5 ms·

99 years of tax subsidies, he surely had a good life without many regrets. It's beyond my comprehension why humans still keep these hereditary regimes, constitu

by 533474 6y ago

99 years of tax subsidies, he surely had a good life without many regrets. It's beyond my comprehension why humans still keep these hereditary regimes, constitutional or absolutist, alive

cjblomqvist 6y ago
PR. At least that's the message that's conveyed in Sweden. (and according to those messages, perhaps even studies(?), it apparently pays off in spades, at least in Sweden)
nabla9 6y ago
It served a purpose once. Constitutional monarchy was peaceful way to move from brutal inherited caste system into democracy. Imagine the same path today. Kim Dynasty in North Korea could turn into constitutional hood ornaments gradually. Or Chinese Communist party would become the House of Lords. 100 years from now people wold admire them just like they do royals now.
jacquesm 6y ago
Seconded. We have a bunch like that here in NL.
sweezyjeezy 6y ago
Because a lot of people get enjoyment from it (e.g. my mum), and removing it wouldn't save much money.
- sleavey 6y ago
  It perpetuates the idea that you cannot rise beyond the class you're born into; indeed also that class still exists and still commands respect.
  - parenthesis 6y ago
    Sting, "Dressed in his Sunday best and brandishing a union jack, … waved to [The Queen Mother] as she passed in her black Rolls Royce and she looked straight at him and waved back, he remembers. "That was when I got infected. That was when I thought: "I don't want this life: I want that one. Once I'd found a guitar to play I found a friend to help me get there," he told the Guardian. Quoting from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/10306480/Sting-The-Queen-Mother-inspired-me-to-become-a-rock-star.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/10306480/Stin...
  - api 6y ago
    As an American I've spoken with a number of other Americans who have worked in the UK and are shocked by how strong the notion of class still is. Example: I know an engineer and process optimization (six sigma) expert who worked with a major US aerospace manufacturer that had operations in the UK. He observed that in the UK the management and much of engineering was from elite UK schools like Oxford and Cambridge, and that these people basically refused to mix with the regular shop floor folks. He had to drag these upper crust UK people kicking and screaming into donning proper gear and walking out onto the shop floor to look at shit. In the US he hasn't encountered nearly as much implicit classism, though there still is a little. The US has its own elite university system but he says it's nowhere near as powerful as in the UK and its strength diminishes (in the US) as you move West. I can attest to the latter point. I have lived in Cincinnati, Boston, Asheville (NC), California, and now I'm back in Cincinnati. The further you get from "BosNyWash" (the Eastern Seaboard) the less often anyone ever asks where you went to school. In Boston it's the first question, and I got the sense there that if you didn't go to a top-ten school there was a ceiling for your career. In California I was never asked about where I went to school in eight years of working and living there. I've only rarely been asked in Cincinnati and NC and it's mostly about "where are you from?" than class distinction. Edit: this is in-re a peer of the parent post but it wouldn't let me post it so here it is... thought it was interesting enough to copy/paste here. A friend who went to Harvard in the USA once told me that the #1 thing he got from Harvard was "permission" to excel. "At Harvard they tell you you're the best, so you try to be the best." That stuck with me. Search for research on social self-limitation. There have been some interesting experiments, like putting A students in a class and telling the teacher they're C students and vice versa. Hint: the students tend to conform to expectations. This is part of why I am so skeptical of people who try to put too much weight on IQ and draw vast conclusions from it. IQ is a mushy psychometric number with a lot of variance within the same person, not a hard physical measurement like mass or distance. It's also why I am open to ideas like "internalization of oppression" and the idea that eliminating discriminatory rhetoric from society might help people who have been historically told they're inferior. When someone is told they're inferior, maybe they believe it and act accordingly? Lastly I have this weird speculation that this may be a reason that psychopathic personality types often rise to great heights (if they don't end up in jail). A side effect of their antisocial nature may be that they do not self-limit. No idea how you'd test that, but I wonder about it. Same goes for some high-functioning autistic types.
  - shard 6y ago
    Even without a monarchy, society can self-organize into self-perpetuating classes. See "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System" by Paul Fussell.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
Because not everyone thinks that Americanism or forced-Americanism is the absolute best form of government. Comparing the history of France to England should make it obvious that a monarchy often checks out of control populism.
