A Catalogue of Divergence
Drawn from an abandoned cache of recordings in an annex at the Institute of Multiverse Studies, A Catalogue of Divergence follows conversations from worlds very much like our own.
Do not be alarmed - some of what you will hear does not exist in the history of our universe, though it may yet come to pass.
This is a tour of things that exist in other words and now, at least for a little while, in this one too.
A Catalogue of Divergence
Just Like Mom and Dad (Norwegian Usage)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week our explorers learn about Holverfjord and hear a story about birds. You might have your Mother's eyes but you definitely inherited your Father's professional aptitude for making horseshoes.
Drum from an abandoned cache of recordings in an annex at the Institute of Multiverse Studies, a catalog of divergence follows conversations from worlds very much like a room. Do not be alarmed. Some of what you will hear does not exist in the history of our universe, though it may yet come to pass. This is a tour of things that exist in other worlds, and now, at least for a little while, in this one too. This is a catalogue of divergence.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to a catalogue of divergence, a show where each week we spend time exploring a cachet of recordings from neighboring universes nearly identical to our own and sharing the most interesting ones with you, our listeners. My name is Jeff. I'm a veteran podcaster and multiverse enthusiast, and I am joined as always by the former employee of the Institute of Multiverse Studies and the man who was lucky enough to be, quote unquote, allowed to take home this TARDIS-like container full of infinite cassette tapes when the Institute mysteriously closed down, my good friend Peter. Peter, how's it going? I'm good. I'm good. Okay, good. I'm also good. You know, it's uh it's a beautiful day. Yeah, I did find I listened to a lot of these tapes, um, and I did find some interesting ones. You were right about there being a lot of stuff about World's Fairs and the Amish. Um I still have not found an Amish World's Fair, but Me neither. There just there has to be, there has to be a sliver of that Venn diagram that exists somewhere.
SPEAKER_03Probability would suggest, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And I I think at some point, now the probability of us finding it is lower than just the fact of it existing, but uh I think that it's gotta be. It's gotta we're we're circling the drain of those things so much. Uh it's there. And yeah, I found something equally interesting though.
SPEAKER_03Um careful has to do with because you're comparing to it to an Amish World's Fair.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I guess I don't know how interesting the Amish Worlds Fair is because we haven't found the episode. Right. So I guess I could be either calling this the the most interesting episode we've ever had, or like the least interesting episode we've ever had, or somewhere in the middle. Most likely this will be a strong episode. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Good. I have a lot of confidence. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's about it's about families, it's about doing work. Um, and uh here's the tape. Why don't you uh read the label, pop it in, and let's give it a listen.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so we are gonna listen to uh just like mom and dad, and then in parentheses Norwegian usage. Let's pop this in.
SPEAKER_00The following is the property at the Institute for Multiverse Studies. Planar coordinates, cycle elliptical. Inclination 43 point B. Band 80085. Title Just Like Mom and Dad Norwegian Usage Format Audio Recording Two Human Males Podcasting Security Level Smallest Possible.
SPEAKER_02Hey, what up listeners? How are my triangulates doing out there today, huh?
SPEAKER_03Uh most of the listeners today are four-sided.
SPEAKER_02By the way. Quadrupeds. No, that's feet. Quadrilaterals. Quadrilaterals? Yeah. Polygons. Trapezoids. Trapezoids, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, still polygon, but yeah, polygonals. That's true. Uh yeah. Well, uh, welcome everyone. Um, we are here with another episode where we are exploring some of the world's finest culture. This is a good one. Um, Peter, I'm really excited about this.
SPEAKER_03I'm I'm excited too. I have to uh say that um my mouth hurts a little bit. This is a complete non sequitur, but it I was just thinking about it while you were talking because I I don't focus very well. I had a I had a sandwich this morning and I put carrots on the sandwich, like like chopped carrots, kind of chopped lengthwise.
SPEAKER_02It's allowed. It's allowed. It's not like normal, but it's allowed.
SPEAKER_03It was I would say it was a good choice. However, not uh a universally good choice because when you eat a carrot, I'm gonna I'm gonna make a guess about you right now. When you eat a carrot, you use almost entirely your molars to chew it. Am I right about that? It depends on the the cut of the carrot. Like you're taking a bite maybe with your front teeth, but then you're you're moving it back to your molars.
SPEAKER_02I'm probably yeah, I'm I'm masticating with the with the back molars. Right. It also depends on how cold the carrot is, because I I uh This is true. I have a lot of crowns on my back molars, and so it doesn't it doesn't always feel good if it's like a real cold carrot. For the sake of your anecdote, let's say I chew with my back molars some of my carrots.
