I'm sure they have automated a lot of it, so maybe it has progressed in that less man hours are required per message, and on top of that, they are probably in color, with pictures, which is way more than you get with a telegram.
I feel like people would appreciate a handwritten physical memento over, say, a short SMS.
Most electronic messaging forms are either closed (do you have Telegram? How bout Signal? Or maybe Messenger? Snapchat? Etc.) or basically inundated with electronic spam. If I got an email claiming to be from the Queen of England I’d just think it’d be a more ballsy version of the Nigerian prince scam.
Actually these days you can send coloured images with Telegram, it is really really smooth although I don't think the Queen will want to depend on it ;-)
You also get one on your 60th wedding anniversary.
I organised one for my grandparents a couple of years back. They also received a card from the Prime Minister [of New Zealand], the Leader of the Opposition, their local MP, and a couple of other random politicians and dignitaries.
It's not something that I thought about at the time, but I'm quite happy that it's something you need to apply for. It would be a bit disconcerting if the Queen had access to the birth, death, and marriage records of everybody in New Zealand.
I don’t know about New Zealand, but nowadays in Australia recent births deaths and marriages records are only available to their subjects and close relatives. Two reasons (a) privacy (b) helps prevent identity theft, since birth certificates (and sometimes also marriage certificates) are often accepted as identity documents
For people in the states, you can get appropriate cards from the White House for important occasions.
I sent Bill Clinton an invitation to my high school graduation party, and got a letter back from the White House telling me to work hard in college.
But mailing a birth announcement to the White House is a much better idea. They send a card back to the child welcoming them to the world. You can file it away and then give it to your kid when they are an adult and tell them this is the first letter they ever got.
In Germany, the first letter a child gets is one that gets sent automatically, assigning them a tax number. A letter from the President is much nicer. However, German parents can apply for the President to be the honorary godfather of their seventh child.
The funniest thing with this tax letter is that on the envelope it says “Karriere mit Zukunft” meaning “careers with a future” like they completely seriously expect your newborn baby to start working for them 18+ years down the line.
She sent the card (it’s a card now) to her mother (also Queen Elisabeth) when the latter turned 100.
I believe my grandmother waited around for this, at the end. She had never been particularly interested in the monarchy, I’d thought, but when she got older and had trouble reading I noticed that among her large print gardening books were a couple on the monarchy.
“If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” (at a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting)
I'm playing the Devil's advocate here, but these seem like instances of dark British humour being delivered in the traditional deadpan fashion - the humour being in the absurdity of someone keeping a straight face while saying something obviously inane or offensive.
I can see that argument for some of them, but if anyone said the slitty eyed or spear throwing comments to me and then tried to pass it off as "it's just british humour mate" I'd laugh in their face.
Quite so, and you'd be right to. But Prince Philip also came out with some decent quotes - some arguably typical British humour and some others just his thoughts:
- I would like to go to Russia very much — although the bastards murdered half my family.
- Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, which I've practised for many years.
- You're just a silly little Whitehall [civil service] twit: you don't trust me and I don't trust you.
- I don't care what kind it is, just get me a beer.
- So you are the people tearing down the Brazilian rainforest and breeding cattle. [This was when he was a figurehead for the WWF.]
- Anyone who is concerned about his dignity would be well advised to keep away from horses.
Anyhow, it is a shame to lose an entertaining tradition. Also a shame to lose someone with such character from the royal family. Only Princess Anne has the same outspoken, blunt manner and a penchant for the odd swearword.
The full context of the "spears" comment in Australia:
"[Prince Philip and the Queen] were coming down the [cable car] and we were putting on a special performance," Warren Clements recalled.
"We had royal fever so we said 'Let's go out the back and throw some boomerangs and spears and hopefully we'll get a glimpse of them as they come down'.
"They waved and we were showing off. I think Prince Philip took that in and that's why he said it.
He lives 99 years. Most of it in the public’s eye and lots of it in an era where once common ideas are now considered abhorrent. Seems unsurprising to find these quotes and uninteresting to post them
He was a significant public figure. His appearance here is not an unanimous endorsement, nor an anti-endorsement, just an acknowledgement that he was a significant figure.
See this search for the many other figures whose deaths have made the front page here:
It will only really get interesting after the Queen kicks the bucket. For most non monarchists she isn't a bad sort to be in charge. The rest of them are a shower of shites.
An interesting perspective I've heard is that she should have been more political in a few extreme cases. She is the head of state and her actual job should be to bring left and right together in the very controversial, almost unsolvable issues, and get them sorted out.
She should really be like a couples therapist for political leaders.
She never did this. She always stayed out of politics.
Can you think of a single case where this is true?
King George VI publicly praised Chamberlain for appeasing Hitler and apparently preventing another world war. I'd be wary of making _any_ public statement of that sort as a royal with that kind of precedent.
In fairness, even many in the German military believed Chamberlain and Hitler had reached an agreement too. What happened at that time was exceptional to say the least -- I can't see many people holding current royals accountable to such a precedent.
There's a reason for this, I'm a bit vague on the details, but when Parliament took control of the country from Charles II, one of the agreements was that the monarch would keep out of political affairs.
Well, it was Charles I, it was done with an Axe, and then there was a complicated tooing and froing for a long while until about 1918 when universal suffrage finally came in.
Most people think "1918" as that was the first time some women were allowed to vote, and later in the year they were allowed to stand for parliament (and Nancy Astor did so in 1919)
Like most things, Suffrage was a scale - before 1835 most men didn't have a vote either, working men got it in 1867, 1918 all men over 21 and property holding women over 30 got the vote, in 1928 all women over 21 and in 1969 everyone over 18. In devloved areas like Scotland suffrage is even lower (16).
Unlike in the US I don't think it's ever regressed
> In devloved areas like Scotland suffrage is even lower (16)
Only for certain elections -- local and Scottish parliamentary. You still have to be 18 to vote in elections for Westminster; the same was true of European elections when they were still a thing in the UK.
It went on quite a bit longer than that. In 1834, William IV sacked a prime minister for purely political reasons. His successor, Victoria, was probably the UK's first constitutional monarch in the modern sense.
