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IMO, the wheels fell off decades before I was born. The peak of the empire was around WW1, where the victory was immediately followed by Irish home rule, and C

by ben_w 1y ago

IMO, the wheels fell off decades before I was born. The peak of the empire was around WW1, where the victory was immediately followed by Irish home rule, and Churchill(!) putting the UK military into austerity to save money, which is how it came to be that evacuating from Dunkirk involved a lot of civilian ships, amongst other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule WW2 was a Pyrrhic victory. Not that Westminster collectively realised the nation's weakness until the Suez Crisis and the Wind of Change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_of_Change_(speech) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_of_Change_(speech) I'm not sure the people of the UK have yet fully internalised this decline, given the things said and written during the Brexit process. Perhaps social media really did make it all worse, but it's been authoritarian, chauvinistic (both internationally with imperialism and domestically via the aristocracy), and theocratic, ever since Harold Godwinson may or may not have taken an arrow to the eyeball.

Yeul 1y ago
The Netherlands is politically dysfunctional and the people are egotistical assholes but at least the economy is ticking. Without money society is just doomed.
- volemo 1y ago
  > The Netherlands is politically dysfunctional and the people are egotistical assholes Could you elaborate? From over here the Netherlands seems almost a paradise of modern society.
  - kokx 1y ago
    Our politics does have some good parts. The political system we have is reasonably good. We have many political parties due to the proportional representation system. A single party is also unlikely to get a majority in parliament on their own, so parties with different backgrounds will have to work together to form a functioning government. We do suffer from many political parties not willing to cause short term pain to improve long term outcomes. There are a few urgent issues going on in politics at the moment. Stuff where a decision needs to be made now and action should be taken. But the political parties do not want to make those decisions because they would inflict short term pain to some voters but would also improve the long term quality of life and economics of the Netherlands. The worst part is that those issues have been known for a long time, but decisions were postponed over and over again because politicians didn't want to make the decision. Making the issues worse and more urgent over time. At the same time populism is clearly on the rise in the Netherlands. A famous thing happening in a debate before the previous elections was a populist saying "But this woman cannot wait for the costs to be decreased, she needs it now." about decreasing a specific part of healthcare costs for citizens. Of course when the same populist became the biggest party during the elections, they never introduced anything to decrease that part of the healthcare costs.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >Of course when the same populist became the biggest party during the elections, they never introduced anything to decrease that part of the healthcare costs. So politicians LIED?! Color me shocked.
  - asyx 1y ago
    Paradise is maybe a bit much. I’m German and from close to the border. Not right across but close enough that I visit a lot and my city is overran by Dutch people every Christmas. On average as a tourist, the Netherlands is straight up just a better version of Germany. However a friend of mine recently moved. She’s from India, moved to Germany and then fell in love with a Durch man she ultimately married. In the process of moving she of course also switched into the Dutch health care system and that I think is legit worse than the German one but I don’t know how much that might be a symptom of a greater issue in the Netherlands. The difference is essentially that the Dutch health care system tries to be profitable which is nice but then results in procedures not being covered by health insurance that a German doctor would find essential. Specifically preventative care and child birth related stuff where very problematic for her. But otherwise I think the Netherlands takes a very practical approach to society. Is it annoying for cars to navigate Dutch cities? Yes but also it’s the only country where you can basically always take a bicycle anywhere and be safe. Is 100km/h on the highway annoying? Yes but it’s also the most relaxing drive in heavy traffic I can imagine. I think in a quite literal sense, i think the Dutch are less conservative than we are. The way things were done matters less which results in people seeing the benefits of change much more. Like everything car related. Youd start a riot in germany just doing parking like the Dutch do.
    - LaurensBER 1y ago
      While the Dutch healthcare system has challenges I would say it's working surprisingly well give the demographic trends and budgetary constraints. In general statistics do seem to back this up. There's a strong focus on streamlining and reducing "unnecessary" care (including a lot of preventative care that is accessible in other countries) but without doing that now the whole system will not be affordable in 20 - 30 years. Is that the optimal approach? I'm not sure, taking a patient wishes into account and doing (some) preventative care does probably have a positive ROI. Having said that I can see both sides of the coin but as a younger person I'm glad they're taken future demands into account.