SPEAKER_03If you put carrots, let me let me be clear about how I'm cutting them here. This is kind of a these aren't baby carrots, right? And then I'm I'm taking a uh like a core, and then I cut that sort of lengthwise, right? So these are fairly long pieces, which is to say when I put it on a sandwich, the rest of the sandwich is of course soft, it's bread and cheese, and then you and then you bite into it in order like you would normally bite into a sandwich.
SPEAKER_02Important question. When you're positioning these long thin carrots on the bread, are you doing them horizontally or vertically?
SPEAKER_03Well, that just depends on what direction, what orientation I'm holding the sandwich, right?
SPEAKER_02Well uh so okay, let's say bread is flat. Are you doing it parallel to the bread or perpendicular to the bread?
SPEAKER_03These are like like several inches long. Let's say the carrot slice is like. No. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Well Well, you're saying it hurt your mouth, and I'm trying to think of ways that a carrot could hurt your mouth by cutting into a sliver and then No, this wasn't like a Dagwood sandwich.
SPEAKER_03This was a regular normal depth sandwich. A Minecraft block of a sandwich.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03No, no, no. This is this is let's I mean if you've got two slices of cheese on there, let's say the carrot adds another depth, like the two slices of cheese.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03A millimeter or two, yeah. Sure. So when you bite into the sandwich, you're normally when you're biting into a sandwich, you can just bite all the way in with your regular front teeth. That's not your canines, right? Your what are your front ones? No, those are your incisors? That sounds right. So you're biting in with your incisors and you just go all the way through. But with the when you have the carrot in there, it goes you go softly through it and then you hit the carrot and you gotta go hard. And when you bite it, it like chunks up and hits the top of the inside of your gum just behind your front teeth. Pretty hard. So, like the yeah, the inside of my gums hurt because of biting of carrots, which is just the least quick evolutionarily mouth. Yeah, right. Like, how am I alive in this world if the top of my mouth hurts from biting one carrot or biting a carrot once?
SPEAKER_02I want to ask this question with with nothing but love and care. How often do you floss?
SPEAKER_03Oh, very, very not often at all.
SPEAKER_02I do brush. I brush. Yeah, that does it doesn't it doesn't get up in those gums the same way. Yeah. Like you gotta I I have I have gone through periods of my life where I have not been a good a good flosser, but uh now I do it pretty religiously every day, at least once. And uh I've noticed that my gums don't hurt just from eating things anymore. Um I got a question for you, speaking of nothing that we were just talking about. Um so when you were growing up, when you were a little kid, was there ever a time that you can remember where you looked at your the the profession that your parents did, that they were they did to make money and said, I want to do that when I grow up.
SPEAKER_03Yes and no, I would say. So both of my parents uh when I was growing up were professors, were college professors um in music, one of whom one one was also a uh trumpet player in the in a symphony orchestra. And I was very my mother would spend four hours a day practicing the trumpet. She would go in like six in the morning and practice for four hours. And she that this made her very happy. She wasn't overly stressed about it or anything, but I knew that and I thought, wow, that sounds awful. So as much as I like adored the idea of being in that culture of like learning things and and teaching things, and I loved music, I was not into the idea of practicing a bunch of working hard to do some to get to get to a place, basically.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah, yeah. And that that's similar to my experience. Um, you know, I I admired what uh I mean my my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so that's a whole other like profession in and of itself. And then I also really admired what my dad did. He was he was also a college professor now in botany, but like I was not super great at science. Um I was more of a more of an arts kid, um, still am. And uh I never felt like the call, you know, to that to that profession.
SPEAKER_03You mean you didn't feel the call to to being a scientist or you didn't feel the call to teaching?
SPEAKER_02Um well I did feel the call to teaching for a very brief period. Uh, but then I learned what a fresh hell teaching at a anything but collegiate level in the United States was in the early 2000s and decided this isn't for me. And then in kind of parallel to that, uh we've talked before, you have two kids, I have one child. Um how you know how interested are you in either of your children following in any of your footsteps? It doesn't necessarily have to be like, you know, you want them to to do what you do professionally, but it's just like there are things that you've done that you want them to experience.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think any parent who has uh a sliver of self-esteem wants to pass on certain things that they think went right in their life to their kids. Um I certainly think I would like to give my kids as much music as possible, given that I know I will not give them the amount of music I grew up with. Um fair enough. But I think you know, the older they get, the more you realize uh they're just gonna do their own thing no matter what, right? And so you can kind of push them, you can give them advice and hopefully they take it. Um but they're their own people.
SPEAKER_02Well, I in it I agree with you. Um and it's good that neither of us uh grew up in uh Holverfjord, uh Scandinavia. I think that every morning. The early ninth century, yeah. I wake up, first thing I do, uh I take a swig out of my bottle of water, um, and then I thank my lucky stars. I'm not waking up in ninth century Hilverford.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I do my gratitudes, and my gratitude number two is I did not grow up in 9th century Hilverford.