pwillia7 6y ago
Because we need myths, stories and institutions to keep alive and have everyone agree on the 'legends' we've made up in the world. https://erenow.net/common/sapiensbriefhistory/8.php https://erenow.net/common/sapiensbriefhistory/8.php
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads into predictable flamewar. It's tedious and not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- toiletfuneral 6y ago
  Honest question Dang, why is it ‘flame war’ to denounce racist monarchs?
  - dang 6y ago
    That sounds more like a loaded question than an honest one, but here you go: generic ideology plus repetitive indignation equals flamewar. Other things equal flamewar too, but that's a big one. 10x for shallow one-liners. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
zokier 6y ago
I suspect big reason is that untangling the mess that is the personal/private dynasty of Windsors, the Crown, and the State is far too much more trouble than keeping the status quo. We are kinda past the times when we could have just heads roll, and lands and castles seized.
throw0101a 6y ago
> It's beyond my comprehension why humans still keep these hereditary regimes, constitutional or absolutist, alive 7 of the Top 10 democracies are constitutional monarchies: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country As a Canadian, I have no particular issue about getting rid of the monarchy, but anyone pushing for that will have to demonstrate that the new system will keep us in the Top 5 (or at least 10).
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  At least in Canada, it will cause a constitutional crisis as all provinces would need to agree.
- mclightning 6y ago
  Democracy? you know, the one that's already in place. Royal families has no direct influence on the democracy of these countries. Correlation doesn't mean Causation.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    Canada is already democratic: we regularly vote in municipal, provincial, and federal elections. What exactly would be improved by removing the Crown?
    - mclightning 6y ago
      Your mind seems to be stuck on a tautology. Those things you list are a part of democracy, not a result of retaining a royal family. Stephen Fry once uttered that very line about democratic countries/monarch countries...as a parody/irony of sort. Then a lot of people take it as a rational argumentative statement, and repeat it everywhere. It is only an irony of the world we live in. It is in no way related to the actual workings of the democracy.
yardstick 6y ago
They are just figureheads these days. No role in politics aside from ceremonial. They draw in crowds of tourists to the UK, and they aren’t that expensive to maintain. Their £67m yearly grant[1] works out to about £1/year per person in the UK. That’s pretty cheap for a fantastic PR service. Yes there is probably added costs on top like police/security but overall/net they don’t feel like a massive burden on the finances. Maybe £5-10/pp in the UK? (Just me guessing!) 1. https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british-taxpayer https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british...
- nprateem 6y ago
  That and the (alleged) billions they apparently don't want you to know about > No role in politics aside from ceremonial. Except when it comes to defending their interests. Remember that the 'spider memos' now can't be revealed under FOI requests, for one example? (The Guardian have been covering Queen's Consent recently which should shatter any illusions that they aren't involved in politics)
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  The French Republic is the number 1 tourist destination in the world. The UK is number 10 with less than half as many visitors. The only other monarchies in the top 10 are Spain and Thailand.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings
  - yardstick 6y ago
    So what you are saying is without the monarchy more or less people would visit the UK? London hosts more visitors than Paris[1], although France overall hosts more visitors than the UK. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_international_visitors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_internatio...
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      I'm saying the implication the royals are important to tourism should be quantified and supported. The city statistics include business travel. And I don't know what point you're trying to make with them.
msla 6y ago
In the words of the eminent philosopher Johnny Rotten, "'cause tourists are money"; there's nothing quite like a royal family to provide high-class galas and tabloid fodder.
cryptica 6y ago
What is the difference between being born lucky versus getting lucky later in life? Name one millionaire who didn't get lucky. The only way to earn that kind of money is luck... They all received special treatment. Unless you're advocating for the abolition of capitalism as a whole... But then you should focus your criticisms on the rich in general.
PicassoCTs 6y ago
Cause we are tribal creatures, and having a powerless pro-forma chieftain, prevents other totalitarian chief-tains to go for a easy power grab.