mattmanser 1y ago
That happened a long time ago, the realization was the 70s. Thatcher reversed the feeling by selling off the nation to rentiers and foreigners in the 80s, we rode that money in the 90s, and the wheels came off in 2008.
- kurthr 1y ago
  Brexit may have been the emotional response, but like most it didn't help.
  - graublau 1y ago
    Is "emotional" supposed to trivialise the complaints? People would vote the same way now, most likely. The opinion hasn't shifted around much…
    - blipvert 1y ago
      Oh, it really has shifted. A lot. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52410-nine-years-after-the-eu-referendum-where-does-public-opinion-stand-on-brexit https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52410-nine-years-afte...
      - graublau 1y ago
        [flagged]
        blipvert 1y ago
        Yes, founded by a Brexit voting Tory I see your point.
    - p_j_w 1y ago
      >People would vote the same way now, most likely. The opinion hasn't shifted around much… I don't know where you're getting this information, but it's in stark contrast to all of the statistics I've ever seen on the matter. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-feel-about-brexit-five-years-on https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-... Even Nigel Farage has called it a disaster. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-leave-remain-bregret-b2343546.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-leave-...
hnfong 1y ago
> it's been authoritarian, chauvinistic (both internationally with imperialism and domestically via the aristocracy), and theocratic, ever since Harold Godwinson This. The UK was a band of feudal kingdoms that somehow managed to create an overseas empire. The empire is now gone, and the feudal kingdom is struggling to transform itself into a modern nation.
- jahewson 1y ago
  Everywhere was a band of feudal kingdoms. What’s so special about the U.K.?
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Everywhere else transformed, whereas the British elite (in the power sense, not the skill sense) still seem to be proud of their feudal heritage.
    - cryptonector 1y ago
      Everybody has their station in life in the UK. Something like that?
bigfudge 1y ago
The uk is a lot of things, but theocratic really isn’t one of them. If you’re referring to the House of Lords then you don’t really understand our government. The general population is as atheist as anywhere outside of Scandi countries.
- ben_w 1y ago
  > The general population is as atheist as anywhere outside of Scandi countries. I appreciate the proximity of the two sentences made it unclear, but the general population isn't what I'm critical of in this case. I briefly had an Iranian project manager, that nation is almost as high as you can get on the theocracy scale (IIRC it would be beaten by Afghanistan), but he absolutely was not and had tattoos of video game characters. Also, I should say that the use of "theocracy" in the modern sense is somewhat looser than the historical, and therefore ask if we're actually disagreeing? Certainly I don't mean in the sense of the deification of the Pharaohs. Re the rest: Given my focus is the rulers and not the people, I think the Lords Spiritual remain relevant (the attempt to replace the HoL with an elected one being promised by the HoC in 1911, still waiting). Likewise that the head of state is also the head of the national church and there being a religious requirement for being crowned monarch, and that there is no desire to reform away the monarchy as an institution, likewise the Establishment nature of the CoE, making this the only non-meta conversation I've ever had where I can legitimately use the longest (recognised, non-systematic) word in the English language by saying that the UK political system is one of antidisestablishmentarianism. I don't think I'd count the coins, even though this is about the ruling classes who are much more likely than anyone else to speak Latin and thus recognise the abbreviation printed on them. "FID DEF" has an ironic history, but so does the much easier to read "In God We Trust" and I'm not (yet) going to describe the USA in this way. Aside from all of that, there's also the requirement of schools that: All maintained schools must provide religious education and daily collective worship for all registered pupils and promote their spiritual, moral and cultural development. … Collective worship in county schools and equivalent grant-maintained schools must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, though not distinctive of any particular Christian denomination. - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worship-in-schools https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worshi...
nwatson 1y ago
As for WW2, Roosevelt worked hard to make sure Britain couldn't reconstitute its empire, and to work toward global self-determination.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  The more I study that time period, the more I realize how incredibly effed up every decision that those leaders made. They were desperate, I get it, but damn. And then most of the Nazi scum escaped and did their shadowy best to influence world history for many more decades!