SPEAKER_02Yep. What's what's number one out of curiosity?
SPEAKER_03Uh I'm grateful for sandwiches.
SPEAKER_02Ah, okay. Just not the carrot kind. No, no, grateful for those two. Grateful for those two. Let me tell you a little bit about Hulverfjord, uh, Scandinavia.
SPEAKER_03Can I take a stab at spelling this? Can I just take a stab at it? I'm I'm gonna genuinely try to do my best here, okay? Good. I'm gonna write it out. H J O L Uh V I O R F J O R D.
SPEAKER_02So you inserted several vowels and consonants in there that that did not need to be in there. It's very straightforward. H-O-L-V-E-R-F-J-O-R-D. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I if I don't write this down, then I'm gonna say it wrong the whole episode.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, and that's uh yeah, understandable. I mean, this is a town that no longer exists, so um this this is uh an uh a town that existed for several centuries but has has since kind of uh died out. The people have moved away. But um let me tell you about ninth century Hulverfjord. See, now I'm having trouble pronouncing it. I'm thinking about all those vowels and consonants. Um so this is uh a town that is located in back then would have been considered Scandinavia. It's now what we call Western Norway. Um, it was a very isolated town. Um, it was uh able to be isolated because it was very self-sustaining. There is uh arable land, you could uh have uh agriculture there, there were nearby forests for wood, it was near enough to bodies of water, including the coasts to where uh you could fish and there was decent uh hunting in the forest as well.
SPEAKER_03So I would guess it was adjacent to a fjord, given the name.
SPEAKER_02It was, yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. Um, and so uh very isolated, very self-sustaining. And uh one of the things that I when I was reading about this found incredibly interesting was a very specific tradition that the town of Holverfjord had, which is that if you had children, they would uh follow in your footsteps professionally uh when they grew up. And this was not uh necessarily like a thing that was treated as was inflicted on the children. It wasn't like, oh well, you have to do this. It was such like a understood and ingrained tradition within this town. Like if you were a kid, you you wanted to do what your your parents did.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh you you wanted to to follow in their footsteps. This is not this is not like ah shucks, I don't, you know, this part of this, like I would rather do X or Y or Z. Because part of that is the fact that everyone around you is seeped in this tradition, and also you're so isolated you don't understand that there's there are other places where you can grow up and essentially, like you said earlier, be your own person.
SPEAKER_03I'm guessing if we're in ninth century Scandinavia, um there really are only three jobs, right? There's X, Y, and Z. Those are your choices.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there uh there were a few more, and and this it wasn't just a ninth century town. This is kind of when it was founded. Um this tradition, uh gosh, I think it lasted probably about five or six centuries from what my research could tell. So um, but we'll we'll get we'll get into kind of some of the details because I'm sure you and the listeners are like, okay, well, how does this if you think about it for longer than like you know, five seconds, you start like, wait, this logistically, how does this work? Yeah. So because what if the town doesn't need any more fishermen or whatever? Exactly. Exactly, exactly. So I just want to say, real quick, just as a detail, um, because these professions were passed down uh through families so familiarly, there's like almost an heirloom quality to like records and instructions, documentation, professional materials uh that were passed down between parent and child.
SPEAKER_03The system sort of makes it easier to research, right? Because they have to keep track of things. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and one of the professions that popped up right around the founding of the town was a uh family of sc scribes, uh bookkeepers, however you want to say it, that were in charge of tracking things like this town's vital statistics. Um so there's a lot clearer of a historical snapshot about life in Holverfjord than a lot of other places in that same place and era. So it was traditional in Holverfjord for both uh parents to have a profession that they learned as a child, um and then their offspring would choose one of those two professions. So you would have one person who, let's say, was a blacksmith and the other was a baker. And so as your child grew up, they would experience like minimal kind of journeyman sort of training in in both, and then when they came of age, they would get to choose, okay, I want to become a master at baker, master at blacksmith. Um there was from what I can tell from the some of the the writings and and things about this choice, there were sometimes hurt feelings, I think, between parents, where like a parent really wanted a kid to go into one thing and and not another, but for the most part, it seemed like it was pretty equitable all around, like everyone was just happy that they were doing something that made them happy.
SPEAKER_03And uh so the children are are choosing at some point. Yes.