It's not just about the constitutional precedent - it's a strategy the monarchy follows for its own survival. Politics is by definition divisive; if the Queen publicly takes a side on the issues of the day she'll alienate half the country, which is a surefire way to hasten the demise of the monarchy. She's free to have her private political opinions, but it's very much against her interests to express them.
I argue that because she focused so hard on being seen positively that she hurt the monarchy in the long run. Her son has nowhere to go but down. She also forced the British Supreme Court to invent the idea that advice given to her can be unlawful, and did not stay out of politics as you said: she was laser-focused on making sure her privileges and money didn’t get touched by denying Queen’s consent. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...
She didn’t want to have to wear seatbelts on public roads passing through her property. That’s being involved in politics; it’s just the public didn’t know about it.
I imagine this is a reference to Jacob Rees-Mogg lying to the Queen [1] about the prorogation of parliament in order to prevent effective debate or scrutiny about Brexit proceedings.
Yeah. She dedicated her life to her own likability. A never-ending schedule of official state visits and wreath-layings. Venturing into politics would have pissed off a lot of her fanbase.
It would have also "forced the issue" of whether or not people want her to have and exercise the power she currently has "on paper". If she were to impose her will and use her power on some sort contentious issue, she may well end up forcing the country/government/people to take the power away from the monarchy entirely.
It should be noted that the 'staying out of politics' is a public phenomenon. In her weekly meeting with the Prime Minister, The Queen makes her political stance well known (that is the entire point of the meeting).
While the office may have had consecutive local minima, one would be hard pushed to suggest Major, Blair or even Brown - were "downhill" from Callaghan.
It feels like the better way to do it tbh. The PM gets the benefit of her experience without having the media use her words to beat him with if he choses a different direction.
“A very wealthy person” is a weird way to reduce her to nothing.
She is also the only person in the world who has the experience of a weekly conversation with the last 14 prime ministers of Britain. She is the embodiment of the state’s institutional memory.
She’s not just a very wealthy person, she’s our monarch. You can obviously argue the system could be different/better but it’s not, and there is no appetite here to change it. That being the case I think her keeping her political views between the PM and herself is the better way to do it.
The Queen isn't just the head of the armed forces - they swear an oath of loyalty directly to the Monarch, not to the people or the country as a whole - she's also one of the richest people in the world, running an organisation with centuries of experience in internal diplomacy, impression management, and PR.
So it's a complete myth that the monarchy is apolitical. The monarchy is the centre around which the (antiquated) British political system revolves.
The Queen is the disabled root user of the constitution. The government are the sudoers.
She doesn’t get to ‘vet’ laws in any meaningful way. She rubber-stamps them. The fact that the armed forces swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen is simply because she is head of state.
Nothing in your comment actually demonstrates politicality.
If you had read the article the parent comment linked you would know she does actually get some say in how some laws are drafted. She doesn’t, practically, have a veto once both houses of parliament have approved the law but she is sometimes consulted by the government on laws it is drafting to submit to parliament and she does make suggestions that are sometimes incorporated
The link OP posted is talking about a different process ("Queen's Consent") from the publicly known rubber stamping process ("royal assent").
Queen's Consent happens before parliament votes, and details on what actions occurred (other than the number that were screened) are not known. The lack of knowledge, combined with the pattern of laws she has screened provide the space for making the inference that the Queen may have actively lobbied or modified laws for some purpose. What the purpose is (actively politically, or merely "self-serving") is unknown.
The Queen isn't just the head of the armed forces - they swear an oath of loyalty directly to the Monarch...
Interestingly (to me, anyways) is the oath is made directly to Queen Elizabeth by name, not to the crown in general. And isn't made by officers in the Royal Navy, because the navy wasn't created by act of Parliament, but by royal prerogative, so their fealty is assumed.
Liz isn't the Crown. This principle was established long ago when one of her predecessors was tried, found guilty, and executed, for treason. It would obviously be impossible for the Crown to commit treason, but the monarch is just a person, and people do crimes.
Also far from no institution being "above" it the Parliament is sovereign and so it can, and has, dissolved the monarchy entirely if it wants to. The reason the UK has a monarchy today is that parliament decided it didn't like it better without one (puritans suck, basically they hate fun, if you're American you may have noticed this already)
I certainly never gave any such oath when I joined (navy), but I've got a feeling the new joiners these days do declare some kind of oath. Might have signed the official secrets act but I bet they've long since lost it; the paperwork was all over the place at that time.
Not that the oath is needed, obviously. If BoJo (or any other such government apparatchik) told me to do something I'd tell him to shove it; if HRH issued a lawful order, well, fair enough your Majesty, I'll see what I can do. Had lunch with her back in 2003 or thereabouts, and a free lunch is always welcome.
It is worth noting that when the Queen passes, parliament will be called back in to session, if it is not already, and each minister will retake their oath swearing allegiance to the new King.
You don't even need to go into secret meetings. In her public speeches at parliament she interferes and sets a direction for her government (it's hers, not ours). Like calling for more and continued austerity amid the crisis, I don't call that being apolitical (also the irony of calling for austerity from a golden throne shouldn't be lost oje anyone).
The only speech the Queen makes in Parliament is "The Queen's Speech" at teh State Opening of Parliament. In it she set's out the Government's Agenda for the next session of Parliament.
It's written by the Government; she reads it out. She has no part in its preparation.
The monarch can certainly make suggestions regarding laws but so can any of the 600+ members of parliament and indeed countless other people in power while Prime Ministers have strong personalities and minds of their own.
As to her riches, we might note that unlike some of the very richest people on the planet the Queen has no power and seemingly no inclination to use her wealth as a powerful tool to censor publicly expressed views. It's certainly arguable that in an ideal society, a monarchy is an anachronism but that's hardly the situation we're in. Presidential systems are not without their critics.
Seems to be an open question as to whether the 'centuries of experience in internal diplomacy, impression management, and PR' (of the monarchy) are working to their advantage. The word antiquated is perjorative but it can also refer to a protocol that prevails via adaptation. The Brits will see and decide for themselves if it does.