by ben_w 1y ago

Yeul 1y ago

The Netherlands is politically dysfunctional and the people are egotistical assholes but at least the economy is ticking. Without money society is just doomed.

volemo 1y ago
> The Netherlands is politically dysfunctional and the people are egotistical assholes Could you elaborate? From over here the Netherlands seems almost a paradise of modern society.
- kokx 1y ago
  Our politics does have some good parts. The political system we have is reasonably good. We have many political parties due to the proportional representation system. A single party is also unlikely to get a majority in parliament on their own, so parties with different backgrounds will have to work together to form a functioning government. We do suffer from many political parties not willing to cause short term pain to improve long term outcomes. There are a few urgent issues going on in politics at the moment. Stuff where a decision needs to be made now and action should be taken. But the political parties do not want to make those decisions because they would inflict short term pain to some voters but would also improve the long term quality of life and economics of the Netherlands. The worst part is that those issues have been known for a long time, but decisions were postponed over and over again because politicians didn't want to make the decision. Making the issues worse and more urgent over time. At the same time populism is clearly on the rise in the Netherlands. A famous thing happening in a debate before the previous elections was a populist saying "But this woman cannot wait for the costs to be decreased, she needs it now." about decreasing a specific part of healthcare costs for citizens. Of course when the same populist became the biggest party during the elections, they never introduced anything to decrease that part of the healthcare costs.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >Of course when the same populist became the biggest party during the elections, they never introduced anything to decrease that part of the healthcare costs. So politicians LIED?! Color me shocked.
- asyx 1y ago
  Paradise is maybe a bit much. I’m German and from close to the border. Not right across but close enough that I visit a lot and my city is overran by Dutch people every Christmas. On average as a tourist, the Netherlands is straight up just a better version of Germany. However a friend of mine recently moved. She’s from India, moved to Germany and then fell in love with a Durch man she ultimately married. In the process of moving she of course also switched into the Dutch health care system and that I think is legit worse than the German one but I don’t know how much that might be a symptom of a greater issue in the Netherlands. The difference is essentially that the Dutch health care system tries to be profitable which is nice but then results in procedures not being covered by health insurance that a German doctor would find essential. Specifically preventative care and child birth related stuff where very problematic for her. But otherwise I think the Netherlands takes a very practical approach to society. Is it annoying for cars to navigate Dutch cities? Yes but also it’s the only country where you can basically always take a bicycle anywhere and be safe. Is 100km/h on the highway annoying? Yes but it’s also the most relaxing drive in heavy traffic I can imagine. I think in a quite literal sense, i think the Dutch are less conservative than we are. The way things were done matters less which results in people seeing the benefits of change much more. Like everything car related. Youd start a riot in germany just doing parking like the Dutch do.
  - LaurensBER 1y ago
    While the Dutch healthcare system has challenges I would say it's working surprisingly well give the demographic trends and budgetary constraints. In general statistics do seem to back this up. There's a strong focus on streamlining and reducing "unnecessary" care (including a lot of preventative care that is accessible in other countries) but without doing that now the whole system will not be affordable in 20 - 30 years. Is that the optimal approach? I'm not sure, taking a patient wishes into account and doing (some) preventative care does probably have a positive ROI. Having said that I can see both sides of the coin but as a younger person I'm glad they're taken future demands into account.

mattmanser 1y ago

That happened a long time ago, the realization was the 70s. Thatcher reversed the feeling by selling off the nation to rentiers and foreigners in the 80s, we rode that money in the 90s, and the wheels came off in 2008.