SPEAKER_02There's no I mean, outside of the pressure of you have to choose one of these two professions, there's no outside pressures from parents, maybe, or even the rest of the town, or no, no, no, it's uh yeah, and also one of the things that I was surprised, especially because of the uh you know, the time period, is that there were, as far as I can tell, very little to know uh like gender restrictions on the professions. Like if it was something you were good at, you could just do it. So there was no like, oh well, baking is a women's job and uh mining is a man's job. Like if you if you enjoyed it and were good at it, then that's doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_03So did you ever have parents? I guess you'd be really stuck if both parents were had the same profession.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and that happens sometimes. Um it was not necessarily as advantageous later on for that to happen. Um and I'll kind of get into that. Uh, but it it is it was more interesting, I think, for the families and for the children to not be kind of locked into this uh you know singular line of um of work. And also, even if something like that did happen, it was very unlikely that it would or impossible for it to happen uh two generations in a row, because the previous generation had kind of uh consolidated all of the blacksmiths in the town, and so there were no other blacksmiths that were not directly related to you um for you to partner with. So it would it would be hard to continue multiple generations of the same profession.
SPEAKER_03Sure, because not to mention the the demand wouldn't be there at some point, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, yeah, and it depends on the the profession. So families had an average of two children. Um there were some professions that would benefit well and you know the the the average of two children is also you think ninth century uh northern European Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03So I'm assuming that nine two children means two children made it to working age. Is that yes, yeah correctly? Okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um there were some professions where there were more uh children, um, such as like forestry, mining, farming, things where the more hands you have uh helping, the you know, the the easier the job becomes later on. Um, you know, if you have a a farm and you you only have two kids and one of them doesn't choose to be a farmer, then you're passing on the entire duties of a uh an agricultural operation to just one one person. So it's uh it's it's in the certain people's best interest to to have more children, especially since you know the the kids still get to choose uh what they want to do. So if they choose to um not be a farmer, uh then you know there there needs to be some ch child backup plans.
SPEAKER_03And and maybe you're gonna get to this, but is there some sort of like coming of age ceremony after which this choice is made at a certain age? Because I imagine you know farmers are using their younger children no matter what they choose to help on the field. Right.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Well, and that and that is the same with all families. Um going back to the you know combination baker blacksmith, because it's an easy, an easy one to picture. The you're gonna go through childhood. There is no like public school, there's no like central education, so you're gonna be you know, essentially learning a trade. It's a package. And you're gonna be splitting your time between these two. So if you're the you know blacksmith and and baker's son or daughter, you are going to spend some of your time helping, you know, prep dough or learning how like how to uh maintain the temperature to uh so you're not burning things, but you're not you know coming out with like a bunch of raw muffins or whatever. And then, you know, as a blacksmith, you're probably doing a lot more manual things. Things like hauling heavy stuff, uh working the bellows, uh you know, maybe trying to calm a horse or something.
SPEAKER_03I love the idea of you sitting there panicking, like, oh crap, what does a blacksmith do to a blacksmith? I I don't even know what they would have done. Uh calm horses, I guess. They probably swords, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, the black yeah, the blacksmith is gonna make the sword. The kid's not gonna make the sword. The kid's gonna calm the mortars. He's got a shot sugar cubes. Yep. Um classic blacksmith stuff. Yeah. And same with like the farmer, you know, you're gonna have the kids are gonna be out collecting eggs, uh, weeding stuff, you know, things that are calming horses to do down, yeah, calling calming horses, but for different reasons.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it turns out this is a surprisingly universal uh skill.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, these these horses had seen a banshee. Um I s I assume. I think that if there can be banshees in Ireland, there could be banshees in Scandinavia. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_03I mean I think that if I if the answer to are there banshees is yes, then are there banshees in is also yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean the answer to are there parrots is yes, but the answer to are there parrots in is not always yes. Aaron Ross Powell Do you assume that banshees are limited by the ocean? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I guess.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if banshees have a particular climate. I don't know if they are like they can only survive in the ecosystem of like a a moor or like a peat bog.
SPEAKER_03They do seem to prefer like more desolate areas. Um we don't know if that's like a that's an actual limitation to their their biology.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. Maybe they just like it because they can like fly faster in a straight line without having to worry about running into getting their banshee cloak snagged on the bushes or something. Yeah, yeah. You know. Either way, um Banshee's not one of the uh the professions, but palming horses, absolutely. Kind of going back to the the parent side of things, um the marriages were based on mutual attraction, love, things like that. Similar to, you know, how we would base marriage now, although a person's profession would be taken into consideration, yeah. Um especially later on in this this tradition. Um so when it started out, it was mostly about survival and propagation of food and resources and things like that. Um there as as the town grew and the uh agriculture and business became more stable and established, there kind of became a trend with these marriages and the mixing of the professions within the marriages to where there was an intentional combination of professions that had not been combined before.
SPEAKER_03Combination, you mean like mixing?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. When you mix these professions, you know, you're gonna have a child who chooses one of them, or in some cases later on, and this was more around like the 13th, 14th century. So, you know, we've had we've had about five centuries to establish this town and and you know make sure everything is stable. You had people who were choosing an entirely new profession or field of study within a profession that were that was dictated by the synergistic mix of parental professions. Um this originally started out from what I could read in the records unintentionally. I think the first documented time of this happening, there was a baker who was needing specific implements um to do things that he needed to do.
