Sweden: The Thread

[Kraukz]

What I have always liked about Sweden (mah country) is that even doh we have a small population of only 9 millions, we still produce alot of world famous musicians (ABBA, Inflames, The Hives etc), athlets (lots of ice-hockey/soccer players and ofcourse Annika Sörenstam) and some other influencial stuff (IKEA, smorgasbord, Volvo, Saab).

Almost makes me feel like I have big expectations to live up to. OH THE PRESSURE!

 

[NonCuro]

being Norwegian i hate swedes, so therefor damn them, damn them to hell

It is rather well known (or maybe not so well known) that Norwegians and Swedes have had a standing rivalry, although I don't know the origins of it. Maybe it goes back to the days of the Vikings where the two groups would compete for places to raid? If anyone knows, I'd be interested to know.

Norway used to be ruled by Sweden from 1814 to 1905. That where the rivalry is from, although I get on with most norwegians I mett.

 

[anti_strunt]

As an example, we occupied Norway till the beginning of the 20th century.

Well, that's phrasing it a bit inaccurately. It wasn't just an unprovoked invasion follwed by a military occupation...

It was a union decided upon by the Great Powers of Europe during the 1815 Congress of Vienna that reorganised Europe following the Napoleonic Wars. Norway had previously been a part of Denmark for some 400 years, and was "given" to Sweden partly as compensation for losing Finland to Russia (Finland had been an integral part of Sweden since the middle ages). The Norwegians didn't like the idea of Swedish rule, and did fight for independence, but after a short campaign they accepted a peace treaty in which they retained their own constitution and parliament and elected the King of Sweden as King of Norway. In 1905, after 90 years, the Union was peacefully dissolved without a shot fired, after the Norwegians finally grew tired of it.

So yes, Norway was forced into a union with Sweden when it would have preferred independence, but it was not occupied, and both parties should be proud of the non-violent way in which the union was finally done away with.

Oddly enough...Words and so on.

Where are you from? And if you dislike the Pro-Enviroment movement that's you'r business (i don't like them myself.)

Lithuania, little nation near the Baltic sea.

Yeah i know about that. You can't really blame ALL swedes for something a King (Gustav Vasa) did roughly 500 years ago can you?

No, but I don't have to like them either. I've met Swedes that look down on us and view us as a inferior nation. Sometimes they even say that we deserved to be invaded. Besides, it wasn't only the Vasa thing. We fought before that, with the Vikings too.

Sounds like you've had some bad experiences - there are assholes in Sweden too. For what it's worth, most Swedes probably wouldn't even know that they ever invaded the area in the first place, much less brag about it. I've never heard of Swedish Viking raids into Lithuania though?

 

[anti_strunt]

(DOUBLE POST - PLEASE DELETE THIS)

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

As an example, we occupied Norway till the beginning of the 20th century.

Another reason I dislike them. (That and my ex is Norwegian.)

I always thought Sweden had an extraordinary percentage of hot women, but my parents returned from travelling through Europe and my dad said that the Norwegian women are the most beautiful he has ever seen (while my mum was in the room mind you). My ex is of Norwegian descent and she is hot!

And I can't understand how people dislike IKEA. IKEA is practical, a little bit out there and just all-round awesome.

Three of the hardest rocking bands come out of Sweden - Refused, Raised Fist and Blindside.

 

[Labyrinth]

Sweden gave me Opeth, Arch Enemy and Meshuggah. It is therefore pro.

 

[Arachon]

Hehe... The owner of IKEA was part of a Nazi group in sweden during the 1940s-50s O,o

 

[meatloaf231]

Sweden is quite awesome, I must say.

 

[Combined]

Sounds like you've had some bad experiences - there are assholes in Sweden too. For what it's worth, most Swedes probably wouldn't even know that they ever invaded the area in the first place, much less brag about it. I've never heard of Swedish Viking raids into Lithuania though?