kurthr 1y ago
Brexit may have been the emotional response, but like most it didn't help.
- graublau 1y ago
  Is "emotional" supposed to trivialise the complaints? People would vote the same way now, most likely. The opinion hasn't shifted around much…
  - blipvert 1y ago
    Oh, it really has shifted. A lot. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52410-nine-years-after-the-eu-referendum-where-does-public-opinion-stand-on-brexit https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52410-nine-years-afte...
    - graublau 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - blipvert 1y ago
        Yes, founded by a Brexit voting Tory I see your point.
  - p_j_w 1y ago
    >People would vote the same way now, most likely. The opinion hasn't shifted around much… I don't know where you're getting this information, but it's in stark contrast to all of the statistics I've ever seen on the matter. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-feel-about-brexit-five-years-on https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-... Even Nigel Farage has called it a disaster. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-leave-remain-bregret-b2343546.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-leave-...

hnfong 1y ago

> it's been authoritarian, chauvinistic (both internationally with imperialism and domestically via the aristocracy), and theocratic, ever since Harold Godwinson This. The UK was a band of feudal kingdoms that somehow managed to create an overseas empire. The empire is now gone, and the feudal kingdom is struggling to transform itself into a modern nation.

jahewson 1y ago
Everywhere was a band of feudal kingdoms. What’s so special about the U.K.?
- ben_w 1y ago
  Everywhere else transformed, whereas the British elite (in the power sense, not the skill sense) still seem to be proud of their feudal heritage.
  - cryptonector 1y ago
    Everybody has their station in life in the UK. Something like that?

bigfudge 1y ago

The uk is a lot of things, but theocratic really isn’t one of them. If you’re referring to the House of Lords then you don’t really understand our government. The general population is as atheist as anywhere outside of Scandi countries.

ben_w 1y ago
> The general population is as atheist as anywhere outside of Scandi countries. I appreciate the proximity of the two sentences made it unclear, but the general population isn't what I'm critical of in this case. I briefly had an Iranian project manager, that nation is almost as high as you can get on the theocracy scale (IIRC it would be beaten by Afghanistan), but he absolutely was not and had tattoos of video game characters. Also, I should say that the use of "theocracy" in the modern sense is somewhat looser than the historical, and therefore ask if we're actually disagreeing? Certainly I don't mean in the sense of the deification of the Pharaohs. Re the rest: Given my focus is the rulers and not the people, I think the Lords Spiritual remain relevant (the attempt to replace the HoL with an elected one being promised by the HoC in 1911, still waiting). Likewise that the head of state is also the head of the national church and there being a religious requirement for being crowned monarch, and that there is no desire to reform away the monarchy as an institution, likewise the Establishment nature of the CoE, making this the only non-meta conversation I've ever had where I can legitimately use the longest (recognised, non-systematic) word in the English language by saying that the UK political system is one of antidisestablishmentarianism. I don't think I'd count the coins, even though this is about the ruling classes who are much more likely than anyone else to speak Latin and thus recognise the abbreviation printed on them. "FID DEF" has an ironic history, but so does the much easier to read "In God We Trust" and I'm not (yet) going to describe the USA in this way. Aside from all of that, there's also the requirement of schools that: All maintained schools must provide religious education and daily collective worship for all registered pupils and promote their spiritual, moral and cultural development. … Collective worship in county schools and equivalent grant-maintained schools must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, though not distinctive of any particular Christian denomination. - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worship-in-schools https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/collective-worshi...

nwatson 1y ago

As for WW2, Roosevelt worked hard to make sure Britain couldn't reconstitute its empire, and to work toward global self-determination.

lisbbb 1y ago
The more I study that time period, the more I realize how incredibly effed up every decision that those leaders made. They were desperate, I get it, but damn. And then most of the Nazi scum escaped and did their shadowy best to influence world history for many more decades!