SPEAKER_03I've seen this on Time Musical.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the baker and the blacksmith. Yeah. Uh, and so the the baker married a blacksmith, partially out of, you know, love and whatever, but also out of like, hey, I need I I want someone to collaborate with. And when they trained their child in both the baking and the blacksmith, the child not only understood what the needs were of the baker, but also how to fulfill those needs through the profession of the blacksmith. Yeah, can you give me an example? They invented um, well, or I guess revolutionize it in invent um multiple sizes and types of iron skillets uh that were made to bake certain things. Um this is also allegedly, it's hard because the with translation and things within the documents, it's like you know, it is this is this one of those like kind of tall claims that a culture will make. Um originally uh or allegedly, this is where the design for what would later be referred to as the Dutch oven came from. It it it was designed by this blacksmith slash baker slash cookware designer in uh Holderfjord and then made its way south uh uh grew in popularity and then you know was was nicknamed in the Western Hemisphere the Dutch Oven, even if it's technically a Norwegian oven. Right. If the the Norwegian heritage uh group is to be believed. Uh which you know what, sure. I don't care. I'm not Dutch. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I'm not gonna call it a Norwegian oven. That's just too much. I'm not either. Dutch oven is a very satisfying thing to say.
SPEAKER_02Also, like, you know, there's the there's the cookware, a Dutch oven, but there's also the act of passing gas underneath a heavy comforter or duvet, and then putting the duvet over someone's head. Classic movie. So they have yeah, uh-huh. Which is also referred to as a Dutch oven. I don't want to put that on the Norwegians, I don't think that's fair.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, but I also think it's probably equally not fair to put that on on the Dutch.
SPEAKER_02Oh, the Dutch weren't the Dutch were pretty bad, like historically a lot. Like I I know the Norwegians probably weren't perfect, all the Viking stuff, like they weren't nice 100% of the time, but they didn't like sort of start and then like were responsible for the entire global slave trade for like hundreds of years. I feel like you can if you're gonna do that, then you're gonna have to have a fart prank named after you. And that's just that's just how human history is.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so it's not the it's not that you know the Dutch oven practice was invented in the Netherlands, it's more that they deserve the nickname.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. You think of a fart prank and you think of the Dutch.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I can get on board with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like a historical you know, cross to bear, yeah, but not that cross, uh, just you know, a metaphorical one. So another example of a a combination marriage that turned out uh like I don't want to use the word birth because it's literally what happened, but like birth, a new profession. Um there was a forester who married an artist, and uh their child went on to map the region's forests and streams. So essentially like a rudimentary cartographer. Um I will say that they have some of the maps on display at the Norwegian Heritage Museum in Oslo. They are more artistic than accurate, but it's still cool. Yeah, when you have an artist doing cartography as opposed to like, you know, a cartographer. That it's just it's just cool that like this, you know, this person was like, hey, I'm tired of getting lost in the forest. Like I'm gonna be an artist, and we're gonna teach our kid to draw the forest in a way that's gonna help people not get lost. Like, yeah, it's it's it's kind of like I don't want to use the word loophole because they're not necessarily finding a loophole in like you don't have to do exactly the thing that mom and dad do, but they are filling a need, they're finding a creative way to fill a need within the society. There are some like accidental ones that were just like things that that happen. Um, the most macabre and also hilarious one was a uh surgeon um who married a butcher, and their child would be today what we would call the first veterinary surgical doctor in that area of northern Europe.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, of course. I mean, that's a that's an entirely different way to quiet a horse, but it works just as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess it depends on your your definition of calming the horse, if it is like, you know, is is passing out from blood loss calming? Um You know, I'm no veterinarian. I yeah, I'm no veteran to blood loss, so uh at least when I'm awake. Um there was also a mine worker who married a builder, um, and their child ended up revolutionizing the mortar and stonework uh like blending of things like uh you know, the mortar mixture of you know lime to granite and things like that and different types of stonework. You know, just because they had access to more of the stuff inside the earth. Yeah, this is and they knew they knew how to get it.
SPEAKER_03This is interesting because I was I was wondering, I mean, maybe you're gonna get to this uh uh I was wondering how this was enforced, but also there's so many sort of hidden positive externalities to this system that you could see it sort of economically uh enforcing itself, right? Like you just the the town realizes that that these sort of synergies, as you said, are are are beneficial to to sort of the the almost the evolution of the workforce. Um and uh it sort of more more directs the evolution of the workforce than than keeping things random.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it it you know it does, and also it's like the only positive implementation of mass nepotism that I can think of. Because it is like of course the the builder who has familial access to and knowledge of the local mining operations is going to have a leg up on the other builders who just like their their only knowledge of what the local stone and availability is is either what they can just go out and find in a field or on a hill, or like uh they can buy from you know a uh stonemason.