I think there was some sentiment as to migrating Canada away from officially being tied to the British crown, even though it's all ceremonial, but they were waiting on Elizabeth to pass on out of respect.
Support for abolition of the monarchy is about 53% in Canada, but because of the situation with Quebec, Canada's constitution is effectively impossible to amend, which makes the logistics of becoming a republic pretty daunting.
The biggest impact is that all TV and radio shows are cancelled for the forseeable.
Will be interesting how it's dealt with due to covid. Will be especially interesting in Northern Ireland, which is currently inflames because of the fallout from a funeral for a republican figure which had many people attending it in breach of lockdown rules, but with no police action (which, combined with Boris's Border, has led to a narrative of "the other side {republicans} are winning")
> The biggest impact is that all TV and radio shows are cancelled for the forseeable.
Indeed, 12-year old me found this the worst part of Diana dying: all the cartoons in the morning were pre-empted! I was looking forward to watching Pinky & The Brain :-(
I don't know. I'm opposed to obituary threads on principle but at least some of them lead to interesting discussions about the era and field the person lived and worked in.
There's a reason celebrity and mainstream stories are off topic unless they present evidence of a new and interesting phenomenon that sparks intellectual curiosity - discussions tend to wallow in maudlin sentimentality, political snark or pop culture nonsense otherwise. A person's death alone, while unfortunate, doesn't meet the quality bar.
He has a tenuous link to computing. He visited Edinburgh's department of computer science in the early sixties not that long after it opened (the BBC used a different department doorway to the entry in Buccleuch Place because the front door was too shabby) and he and the queen had email boxes from pre-internet British telecommunications before it was cool on prestel.
He served on British warships and almost certainly used analogue computers to do fire calculations for the big ships guns.
He's an unequivocally political figure for a variety of reasons. I don't see anything intellectually interesting in the fact that he's died.
At best we might discuss why he wasn't king despite being married to the monarch.
When the queen dies that will be another matter - there are constitutional issues around that and the death of a long-reigning monarch who spans the end of empire will have some historical weight.
Edit: ...and flagged before I finished posting. Good.
Edit2: ...and now apparently unflagged? I didn't know that was a thing on HN.
Apparently mostly to be a lightning rod for people to rant about the British monarchy and get flagged in the process. Threads like these have a certain car wreck quality in that it's hard to look away but you really shouldn't expect much of quality,
It was upvoted often enough and quickly enough that the algorithm put it on the front page. Prince Philip is a public figure of some prominence, so I'm guessing the people who run the site (dang and maybe others?) let it be unless the comments turn to shit.
I, for one, am glad that it has lasted this long. I've learned a bunch of new things and added a book to my reading list.
Though not everything on HN is tech related, you could argue Prince Philip was a bit of a tech icon as this article did: "Prince Philip, inadvertent father of the Computer Misuse Act, dies aged 99" https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/prince_philip_obituar...
As I can't be the only one curious, the South Pacific tribe that deified him plan to worship Charles now. To me, signifying that they are doing it for the publicity now.
They worshiped Philip because he visited and made a real impact on their life. To my knowledge, Charles hasn't done that, their only connection to him is through the journalists worshipping Philip has attracted. Logically, someone like Karl Pilkington should be the replacement.
I wasn't part of the curious, and I don't know where/when defiance comes into the story but... There's enough in this article to make me curious. It feels a little mean to assume "only for publicity" without hearing some of these people commenting on it themselves.
“One of the oarsmen taking them ashore was a chap from Tanna called Chief Jack,” former Buckingham Palace spokesman Dickie Arbiter recalled to The Post. “He thought Philip was a warrior from a long time ago who had come down from the mountains and gone off to England in search of a bride."
This part of the world has some very unique culture, particularly their takes on politics, religion and such. At first glance, it's easy to be derisive of (literal, original) cargo cults. A more nuanced view takes you to interesting questions about the unique political philosophies of people with a deep island and mariners' history.
If they were wearing suits and commenting on these same ideas in a philosophy journal, in some cases it might be brilliant outsider thinking. A lot of it relates to an assimilation of outside political cultures outwardly, but with a totally unexpected internal meta.
While Cardassians are far more popular than the Windsor Royals, they are fictional.
Which has advantages, admittedly -- far lower expenditures and a far lower rate of child-rapes among them -- a lot of the British royalists might object to a change of rulers on that basis.
Not at all in the case of Elizabeth II. She holds the throne because parliament gave it to her ancestor, George I, to avoid a Catholic inheriting the throne.
I'd suggest that centuries of tradition have value, not least for the older generations of Brits, but especially for the tourist dollars drawn to the pageantry. Yes, it's a bit Disney, but it has a little more class and visitors seem to love it.
France got rid of their monarchy some time ago. They still get plenty of tourism. I can give plenty of other examples where the royal family was let go and tourism continued to flourish. The important thing is that all of the palaces and castles would still exist and become open to the public as museums. If anything, tourism would improve if people could visit Buckingham Palace like they visit the Palace at Versailles.
That's a good point, and well made, but it is still the case that royal-themed souvenirs fly off the shelves and also that overseas visitors flock to any royal/state spectacle when in the UK; mostly, I reckon, for the sheer anachronistic oddity and weirdness.
But we probably have no need to get rid of our monarchy, the family seems to be doing that job for us. When that happens, we can see whether tourist revenues go up or down :-)
Maybe if you did a bit of basic research you would learn that the public _can_ visit Buckingham Palace and tour various rooms that were basically mini-museums containing parts of the royal collections. Last time I popped in was soon after watching Tim's Vermeer when I learned that the picture in question had been rotated into the collection on display.
It is absolutely amazing to see so many people who obviously have no skin in this particular game crawling out from under their rocks to share their strongly held beliefs about the royal family, as if the rest of us give a toss about your opinion...
In the same way a person in modern Afghanistan might hate the American government for being at a wedding where a drone strike happened; seems pretty straightforward to me :)
This is an opportunity to educate. When you make comments like this what you're actually doing is locking in someone's opinion by making them defend it against nothing.
