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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
In a 2017 report that went widely unnoticed, a female captain in the Australian Army recommended a novel solution to combat stress: sex. More specifically, she wondered whether making sexual options, potentially including prostitution, available to soldiers in combat would help troops deal with downrange stress. You can read the report yourself here.
My understanding is that the original source of the article was in the Australian Army's official blog, but was pulled after it became, for reasons that are clear if you read the piece, extremely controversial.
Here's the thing: the author is not wrong. Well, not entirely, anyway.
As the article states, science shows that "sex helps satisfy personal, social and physical needs, reduces stress and is inextricably linked to physical and mental wellbeing." The thing is, the military brass doesn't see it that way.
Capitalism, is there anything it can't solve?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday July 05 2018, @04:59PM (3 children)
So it was extremely important (for males, females were exempt) in this old nordic culture to be 'drengr' - to be a man's man, whose word is true, who never backs down from a challenge. In fact this was so important that refusing to meet a challenge was a criminal offense, of the most serious order.
So there were plenty of opportunities for a professional duelist. He might challenge men himself, kill them, and take what they owned, all within the law if done cleverly. Or he might accept a fee to represent a man who was the target of just such a play, as well.
So understanding that, I wouldn't even expect for there to be a single 'right answer' regarding their use of drugs or other issues like that. It would make perfect sense that some used henbane and some used mushrooms and some had tricks of entirely different natures, this was not a unified group like a single cult or temple might raise and control, it was a social/professional class that existed over a large area for several centuries at least.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday July 05 2018, @06:17PM (2 children)
Originally a Berserker was someone who got so heated up before battle that he tore his shirt off before the start. I have heard a theory that the originals were some mushroom cultists, and others have made it part of bear worship, but in both cases the evidence is unconvincing. Or perhaps *some* of them got high on mushrooms.
Later on the meaning seems to have changed a bit to mean just anyone who got so excited that he bit his shield and frothed at the mouth a bit. It's not like words have fixed meanings over time. (N.B.: It's probable that often people imitated going berserk to intimidate their foes...and that would really act to spread the meaning.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 05 2018, @08:34PM
"Bare Sark", cf. "Cutty Sark". The etymology is not in dispute.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday July 06 2018, @01:02AM
Bear shirts, not bare shirts.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?