SPEAKER_03I'm sure there are merchants as well, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, sure, yeah. Yeah, there you know, again, it was it was a pretty isolated town, so there weren't like a ton of traveling merchants. Um as it became more populated, uh it became more worthwhile for someone to kind of go out of their way and and try and sell some stuff. But like the people there had this spirit of ingenuity that was kind of like almost this collaborative ingenuity of like, how can we make everyone's lives better?
SPEAKER_03It's interesting, it's a planned economy, sort of, right?
SPEAKER_02Almost, yeah. It's yeah, it's yeah. Like planned, but like via tradition, yeah, and also not necessarily n needed to be enforced.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's like something you'd see on Star Trek Deep Space Nine or something, right? They go to some planet and everyone this bucalic planet where everyone knows exactly what they're supposed to be doing and all wearing similarly colored pajamas.
SPEAKER_02Or just like, you know, an episode of Star Trek then. Uh yeah, right. Yeah. Like yeah. This is this is like what I imagine the writers of the next generation imagine Earth to be. Uh like kind of like this this uh utopia society with no no needs or wants.
SPEAKER_03It does seem utopian.
SPEAKER_02There are yeah, it's not all like sunshine and and roses, you know. This is uh early 12th, 13th, 14th century Europe. So um, you know, while they're isolated enough not to have like suffered hugely from stuff like the the black plague and and things like that, you know, there are examples of a child being unable to follow in the footsteps of their parents.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Most of the time, you know, kids wanted to. That was like the thing that you did. Like you you want to, you were excited, like this is what you grew up around, you know, it's it's the knowledge that you know.
SPEAKER_03And all of the all the other kids are following in their parents' footsteps too, right? Right.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. There there's I think there's probably almost like a pride or honor thing to it. There is also a pride and honor to being unable to do it too. Um and this is this is another really interesting thing of like a mix of tradition and religion. Um are you familiar with the uh story of the raven from Norse mythology?
SPEAKER_03Uh the ravens were Odin's helpers, right?
SPEAKER_02Eventually, yes. But they didn't start out that way. Okay, Odin created all of the animals, birds, and and set them upon the earth. Um when, according to the the story of the raven, the legend, uh he created the birds, they were mostly seabirds, you know. So you think of birds you'd see off the coast of of Norway, Sweden, Scandinavia. But at the same time, he also created the majestic raven. Um, but he set the raven out to sea with the rest of the birds. Uh the other seabirds obviously could fish well, they could paddle, they had webbed feet, um, they had feathers that resisted water well, um, but Raven did not. Raven did not have webbed feet. What Raven had claws, Raven did not have super water resistant oils on its feathers, um, like the uh the other birds did. And so Raven then went to beseech the All Father to beg to be able to live somewhere else, you know, essentially saying, you know, please let me let me do something else. I I don't fit in here. I I don't have the ability to swim, I don't have the ability to uh you know to to get dry and to get warm like these other birds.
SPEAKER_03He's just trying to get an exit visa. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, pretty much. You know what? I shouldn't be I shouldn't be gender normative here. Maybe she.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. In the legend, they are just referred to as Raven. So it could be they. You know, I'm just I'm just going to refer to them as Raven. Odin um was enraged at Raven for suggesting that he had made a mistake. And he gave Raven an ultimatum. Raven had to catch 100 fish by sunset or be banished to hell Hellheim for eternity.
SPEAKER_03This is an awful dude comes up to you and says, Hey, I'm really, really bad at this thing. And you say, Yes, here's your punishment. Do that thing a hundred times or you're going to hell.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's always it's it's a very like boomer version of Odin in this. In this because it's like, I would rather punish you for pointing out that I did something wrong than admit that I did something wrong.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and and boomer's just like, well, you just once you just go practice a bit and you'll get good at it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you'll be you'll be fine. You're like, yeah, I so um Raven, you know, sadly went back to the sea uh and initially tried catching fish like the other seabirds, but obviously was ineffective. But Raven got out of the water and perched up on a branch uh that was jutting out of one of the fjord cliffs above uh the rest of the seabirds, and realized that uh he had much more keen eyesight than a lot of the other birds and could see fish that they could not that were uh you know maybe too deep or too far away from them. Um so Raven was able to dive down and catch some of these fish when they surface before the other birds were even able to see them. Raven also possessed a uh much sharper wit than the rest of these seabirds. So Raven could see when one of the birds was going to try and maybe take a fish that was a little too big for it or you know, just didn't have a great hold on the fish, and Raven could swoop down and steal that fish from the seabird. It was a lot of times larger than Raven, but significantly less intelligent, uh lower IQ by uh order of magnitude, probably. Because you know, seagulls are stupid. When Raven was able to take advantage of their natural gifts, um, they ended up catching a hundred fish before sunset, um, and were saving saved themselves from the fate of Helheim. Um Odin, you know, being the all-father and being all-seeing, watched this this thing play out, this whole story play out, and ended up kind of as much as in any of these legends or stories, Odin will come to someone hat in hand. Uh, you know, he he gave Odin's version of an apology, which is kind of like, well, you know, we both probably did something wrong here, but now everything's okay. And you know, uh he he did realize that you know Raven had been right. It was Raven was much more suited to exist on land, um, where it could take advantage of its natural gifts as opposed to trying to live in the sea, um, where it just was not literally not physically equipped to to do that.