by 533474 6y ago

99 years of tax subsidies, he surely had a good life without many regrets. It's beyond my comprehension why humans still keep these hereditary regimes, constitutional or absolutist, alive

cjblomqvist 6y ago

PR. At least that's the message that's conveyed in Sweden. (and according to those messages, perhaps even studies(?), it apparently pays off in spades, at least in Sweden)

nabla9 6y ago

It served a purpose once. Constitutional monarchy was peaceful way to move from brutal inherited caste system into democracy. Imagine the same path today. Kim Dynasty in North Korea could turn into constitutional hood ornaments gradually. Or Chinese Communist party would become the House of Lords. 100 years from now people wold admire them just like they do royals now.

jacquesm 6y ago

Seconded. We have a bunch like that here in NL.

sweezyjeezy 6y ago

Because a lot of people get enjoyment from it (e.g. my mum), and removing it wouldn't save much money.

sleavey 6y ago
It perpetuates the idea that you cannot rise beyond the class you're born into; indeed also that class still exists and still commands respect.
- parenthesis 6y ago
  Sting, "Dressed in his Sunday best and brandishing a union jack, … waved to [The Queen Mother] as she passed in her black Rolls Royce and she looked straight at him and waved back, he remembers. "That was when I got infected. That was when I thought: "I don't want this life: I want that one. Once I'd found a guitar to play I found a friend to help me get there," he told the Guardian. Quoting from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/10306480/Sting-The-Queen-Mother-inspired-me-to-become-a-rock-star.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/10306480/Stin...
- api 6y ago
  As an American I've spoken with a number of other Americans who have worked in the UK and are shocked by how strong the notion of class still is. Example: I know an engineer and process optimization (six sigma) expert who worked with a major US aerospace manufacturer that had operations in the UK. He observed that in the UK the management and much of engineering was from elite UK schools like Oxford and Cambridge, and that these people basically refused to mix with the regular shop floor folks. He had to drag these upper crust UK people kicking and screaming into donning proper gear and walking out onto the shop floor to look at shit. In the US he hasn't encountered nearly as much implicit classism, though there still is a little. The US has its own elite university system but he says it's nowhere near as powerful as in the UK and its strength diminishes (in the US) as you move West. I can attest to the latter point. I have lived in Cincinnati, Boston, Asheville (NC), California, and now I'm back in Cincinnati. The further you get from "BosNyWash" (the Eastern Seaboard) the less often anyone ever asks where you went to school. In Boston it's the first question, and I got the sense there that if you didn't go to a top-ten school there was a ceiling for your career. In California I was never asked about where I went to school in eight years of working and living there. I've only rarely been asked in Cincinnati and NC and it's mostly about "where are you from?" than class distinction. Edit: this is in-re a peer of the parent post but it wouldn't let me post it so here it is... thought it was interesting enough to copy/paste here. A friend who went to Harvard in the USA once told me that the #1 thing he got from Harvard was "permission" to excel. "At Harvard they tell you you're the best, so you try to be the best." That stuck with me. Search for research on social self-limitation. There have been some interesting experiments, like putting A students in a class and telling the teacher they're C students and vice versa. Hint: the students tend to conform to expectations. This is part of why I am so skeptical of people who try to put too much weight on IQ and draw vast conclusions from it. IQ is a mushy psychometric number with a lot of variance within the same person, not a hard physical measurement like mass or distance. It's also why I am open to ideas like "internalization of oppression" and the idea that eliminating discriminatory rhetoric from society might help people who have been historically told they're inferior. When someone is told they're inferior, maybe they believe it and act accordingly? Lastly I have this weird speculation that this may be a reason that psychopathic personality types often rise to great heights (if they don't end up in jail). A side effect of their antisocial nature may be that they do not self-limit. No idea how you'd test that, but I wonder about it. Same goes for some high-functioning autistic types.
- shard 6y ago
  Even without a monarchy, society can self-organize into self-perpetuating classes. See "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System" by Paul Fussell.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