You might want to educate yourself on Europe's monarchy history, the British monarchy - it's a quite interesting topic and definitely not some kind of... fad. Elizabeth II still holds the throne while American presidents come and go.
Today it's seen as almost quaint and cutesy. The history of it all is anything but. The monarchy originally would have gained power like most other cases in world history where someone raised an army and took it by force. That, while not my favourite thing, is legitimate. After parliament became a thing and the monarchy was no longer running the show, what legitimacy does it have? What's the need to keep it? Who would stop anyone getting rid of it? The monarchy themselves aren't in the position to raise an army and conquer the nation again.
What it is today vs. how it originated leave me feeling like there is a big disconnect in how it's viewed. Ask anyone "should we get rid of it?", plenty say no. Ask those same people "should we get rid of parliament then and go back to monastic rule" they will say no. Ok, so you _dont_ like what it used to represent but you like what it represents now? What the heck?
I find the idea of a royal family far more inspiring and wholesome than the celebrity culture which has overtaken the West. The vast majority of celebrities get far more air time, live in more obscene luxury, and are more condescending, than the entire royal family put together. One of my biggest worries about Meghan was that celebrity culture would begin seeping into the royal family - and unfortunately it looks like that is what is happening.
> I find the idea of a royal family far more inspiring and wholesome than the celebrity culture which has overtaken the West.
Some of the celebrities are at least self made. Rich assh0les get to live in perpetual luxury just because of birth seems unfortunate.
I respect the Kim K more than the queen of England (although I absolutely hate Kim K) because Kim K is self-made, and the queen is there because of birth.
Personally I think are (or used to be) a useful cohesive agent for the country. If the alternative is Trump and the Kardashians then the Royal family doesn't seem too bad.
That's a bit of a childish remark. The celebrity stuff exists in every culture and every country, so there's nothing particular to monarchy in this regard. The British monarchy, is, of course, a castrated monarchy in the sense that it has little power, but it still functions as a unifying force for the UK. Some argue that monarchies are generally more tolerant than republics. Monarchy can be argued to be a more natural or default form of government in principle than republicanism because the monarch (the king) is a kind of paternal role. The dynastic component adds continuity, responsibility (you don't want your heir to bear the burden of your bad policies, do you?), and hedges against both short-term thinking (like we see among elected officials) and the dangers of meritocratic ambition ("I EARNED my power!" vs. "I am saddled with this responsibility to serve."). Of course, in practice, republicanism can become more attractive because of royal corruption and abuse of power, but the notion that republicanism is immune to these just because it takes different forms is absurd.
Remarks like "useless social fiction from antiquity" come across as uninformed, provincial snobbery motivated by some kind of superficial progressive mythology. There are forms of government that are objectively bad, others that are poorly suited to time and place, but the notion that the best form of government is the democratic republic, everywhere and in all times and places, is silly.
My whole thing is we used to be _dominated_ by the monarchy without a choice about it. Now that we aren't, what's even the point in being _fascinated_ by it? They're at the top, but of what anymore?
Imagine being brit and having contributed 99 years of taxation so those monarchs enjoy a chill life, while there's a clear empire downfall and stalled economy... while all you can barely afford is fish 'n chips.
Yet you still have to continue working to fuel this royal family bullshit.
Imagine living a life where every thing you do is questioned if not actively managed. A life of privileged yes but a life not always your own.
Plus the guy served in an active combat role in WW2 so my hat is off to him. I have a Great Uncle nearing that age who served and I will never not give them a pass.
This day and age people will run away screaming about their rights before serving their fellows in any capacity let alone one that is dangerous and possibly life ending. People who will create any reason under the sun to denigrate another who usually has done far more in life than they will ever dream of.
The Royal Family do a lot more than live a chill life. If it was a social media star I would agree. A monarchy is soo much more than that, don’t let recent press/media to dominate your opinions.
I have always felt strongly against monarchy. Especially against the British royal family, more so as I am an Indian. They never apologized for any of the massacres (Jallianwala is just one example) or pogroms committed at their behest and in their name. I do believe they are a disgusting symbol of colonialism, racism, subjugation. It is very disturbing that a good part of the world and an entire nation validates them, bows to them officially.
But again, he was a fellow human being after all - I hope he finds peace if at all there's something after this and I hope he was at peace and content towards the end.
As a Brit I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph.
Re your second, you are a much more mature and compassionate person than I am about this. I am completely ambivalent about his death. He was a very old man who lived a spectacularly privileged life and had little to no worries. I care not a jot whether he found peace.
Not having any strong feelings about the birth, life or death of the royals is an extremely mild sentiment that is shared by millions in the UK and billions across the globe. If you find it shocking, offensive or vindictive then I don't think the internet is the place for you.
The original commenter is an Indian who would have more reason than most to despise the Royal family and, frankly, the UK in general. Yet they showed genuine compassion and goodwill towards Philip. This was surprising and I thought it interesting to share that as a Brit I have nearly no feelings at all (other than my general dislike of the monarchy). This is a forum, we interact and share our opinions through these comments and what I said was pretty uncontroversial.
If you are bothered by his passing then fine, I'm sorry for your loss. But maybe trying to pick fights on HN is not the most productive way to grieve.
I'm fairly sure many people of more actual worth die every day with no one here giving a shit. The monarchy is a relic that really should be dismantled.
- As an infant, was evacuated from Greece with his (and his family's) life in grave danger. Spent his childhood mostly estranged from his family
- As a young man, served on a naval ship as part of the campaign to defeat fascist Germany and Japan. At least once helped save his ship's crew from a German bombing attack. Probably faced many other threats to his own life and to his comrades.
- Spent the rest of his life as an ambassador for his family and country, and counsel to his wife whose job it is to ensure the country and Commonwealth continues to function with stability and prosperity, including through political/economic crises, national emergencies, local/global cultural shifts, etc.
- Attended 22,000 official events and delivered 5000 speeches. Was an early advocate for environmentalism and animal welfare. Conceived and headed a youth development organisation for most of his public life.
- Endured family tragedies, relentless media/public scrutiny and criticism, and constant campaign against his family's wealth and role in the political system.