SPEAKER_03Man, so he again so the still the full story here is that Raven says, I'm really bad at catching fish, and Boomer Odin says, Well, screw you, go catch a hundred fish. And then Raven successfully catches a hundred fish, and Boomer Odin says, I was wrong, you don't have to catch any fish. Essentially, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay. Well, because it, you know, it wasn't easy for Raven to catch a hundred fish. Um, he had to steal them from the other seabirds and and things like that. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't it wasn't a let's say sustainable uh way of existing. Um but Odin was able to recognize that okay, Raven is right. Raven told me the truth. I can see now that Raven is much, much better suited for something else. Um and so this is where uh Odin elevated Raven to a place of honor, um, becoming uh known as the Eyes of Odin, um uh you know, based on the the wit and keen eyesight uh that are normally associated when we uh personify the the Raven, and uh became a fairly sacred symbol in the old Norse religion. So in Holover Fjord, when you are born to a profession that you are unable to do, let's say you uh have a birth defect, you were born with you know one arm. You're you're probably not going to want to swing a pickaxe all day. Or if you're born blind, you're you're not going to do something that involves like a lot of a lot of sight. Um these children were referred to as uh ravens, um, which is a uh term of endearment and honor within their community. Um the town would then, once one of these children was identified as a raven, they would work together to find the profession that was going to be the best fit for the child. So they're not going to make the same mistakes that Odin did, which was you know, try and force the child into a unsuitable profession. Uh they're going to, you know, work together as a as a community to figure out what's what's the best way we can support this child, which is like really progressive and sweet. And like I was reading about this, I was like, oh, this is awesome. Like, I wish we could all live in Holver Fjord. Uh but anyway, so did Karl Marx, man. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, so you know, if you were if you were a raven, you would be then taken in by uh another family. You would still have your biological family. Um, you could continue to live with them if you wanted, but you would spend your days training in a separate profession with a separate family. Uh from the records I read, about half the time, you know, the kids were as formally adopted as you could be adopted in, you know, this town of no actual like functioning government. Uh and you know, it this was all on the up and up agreed to by both sets of parents. It was just kind of seen as like this is. to be best and most easiest for for this child. So yeah, it was a real interesting tradition. Around the early 19th century, the population had uh yeah, so we're talking about what, you know a thousand years, right? Uh yeah, around around the 19th century, the population of Hilverford had dwindled um due to a lot of relocation to more populated settlements nearby. You know, it the world can only stay super small for so long.
SPEAKER_03You're gonna bleed kids who just don't want to do it. I mean even if even if it's the tradition is so ingrained that the that the vast majority of people want to stay in their profession, you're gonna bleed that one kid who just wants to be a soccer player, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah who like learned about soccer on like a trip somewhere and is like oh I don't have to be a basket weaver. Yeah I can I can make baskets in basketball which doesn't exist yet but yep I was trying to think of like a fun tie into I was with you. Yeah I was with you. So the tradition was carried on by some former residents for about a generation or two um you know after they moved out but ultimately yeah when you compare it to the autonomy of choice that is offered by the rest of society you know tradition like this can be seen as archaic and limiting. When you are given to at the time what seems like really good choices like you can choose which one of these two professions you want to be like that seems great. When you realize there are people in the world who literally have thousands of different things that they could do and people that they could work for or with it it's easy to feel limited. There's some SOMO there. Yeah. So the former site of Hilverford is now a historical marker about eight miles northeast of the modern day city of Bergen. Yep but you know like I mentioned earlier thanks to the records and documentation still are archived in the Norwegian Heritage Museum and foundation you know we still are able to know more about the residents of Holvierford and their familial tradition of professionalism.
