isles both sexually and emotionally repressed, though?
Elijah James
They are. The numbers are actually stereotypes, meaning they are generally true but not so true.
Kevin Barnes
The problem with Southern Europe isn't laziness, it's a lack of efficiency
Caleb Allen
that's a meme map. It really is just stereotype of the stereoptypes. Fun to read tho a bit
it's just a lack of a dedicated, hard working ethic. It's generally being chill and not taking it all too seriously
Dominic Brooks
That's still closely related to what he's saying though. When he talks about northerners having to "work their asses off all day", it's due to the various difficulties posed by the colder climate and less fertile soil. It took until the Middle Ages for northern Europe to invent the heavy plough, which allowed them to farm much more successfully on the dense, clay-laden soil of their homelands. And even with this breakthrough in agriculture (and thus economic development), they still had to spend a good portion of their time building up stocks of food and supplies to last through the harsh winter.
This is why Protestants (which can be used as a euphemism for Northerners in general) have their famed work ethic and thrift: it's the legacy of their civilization evolving in a harsh, cold climate where daily survival was a struggle for a very long time. Everybody knows that a big part of the Protestant reformation was the fact that Luther and co. found the idea of buying your way into early salvation distasteful. When you consider how scarce resources had been in northern Europe until the Middle Ages, it makes sense why they wouldn't want to give the Church any shekels to get an easy ticket out of purgatory.
James Williams
looks like my attempt at banter went over like fact-checking. maybe i do have autism.
David Walker
All of southern Italy has always been void of malnourishment, Campania (where naples is located) was called Felix for the longest time, reason being their ability to produce massive amounts of grain(same goes for sicily).