Because not everyone thinks that Americanism or forced-Americanism is the absolute best form of government. Comparing the history of France to England should make it obvious that a monarchy often checks out of control populism.

pwillia7 6y ago

Because we need myths, stories and institutions to keep alive and have everyone agree on the 'legends' we've made up in the world. https://erenow.net/common/sapiensbriefhistory/8.php https://erenow.net/common/sapiensbriefhistory/8.php

dang 6y ago

Please don't take HN threads into predictable flamewar. It's tedious and not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

toiletfuneral 6y ago
Honest question Dang, why is it ‘flame war’ to denounce racist monarchs?
- dang 6y ago
  That sounds more like a loaded question than an honest one, but here you go: generic ideology plus repetitive indignation equals flamewar. Other things equal flamewar too, but that's a big one. 10x for shallow one-liners. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

zokier 6y ago

I suspect big reason is that untangling the mess that is the personal/private dynasty of Windsors, the Crown, and the State is far too much more trouble than keeping the status quo. We are kinda past the times when we could have just heads roll, and lands and castles seized.

throw0101a 6y ago

> It's beyond my comprehension why humans still keep these hereditary regimes, constitutional or absolutist, alive 7 of the Top 10 democracies are constitutional monarchies: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country As a Canadian, I have no particular issue about getting rid of the monarchy, but anyone pushing for that will have to demonstrate that the new system will keep us in the Top 5 (or at least 10).

MattGaiser 6y ago
At least in Canada, it will cause a constitutional crisis as all provinces would need to agree.
mclightning 6y ago
Democracy? you know, the one that's already in place. Royal families has no direct influence on the democracy of these countries. Correlation doesn't mean Causation.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Canada is already democratic: we regularly vote in municipal, provincial, and federal elections. What exactly would be improved by removing the Crown?
  - mclightning 6y ago
    Your mind seems to be stuck on a tautology. Those things you list are a part of democracy, not a result of retaining a royal family. Stephen Fry once uttered that very line about democratic countries/monarch countries...as a parody/irony of sort. Then a lot of people take it as a rational argumentative statement, and repeat it everywhere. It is only an irony of the world we live in. It is in no way related to the actual workings of the democracy.

yardstick 6y ago

They are just figureheads these days. No role in politics aside from ceremonial. They draw in crowds of tourists to the UK, and they aren’t that expensive to maintain. Their £67m yearly grant[1] works out to about £1/year per person in the UK. That’s pretty cheap for a fantastic PR service. Yes there is probably added costs on top like police/security but overall/net they don’t feel like a massive burden on the finances. Maybe £5-10/pp in the UK? (Just me guessing!) 1. https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british-taxpayer https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british...

nprateem 6y ago
That and the (alleged) billions they apparently don't want you to know about > No role in politics aside from ceremonial. Except when it comes to defending their interests. Remember that the 'spider memos' now can't be revealed under FOI requests, for one example? (The Guardian have been covering Queen's Consent recently which should shatter any illusions that they aren't involved in politics)
pseudalopex 6y ago
The French Republic is the number 1 tourist destination in the world. The UK is number 10 with less than half as many visitors. The only other monarchies in the top 10 are Spain and Thailand.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings
- yardstick 6y ago
  So what you are saying is without the monarchy more or less people would visit the UK? London hosts more visitors than Paris[1], although France overall hosts more visitors than the UK. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_international_visitors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_internatio...
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    I'm saying the implication the royals are important to tourism should be quantified and supported. The city statistics include business travel. And I don't know what point you're trying to make with them.

msla 6y ago

In the words of the eminent philosopher Johnny Rotten, "'cause tourists are money"; there's nothing quite like a royal family to provide high-class galas and tabloid fodder.

cryptica 6y ago

What is the difference between being born lucky versus getting lucky later in life? Name one millionaire who didn't get lucky. The only way to earn that kind of money is luck... They all received special treatment. Unless you're advocating for the abolition of capitalism as a whole... But then you should focus your criticisms on the rich in general.

PicassoCTs 6y ago

Cause we are tribal creatures, and having a powerless pro-forma chieftain, prevents other totalitarian chief-tains to go for a easy power grab.