SPEAKER_03And it's cool to think about one thing that I was thinking a lot about is there are professions where it's maybe easier to apprentice into being capable at I mean any Yes I you know like there are I don't want to take anything away from blacksmiths but there I'm sure that there are you know the world's best blacksmith there are there are there are blacksmiths that are above and beyond any other blacksmith in the world but also it's something that you can get moderately good at and still be useful for at doing you know what I mean? But also if you have an artist right like a let's say a painter or a poet maybe I'm wrong but it seems like some people are just sort of meant to do that and and not meant to do that. And or maybe I guess maybe poet isn't a profession in the 12th century.
SPEAKER_02It's a it's a hobby right I mean it it yes like and that and that is something that I you know I did discover through some of the the reading that I did is that just because you had a profession doesn't mean that you were limited to that profession. You still people still had hobbies. They still had things that they enjoyed doing um like you didn't have to be a baker to want to like bake cookies. Like you could still you could still you know do that. Like it's similar now to where like I make food for my family you know several nights of the week but then also I will go to a restaurant where someone else makes me the food. And that person's doing that for their job but I'm just doing it because it's like oh well I I enjoy doing this and like I like to I like to hone this skill and and and test this skill but I'm not also opening a restaurant or anything. I don't have any interest in in that so it's yeah that's that's Holver Fjord.
SPEAKER_03As you say like the specialization sort of works itself out and and when when things aren't necessary they fall aside and and um that's just the way of economics no matter like no matter how how planned things are quoth the Raven nevermore right yep yep.
SPEAKER_02Although I do appreciate this kind of structure because it really does emphasize the fact that you know like the necessity of things as opposed to capitalism where necessity is defined by the people who have enough influence to put their thumb on the scale and make the thing that they're making money off of uh more of a necessity.
SPEAKER_03Well you know there are there are in the world there are seagulls and there are ravens. Yep and one of them is an NFL team and the other is not Pittsburgh Seagulls go Gulf That was a a an interesting episode uh I thought I was I was I didn't know where it was going to go and I thought there was gonna be this sort of like awful death for this system um because it just doesn't it seems like it just wouldn't work in our in the world that I in the universe that I I understand but no I can I can imagine I can imagine that sort of thing persisting in a small sort of isolated community.
SPEAKER_02Well and that's why it was so interesting to me is because I also thought that like oh well this can't end well like what's you know what what is this like horrible cult semi-utopia thing like you know is this is this gonna be like uh Haley's comet people all over again or whatever but no it's you know they they managed to make it work and like all of the logistical questions I had they kind of just sort of figured out along the way yeah seems like yeah yeah they also had very cooperative children it seems like they must have had very cooperative children I have some children that I don't know if would be that interested um although my my kids see me on the computer all day and are just super psyched at that idea. They don't know what I'm doing on the computer but yeah it's a glowing screen and they're like you get you get eight hours of screen time every day. That's right yeah it's not fun screen time but no they don't know that they don't get the difference. Yeah they don't know that being the person who has to edit the videos for Mr Beast which is what you do professionally not to dox you or anything is as fun as just watching the Mr Beast videos.
SPEAKER_03Because you have to cut out a lot of stuff that's an astounding amount of things that I take out of the Mr Beast videos.
SPEAKER_02Oh they're you know people are like oh it's like real life squid game like they have no idea how much like Squid game the actual Mr Beast filmings are and none of that makes it it's really surprising how how how how easy it is to miss the blood like I'll try to get rid of all the blood as a rule that you know you you try and get rid of all the splatter. I mean it's against the terms of service of pretty much every video platform.
SPEAKER_03Yeah but it's surprising how how pervasive that blood is it it shows up on clips that you just don't think you know you gotta watch the cuffs. I've I have to watch cuffs like I I really have to watch people's cuffs because there's always blood on cuffs.
SPEAKER_02Just a little bit yeah and the human body's got a lot of it and there are a lot of bodies at the end of those Mr Beast videos. An astounding amount of bodies yeah but that brings us to our next sponsor Mr Beastburger have you had your Mr Beast burger today eat five of them and tell me no this is brought to you by Mr Beastburger there's no discount code because you're gonna stuff your fat face full of it anyway I don't know why your employer wants to sponsor our podcast but well I mean that's how we make the big bucks I just wish he didn't pay us for these ad spots in like pre-bloodied envelopes that just had hush money scrawled on them because that doesn't feel good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah I mean he the thing is he just doesn't he writes hush money on everything he can't he can't really differentiate. I think if you really questioned him he would know what's hush money and what isn't but it's just much more efficient for him to just use it.
SPEAKER_02I mean I'm sure he just pre-writes hush money on all the his money envelopes and then I mean I remember when the FTC told him he could not call his cryptocurrency hush money. Like you call it hush coin. Anyway I'll let you get back to the uh the beast mines yeah I've got a lot of screen time to get through and I've got I've got to pick up Lauren Michael's dry cleaning because that's what I do. I'm his executive assistant bye everyone