You may not like him. Fine. I didn't care much for him, and I don't hold a great deal of pity for him for the difficulties he and his family have faced.
I'm not going to debate the pros and cons of a dead royal. It is indisputable that he led an incredibly privileged existence, try to think what the life of your average commoner also born in 1921 was like if you are not sure.
You brought it up and keep replying, so you've clearly got an axe to grind. Not a single person is denying he was privileged. Your implication is that a privileged life is a life of "little to no worries", which is frequently asserted by people who seek to attack the wealthy simply for being wealthy, but it is a deep misconception in most cases, and particularly so for a sovereign leader. I understand you feel it's important to express contempt for a rich person at the time of their passing, but that doesn't excuse falsehoods.
I mentioned it and got attacked, so of course I'm going to reply. Both you and "gadders" have gotten your knickers in a twist over absolutely nothing. I've already spent more time in this thread thinking or talking about Prince Philip than I have in the last 3 decades, I think that is quite enough for me - I'm out.
I think it’s interesting that you’d blame this family for the horrors of colonialism. They haven’t had a say in British policy for around 2 centuries. Although the monarch meets the Prime Minister every week, they cannot tell the PM what to do, unless it affects the royal family personally. The PM listens to what they have to say but charts their own course.
If you’re looking for someone to blame, Churchill deserves some. Many Prime Ministers before him as well.
But I don’t think Philip deserves any. You call them a symbol, that’s all they are. They’re someone to point at and say “yeah that’s our country”, so no single politician can claim that mantle. As an Indian you must be aware how easy it is for a politician to claim they’re the personification of the nation (“India is Indira and Indira is India”). That cannot happen in the UK because the PM is merely a temporary caretaker appointed by the monarch. The symbolism matters.
Source: The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot (1867)
Unfortunately people are very quick to assign "generational guilt" these days. It's as if we've gone backwards, and are no longer capable of being individuals. "Oh, you're white/black/related to x/decended from y, did you know your ancestors did *that*?"
Because people take generation credit all the time.
We "french/english/<insert any nationality>" did this and that. So if we are not trying to being hypocritical, it makes sense you share the associated guilt also. We haven't gone backwards, it's just we have become bit more consistent in our logic
Excuse me? Generational inheritance is the basis of the entire monarchy. It's how they justify their position and privileges. Invoke generational privileges when it suits them and cry about generational guilt when it does not??
But he's not just talking about the Royal Family. How far do I go back before I don't feel guilty anymore? Should the Italians feel guilty for the Roman Empire slaughtering native Britons?
For me there's little point making people feel shame for what country they happened to be born in - we do not get to choose. However it's important that we do not forget what caused these awful atrocities and make sure that we never let them happen again.
Personally I feel that we do not learn enough about these atrocities at school in the UK, and would be happy if we focused on them more but I wouldn't want people to feel too guilty about things that could not control.
It was Queen Victoria who gave patents to explore. They came and plundered our lands and created unrest first in the name of east india company and then the British Empire. We just dont know how the subcontinent would have evolved without their interference - because of their divide and conquer policy we have an extreme distrust between the muslims and the hindus that had resulted in one of the worst (and ridiculus) land partitions in 1947 and created a conflict that will go on for generations. They interfered where they had no business to be in and made a mess of everything. People argue that his hands are clean because all the bad stuff was done by his mother-in-law and the PMs. But he directly benifitted from the gains (as will his decendents) of the genoide and plunderings and won't even acknowledge. The monarch should pay the subcontinent back for the damages they have caused[0, 1].
As long as people from the global south suffer from Anglo European imperialism. Anglo Europeans should carry that generational guilt just as the global south has suffered for generations and still suffers to this day.
From 'bidirectional' above :
It should be noted that the 'staying out of politics' is
a public phenomenon. In her weekly meeting with the Prime
Minister, The Queen makes her political stance well known
(that is the entire point of the meeting).[1]
While you say:
They haven’t had a say in British policy for around 2 centuries.
Although the monarch meets the Prime Minister every week, they
cannot tell the PM what to do, unless it affects the royal
family personally. The PM listens to what they have to say but
charts their own course.
Well, it cannot be both - for all intents and purposes. Either the Queen has a sizeable influence on the general political direction of the country or she does not.
One would think her influence particularly would have gone unquestioned to a larger degree, by the PM or politicians & their constituencies in general, in that era - when the royal family enjoyed far greater popularity than it does now.
So the OP isn't too far off the mark to assume they deserve ample blame.
By no means am I defending colonialism, least of all the British Empire in India. I’m an Indian, FWIW.
I see two main obstacles to this apology.
1. Teaching kids history. Currently British kids learn all about Henry VIII’s wives ... and then it’s straight to the World Wars. It’s hard to tell a nation of 70 million people to reckon with their past when they know nothing about it.
2. Philip himself was quite old. He grew up at a time when the Empire was a great thing, something that helped resist the tides of Nazism. Britain could not have managed it without the colonies. And later, he became old. I’m willing to give older people the benefit of the doubt - they can’t change their minds easily.
But if his grandson can’t come to grips with it either when he becomes monarch, I won’t be making any excuses for him.
We did Celts (Bronze and Iron age), some on ancient Greece, Romans, Vikings, Tudors (briefly, we didn't do Henry VIIIs wives, more about Shakespear), Spanish Armada, colonialism, slave trade, and then loads on WW1 and WW2.
I do agree that more should be taught about the details of colonialism but the idea that British history started with Henry VIII and skipped to WW1 is nonsense.
It might be worth noting that your experience can differ from theirs without it being untrue.
I can say that I did Ancient Greece, Romans, Tudors, touched a little on the Spanish Armada before skipping straight to WW2.
Neither of the two schools I attended touched on Colonialism in any recognisable degree, and Slavery was more "We stopped slavery, good job england", when in reality it wasn't done from a place of morality, and instead was driven by mass slave revolts, a decline in plantations culminated by an era of overproduction by slavery, which was leading to economic decline.