From what we're thought, the vikings tried to raid us several times (The coast, at least. They didn't get very far in.), however most of them ended with defeat, which is probably why there's a good chance of never hearing about it, unless you're from the Baltic nations.

 

[flatearth]

Reasons why I hate Sweden:

1. Swedish army is now legally able to listen and record every single international phone call I make, and also most of my internet activities, and I don't even live in Sweden.

2. Swedes brought christianity to my country and destroyed the native religion.

3. Swedes try to take our inventions and pass them out as theirs (sauna is a good example)

4. We have a very small minority of Swedes (5%), but still they have a political party, official language and other priviliges that cost a lot to the goverment. Also note that 99% of those Swedes can speak our language very well.

5. Sweden invaded our country at one point.

Oh, and if it is not clear from that, I'm Finnish.

 

[Sayvara]

On the issue about Swedish blondes.... no, we don not have that many blondes here. But what we also don't have is alot of people that are truly raven-haired either. Apart from immigrants, very few swedes have dark compextion. So we dont' have a surplus of blondes... we have a deficit of black-haired people.

Hehe... The owner of IKEA was part of a Nazi group in sweden during the 1940s-50s O,o

Something which he deeply regrets today. Tell the whole story and not just little bits of it ya mook.


Anyway... Sweden, my home. What can I say...

I like it here. Really I do. It's safe... very safe in fact. The overall crime-rate is relatively low. Violent crimes are scarce, partly thanks to our gun laws which regard firearms as a privilege, not a right. *pokes the americans in the side with a sly wink*. The terrorist threat virtually non-existent because we don't piss people off. Corruption is the lowest in the world if Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index [http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2008/cpi2008/cpi_2008_table] is to be believed. And the social security and health care, while not perfect, is comparatively good.

Granted there are a few things I don't like about Sweden... one of them being a lack of an attitude I respect the americans for... which is the attitude that it's allright to be someone... to have success... to say, as president-elect Barak Obama said in his very inspiring speech - "Yes we can". Sweden doesn't have that. It's not alright to be a Tall Poppy in Sweden. It's not alright to claim that you can do some things better than others. Humility is not merely a virtue but a friggin' demand. I don't like that attitude among my fellow Swedes... I really don't.

But overall, I like my country. I like its values and its foundations. It's got a few flaws... but nothing that cannot be overcome given time, patience and some work.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

Reasons why I hate Sweden:

1. Swedish army is now legally able to listen and record every single international phone call I make, and also most of my internet activities, and I don't even live in Sweden.

2. Swedes brought christianity to my country and destroyed the native religion.

3. Swedes try to take our inventions and pass them out as theirs (sauna is a good example)

4. We have a very small minority of Swedes (5%), but still they have a political party, official language and other priviliges that cost a lot to the goverment. Also note that 99% of those Swedes can speak our language very well.

5. Sweden invaded our country at one point.

Oh, and if it is not clear from that, I'm Finnish.

How did they manage to get the right to look at your interweb usage?

 

[flatearth]

Reasons why I hate Sweden:

1. Swedish army is now legally able to listen and record every single international phone call I make, and also most of my internet activities, and I don't even live in Sweden.

2. Swedes brought christianity to my country and destroyed the native religion.

3. Swedes try to take our inventions and pass them out as theirs (sauna is a good example)

4. We have a very small minority of Swedes (5%), but still they have a political party, official language and other priviliges that cost a lot to the goverment. Also note that 99% of those Swedes can speak our language very well.

5. Sweden invaded our country at one point.

Oh, and if it is not clear from that, I'm Finnish.

How did they manage to get the right to look at your interweb usage?

It is the FRA law that allows them to listen to every communication that passes through Sweden: Almost all international connections from Finland go through Sweden, so they can listen to everything. This has caused Finland to lose business with large companies, because they don't want Swedish army to listen to their business secrets.

