2 hours ago3 points(+0/-0/+3Score on mirror)1 child
I'm not southern european, but it's retarded. For one thing, northern europe has a culture around physical fitness, which southern Europe sadly lacks (but it's getting better). Secondly, it's unnoticeable in day-to-day life because northern Europeans and southern europeans are more similar to each other than anyone else. You can go to India and obviously draw the conclusion that everyone is weak, but you can't draw this conclusion from actually visiting north+south Europe, just by looking at graphs.
Moreover, in a modern context, your physical strength is only the third most important thing and it's only important up to a point before its a detriment (muscle means mass means lower cardiovascular fitness after too much is gained). IQ and cardiovascular fitness are more important. Nobody's going to give a singular fuck that a Chinese person's hand grip strength is weaker than a swede's if chinese guns are lining people up to be shot. The British didn't care that a graph online says Spaniards are physically weaker than them when their fleet ended up underwater multiple times. The gauls didn't care when they became a Roman province.
And in spite of these charts and graphs, the US and Northern europe have the largest endemic issue of effeminate faggots being everywhere.
Furthermore, I consider that Israel must be destroyed
After rome spent a great deal of time destroying itself through rampant corruption and civil wars, and with the backing of a large part of the Roman army and the population of the Italian peninsula, yes. The goths wouldn't have bothered trying to sack rome at its peak, it would be suicide.
>were also hired as mercenaries to guard the Byzantine walls though?
Hiring foreigners to guard you was common practice. It may have actually started here. But someone who has less of an idea how everything works, and has stepped into your city and been treated to its amenities after coming from somewhere worse, is more likely to be loyal. Plus germanic culture treated oaths very seriously. The praetorian guard was infamously disloyal because they knew the ins and outs of the system, had exorbitant power, and had personal grievances and disagreements with the emperors of Rome. The varangian guard didn't have any of that, to them, the emperor provided something they never had
Plus, anyways, none of that matters anymore. At all. It hasnt *really* mattered since people started swinging swords instead of bashing each other with rocks (rome had very few issues dealing with people larger and stronger than themselves). Wars are won with guns and movement. If you can march at pace with a ruck on your back for 30 km, coordinate with a unit, and shoot a rifle well enough, you're much more prepped for a SHTF scenario than someone who can bench 3 plates and has a 100 kg grip strength. And I've been on both sides of that too, I used to powerlift and by the time I stopped doing it I had never felt more out of shape in my life from the accumulated mass (no gear either). There's a reason that tier 1-2 operators run and swim for absurd distances while such little attention is given to their strength with the maximum necessary more or less being the ability to drag around a limp body.
Furthermore, I consider that Israel must be destroyed