I think there was at least some morality at play from the likes of the Quakers, Wilberforce etc. It seems unnecessarily reductionist to say only one or the other force was present, and probably historically inaccurate.
I should clarify my earlier statement, I didn't mean to say there wasn't some form of morality involved, as you pointed out it's likely to some degree there was, just that I don't personally believe it to be a major contributing factor. Just that it was what I was personally taught, that England suddenly realised they were being immoral and sought to right that.
I think it's part of the picture, but like you I wasn't educated enough in the colonial period of British history to have any great certainty.
When we were very young it was the tudors and earlier, then there was a little social history where we covered things like the building of canals and the invention of the spinning jenny, the industrial revolution, enclosure etc, then Cold War history IIRC. Big blank spot where colonial history might have been. You'd think it might be relevant...
Recent history in England is taught only really in Key Stage 3 and there is a lot to cover...
It is mandated that pupils learn about "ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745-1901" [1]. Some examples schools can choose are the transatlantic slave trade, the American civil war, Ireland and Home Rule and the development of the British Empire with a depth study (for example, of India).
For 20th century history, only learning about the Holocaust is actually mandated. But Indian independence and end of Empire can be chosen by schools and is quite a common choice.
Kids are learning about these things. Maybe not as much as they could be and likely with some bias, but it's not true that it jumps from Henry VIII's wives to world wars.
> a time when the Empire was a great thing, something that helped resist the tides of Nazism.
I feel like "The Empire was great otherwise we would all be living under Naziism" is a poor take.
It assumes that whatever features of the world existed then must have been necessary to accomplish whatever was accomplished.
Imagine the US was still a British colony, and Hitler was still defeated. It would stand to reason then, that it was because the US was still a British colony that Hitler was defeated, right?
In a made-up timeline when Britain had already voluntarily broken up the empire, we're in a very different world, once that perhaps wouldn't include Germany trying to expand its power and/or wouldn't have felt itself under threat from the surrounding pre-WWI European empires.
“India is Indira and Indira is India” is just a sign of the tendency towards personality cults that the polity suffer from. In fact, it was not Indira who coined the slogan, but rather a particularly oily sycophant, D. K. Barooah [1].
In fact, in some sense, there is an attempt to try to deify/lionize the PM as a royal. I don't think that it is a symptom of the failure of parliamentary democracy, rather it is a tendency among people.
>I think it’s interesting that you’d blame this family for the horrors of colonialism.
Heres the opening for Patrick Freyne in the Irish Times on the British Monarchy:
"Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown."
>You call them a symbol, that’s all they are.
Yet swastikas are illegal in Germany. Symbols have meaning and the British monarchy does represent imperialism and colonialism even if it makes British people feel uncomfortable.
I find such whataboutism reprehensible. It's common in my home country, where a lot of people in response to pointing out our history of repressions against Jews start pointing fingers at other countries with a vague "they were worse", or worse "we were provoked"; instead of admitting to the past and learning something from it. Pointing out someone's shortcomings shouldn't trigger a review of the shortcomings of others.
Well, I find such selective highlighting reprehensible. If we seriously care about Nazi sympathies we can make a list and go from the top and get some perspective for tackling this issue. But to bring it up after a person dies is, at minimum, in poor taste.
You might find the book Midnights Furies interesting. It’s about The Partition of India[1] and the royal family was indeed very closely involved. They saw India as a critical component of the British Empire and feared not for the welfare of the people but for the monarchy’s future.
I only noticed now coming back to this thread that crossroadsguy's comment was flagged and marked as [dead]. I'm really surprised, the comment was absolutely fine. FWIW I vouched for it so it should be visible again.
It wasn't that long ago he recovered from an infection [1]. And I remember reading he is only a few more months from 100 years old!. Spending his life serving the country.
It cuts both ways. The life of a British Royal is better than almost anyone else's. At the same time, they don't really have a lot of freedom in the usual sense - a lot of ceremonies, formal parties, events etc. You might have a better life as an retired, anonymous millionaire with some US$5M in the bank (which would also make you extremely privileged).
True. The royal family aren't just our rulers, they're our prisoners. Can you imagine being a high-ranking member of the British royal family? Your life isn't your own - you can't pursue the career of your choosing, you have an enormous amount of obligations and you have all the usual downsides of fame, and this is all by accident of birth, not something that you chose. The job might have its perks but I'm still glad to be a commoner.
It's the minor royals who have it best, I think. Zara Tindall could walk down most roads in Britain and not be recognised - she gets the riches and privileges, but only a tiny fraction of the downsides experienced by her grandmother.
"In the car ride over, however, the importance of the meeting sunk in as Harry asked Meghan, "Do you know how to curtsy?" She told Oprah: "I thought genuinely that that was what happens outside. I thought that was part of the fanfare. I didn't think that's what happens inside. I said, 'But it's your grandmother.' He goes, 'It's the queen.' That was really the first moment that the penny dropped.""[0]
Per her telling of the story, we may concluded that Harry really never had a grandmother like many other people do. It seems it's always been 'formal' in the royal family. That the ideas of duty and royalty have come before family. That's not a life that I would want to live or a family I would want to have. That said, their wealth and privilege may make up for it. But it's not perfect.
These Royals cant spent their wealth like billionaires either. So wealth certainly isn't a thing to be worth considering.
And I mean if that is all the stuff we could tell and see, imagine all the other things we dont. In a modern world, most people, even in the high middle class wouldn't want to trade what they have to what is considered to be privilege as Royal.
What would they spend it on? Fancy houses? Private transport around the world? Lavish vacations? They get all of those things for free already.
I suppose it wouldn't do for Prince Charles to buy a 200' yacht. But other than that, I'm not sure how much he, or any other royal, is suffering for not being able to spend their wealth like the rest of the 0.1%.
The royal family doesn't need to spend money to have political power--the queen and other members of the royal family already lobby in secret to pass or scuttle laws to their benefit.[0]
Perhaps they can't singlehandedly fund moonshot projects. But if that's the extent to which royals are hampered, then perhaps they have an alright deal after all, what with being born into a system where enjoy a lifestyle that would cost tens of millions to sustain for anyone else.