EDIT. And let's not forget that Sweden has publicly said that they use this information they gather as a barter tool. They will sell it to other countries (US as the lead candidate). The real kicker here is that a large portion of Russian communication goes through Sweden. Connect the dots here.

 

[Sayvara]

How did they manage to get the right to look at your interweb usage?

The FRA law [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law]

Although the article doesn't take into account very much of how the law ended up. It is not true that the law allows Swedish intelligence to warrantlessly tap everything that passes the borders. Here are the limitations:

- Permission for all intelligence gathering must be given by court. (I.e. a warrant).
- The court decides which "routes" the intelligence gathering may take place on.
- If the endpoints both are in Sweden, it is not allowed to gather intelligence from that source.
- Only the government, the government offices and the defence forces may gather intelligence this way (i.e. excluding for instance the police).

Only the following activities may warrant intelligence gathering:
- External military threats.
- Threats regarding Swedish peacekeeping participation, or threats towards the same.
- International terrorism.
- Development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
- Serious threats to the infrastructure of teh country.
- Conflicts abroad that threatens international safety and security.

Raw tapping of information is expressedly forbidden.

So in essence flatearth's claim is wrong. Unless he is an international terrorist or in any other way planning terrorist activities in Sweden... his intarwebs is completely off limits to the Swedish defence forces.

/S

 

[Simski]

Mjeh, don't blame Sweden for the FRA, blame Reinfeldt.

 

[Sayvara]

Mjeh, don't blame Sweden for the FRA, blame Reinfeldt.

Why? (s) tried the same. The real blame lies with FRA... this is job security for them. Even if it's a wild goose chase and they will probably never end up getting anything of worth, or at least so little that it's not worth it, this will keep FRA in business.

/S

 

[anti_strunt]

Reasons why I hate Sweden:

1. Swedish army is now legally able to listen and record every single international phone call I make, and also most of my internet activities, and I don't even live in Sweden.

2. Swedes brought christianity to my country and destroyed the native religion.

3. Swedes try to take our inventions and pass them out as theirs (sauna is a good example)

4. We have a very small minority of Swedes (5%), but still they have a political party, official language and other priviliges that cost a lot to the goverment. Also note that 99% of those Swedes can speak our language very well.

5. Sweden invaded our country at one point.

Oh, and if it is not clear from that, I'm Finnish.

No, you see, we were only saving you from the Russians! Seriously, though, there is some archaeological evidence to indicated Novgorodian and Orthodox influences in Finland prior to the Swedish "crusades", so it is very possibly that they were carried out in response to a perceived growth in Russian expansionism. In essence, we moved you into the sphere of western, European civilisation, and away from the horrible, nasty, dastardly Russians - surely that has to count for something?

 

[Bocca]

I don't have anything against swedes but sucks to be its neighbor country. We Finns have to learn their goddamn language just cause some (5% as said) of their folk lives here and 'cause they ruled us for a pretty damn long time.

Other than that the country is ok. The people there are overly-hyperly-superly-positive about like everything and they'r very self-confident at least compared to people in Finland, and the ladies look better there.

I have to agree with flatheart in reasons why to hate Sweden, I'm Finnish too
I could probably ramble for ever about Sweden and they'r weird habits but I'm not going to cause I'm lazy and don't want to have a opinion-war once again.

 

[xxcloud417xx]

I might be going to sweden later in life.

I want to work at DICE. The only EA company I want to work t mind you.

That being said they have kick ass internet.

DICE and Digital Illusions = Same thing just wanted to point that out... lol
put yeah i love BF series, particularly BF 2142.

 

[anti_strunt]

I don't have anything against swedes but sucks to be its neighbor country. We Finns have to learn their goddamn language just cause some (5% as said) of their folk lives here and 'cause they ruled us for a pretty damn long time.

Well, I'm learning Finnish, and it's no picnic either; 15 different cases, lolwut?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language_noun_cases