It's unbelievable that a woman would marry into a 1000 year old family institution an head of state without taking a moment to grasp what that meant. It's so shockingly naive I can hardly believe it.
A 'curtsy' for your grandmother, the Queen, is a obviously a bit formal but it's not remotely irreproachable. It's literally just a form of greeting.
Japanese culture has a zillion of elements of common formality - literally entire modes of language - that are an every day occurrence.
Um, not sure what you're trying to do here. People saying the same thing about two different situations does not in any way make the situations similar or equivalent, and the fact that you are even making the connection is kinda gross tbh.
Yeah, I'm pretty confused by the disconnect here. Harry and Megan was who I had in mind as a great example of how easy it is to leave. You just say "bye" and you get on Oprah, get exec positions at startups, get media deals... where is the downside?
I couldn't agree more. That's true of anyone who served in WW2 of course, from naval officer to an RMP like my grandfather, but that doesn't diminish his contribution.
In Ottawa in 1969, as premier Pierre Trudeau chipped away at Canada’s royal connections, Philip bluntly observed, “I think it’s a complete misconception to imagine that the Monarchy exists in the interests of the Monarch – it doesn’t. It exists in the interests of the people: in a sense – we don’t come here for our health, so to speak. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves … I think that the important thing about it is that if, at any stage, people feel that it has no further part to play, then for goodness sake let’s end the thing on amicable terms without having a row about it.” He had said the same thing of Australia in 1967. “If the monarchy is of value, retain it ... If not, get rid of it.”
Robert Lacey claims that Prince Philip’s immediate response to the outcome of the 1999 republic referendum was, “What’s the matter with these people? Can’t they see what’s good for them?”
If it’s not clear to non-Australians, in the 1999 referendum we voted to keep the monarchy (though probably more through the phrasing of the question in the opinion of some)
> Spending his life serving the country. Rest in Peace.
The man was almost 100 years old, almost 30 when India and many other countries got independence from British after a long multi-decade struggle, with many many innocent dead. Frankly I see him as a wealthy old man from a very influential family who should have done better. Am I wrong that this was my first though after seeing this comment? Am I supposed to feel sorry for the royal family and their lack of "freedom"?
Am sorry if this touched a nerve because not everyone sees the British royal family as perhaps you do, I suppose I cannot reward service and loyalty to a cause alone, specially when the cause was colonization and oppression of many many other people.
Personally I see them as a somewhat irrelevant but harmless relic of a bygone era, about which I am largely indifferent. Philip certainly had his flaws, but he was also a brave and resourceful man. The only way he directly touched my life is that both my daughters took part in the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, which they thoroughly enjoyed and had a very positive influence on their lives.
> somewhat irrelevant but harmless relic of a bygone era, about which I am largely indifferent.
Many old people, still alive, lived a good chunk of their lives in what was a British colony then and he was the prince then too. Neither was it that far back in history, nor was it harmless :)
You can be indifferent like many others and celebrate the British monarchy, but I suppose I cannot, like many others.
A lot of things your grandpa did in 1930s was probably deeply sexist. Are you going to also look at your granpa with vengeful attitude? Society evolves. Forgive the wrong doings of the past, and move forward. Look ahead.
Wow, multiple personal attacks in this thread, all for disagreeing, for saying "...I see him as a wealthy old man from a very influential family who should have done better", speaking about the colonial past in his lifetime".
Ugh! Some things never change.
I didn’t mean any personal animosity. Most men in 1930s were sexist and it was accepted in the society. Even, Switzerland allowed women to vote 1980’s.
It’s not for disagreeing or holding a different opinion. It’s for being rude. Whatever your opinion, sometimes it’s good manners to moderate how you express it.
If you think someone disagreeing with you is a personal attack then I don't know what to tell you. You tried to dunk on a recently dead guy, which is generally considered bad form, and got called out for it.
>colonization and oppression of many many other people.
There are probably valid reason why Indian hate the Brits. But not all period and all colonisation are bad and involves oppression. And I am sure there are some good involves that people excluded for their own interest. AFAIK Modern India is united to become one because of the Brits. The Turks also at one point ruled India.
I think you can feel sorry for them as people, while also being unhappy with their actions over the years and their position of power.
To me the reaction in the UK (for example all BBC radio stations are broadcasting the same crap news about him all day) has been way more over the top than I expected, but I can see the impact he has had on UK diplomacy over the years but it still seems highly out of proportion.
The man had a very difficult upbringing, risked his life fighting Nazis and then did his family duty for the rest of his life. He was witty and funny until the end.
Gandhi was a pedophile who slept with young boys and girls almost his entire life, and who refused 'foreign medicine' (antibiotics) on the basis of principle for his dying wife, but took 'foreign medicine' (quinine) to save his own later. At the same time, leading a major liberation movement. History is complicated.
One mention of a relevant but unpopular opinion and we find ourselves at whataboutism and denigrating someone totally different targeted loosely based on a guess of the op's nationality (but guess this won't be flagged / taken down)
The Forth Bridge is a very long bridge that is permanently being painted. "Like painting the Forth Bridge" is a job that (feels like it) will never end.
In the pre internet days, when communication went through various manual means like telephone exchanges, there were codewords known by various people to announce royal deaths without it leaking. The death of the Queen for example has to be announced to all commonwealth country leaders at the exact same time, which means coordination, which means following certain plans, but limiting the information to make sure it's not leaked.
Of course with the internet means they code words are widely known (they were also named on The Crown) - and indeed trending on twitter, which is amusing given how some documentation still says they are super secret. The information can't be easily kept underwraps now as the chance of someone scooping it on twitter increases with the number of people aware of it and the time taken, I suspect there's only a few minutes between the palace announcing it to bbc/sky/itn and the embargo time - certainly BBC didn't have enough time to get Huw Edwards in for example (he's in now)
Other bridges includ(ed)
Menai (Charles - Price of Wales, Menai Bridge is from Bangor to Anglesey)
Tay (Queen Mother, near balmoral which I think was her ancestral home)
London (Queen, London being the captial)
Forth being the bridge at Edinburgh, so makes sense for the Duke of Edinburh)
Not sure if William has one, maybe it would be the River Cam.
Funnily enough, I just watched the episode from the Crown yesterday when the Queen explains to Philip that they all have bridge code names, and what his is.
Since the code words are related to what they reference in some way, I find it difficult to believe that they were ever intended for a serious purpose. Maybe they are useful for clarity of communication in some way, but certainly not for secrecy (which would probably require randomly selecting names from a word list).
"Secret" is a relative term, up until about 10 years ago I suspect very few had heard of it, I'd be interested in anything online before 2016 referring to them (there was big media coverage in 2017)
The specific details however aren't public knowlege, with various secrecy levels, and there are various different plans depending on the situation (what happens if the queen was on a plane that crashed for example, or what if Charles died in an avalanche in Austria), and plans of course are constantly changing (what happens if there's a massive pandemic which means people can't congregate in their millions to pay respects as they did with Diana, what happens if the news is leaked on twitter before coordinated official announcement)
Tangential but that's also a key difference between US and UK codenames for military operations. uK names are picked from a list of deliberately neutral words ( SHADER and NEWCOMBE being two currently active ).
"Operation Forth Bridge" is the name for the BBC's plan to cover the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. One of the weirdest things about any British royal death is the pre-planned over-reaction of the BBC. For example, programs like tonight's final of a cooking contest are being cancelled.
When Diana died, all BBC news bulletins started being prefixed by "this is the BBC, from London" (from London is the bit they added, perhaps because they expected people from all over the Empire to be watching).
It is a unique codename for the plan to be enacted, in the event of a death of a senior royal. A long read but worth it -- illustrates the complexity and planning required.
I don't think he ever wasn't at peace. He was a rich old racist who did fuck all really, what did he have to not be at peace about. One less state scrounger as far as I'm concerned.
What is the commonwealth? Its not bad now that it exists, but if it never existed would it be much different? A shared history unites some countries regardless.
But I agree with you, the monarchy cannot win. They have a very privileged upbringing and life, far removed from the rest of us, and it is at our expense. They are no better or different to the rest of us, so why are they treated as if they are. Their ancestors were lucky enough to be the ones on the throne when we, as a people, decided to stop killing off monarchs when we wanted to replace them. And on that basis they have enjoyed decades of power, influence and wealth, and they continue to accrue it too.
Because Prince Charles is heir to the throne (and has been portrayed more negatively in the news media than any other living person), some in the HN community may be surprised to know that he wrote a book on philosophy.
I found the book to be astonishingly good. It takes a design approach to Platonism and western esotericism. It goes deep into "sacred geometry" but steers clear of woo or religion. He adopts a Pythagorean perennialism and advocates for an ecological "spirituality" that is integrated with science. It contains examples from his own urban design projects. I was reeeeally surprised to find this kind of thinking coming from the Prince of Wales.
What a wonderful comment. Thanks - I didn't realise that he'd written a book like that, and the fact that it incorporates Platonism and Western Esotericism is even more impressive. Thanks for the comment.
Well, she is dead. I would suggest that both Andrew and Megan (for very different reasons!) are treated worse in the media than Charles, and that’s just within the royal family. Does even one British newspaper like Theresa May?
If Charles abdicates, his children receive the baton. But Harry's, and William's succession is under question with both being known not to have that much enthusiasm with the royal business.
If they too decline, line goes to their children below the age of majority, and the icky question of regency appears.
The regency in question notionally gives quite a lot of power, as the crown itself. If regency goes to the executive branch, it will throw out the last check on the Downing st. for may many thing, including the use of UK's nuclear weapons.
Can the UK just get rid of the monarchy if it turns into a mess? It doesn't make much sense to me to continue to have a "royal family" if the whole family refuses to be the monarch.
> EDIT: Why is my comment collapsed? Genuine question, don't know how this works.
The monarchists were out in force, and downvoted your comment. I've upvoted it, but otherwise there's not much to do -- I think a lot of people who don't care for the monarchy probably avoiding the discussion.
Anyplace to read up on it? Obviously their ceremonies are full of masonic and other esoteric pagan ritual. THey are a pagan Germanic-druid hybrid after-all.
That might be pushing it a bit. Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent is the Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of England.
Freemasonry isn't pagan in any major sense. It's pretty solidly Abrahamic, and parts of it are explicitly Christian. The closest you'll get to paganism is a continuation of themes and symbolism which are shared in common between ancient cultures.
Sacred Geometry is an ancient Greek concept that has nothing to do with Freemasons. Pythagoras was the most famous person to push it. It's that thing where they thought the world was made out of the Platonic solids, tried to explain the planetary orbits in terms of polygons, et cetera. It remained huge through Greece and Italy until the 1400s. The Leonardo piece "Vitruvian Man," where the guy has his arms at a couple of angles, and all the describing shapes behind him? That's Sacred Geometry. People used to think those shapes were evidence of design by God.
This was extremely common throughout Europe, especially in Christian churches and cathedrals (much like Islamic) until the late 1400s, when an Italian named Alberti wrote a book that basically pushed religious architecture forward 100 years in ability to make safe large buildings.
That book pushed for a return to circles and the cross, and most of Europe followed. However, that was also 60 years before the Anglican split, and about how long it took things to move from one end of a continent to another back then, so when it was getting to England, England decided to say that the rest of Europe was losing the beat, and stuck to the more complex Greek styled visuals
Most of Europe removed the Sacred Geometry, but England (and Italy) kept theirs. England in particular sees this as a tie to historic legitimacy; one of the things that makes Their Church Different And Better (tm). "We didn't forget the old ways" kind of thing.
Im sorry but what do you think the ‘G’ stands for inside the Freemasons logo? Also: Flintsones? The Queen’s cousin is the most senior Freemason in the hierarchy.
It most commonly refers to God, or the great architect of the universe. It may be considered to refer to geometry but that’s not usually the default and not what I’ve seen discussed or referenced most commonly from masons
God or geometry, that is one of the great debates. The letter is present in French freemasonry as well. The letter D would be more appropriate (Dieu). Geometry however would still hold. Anyway without going into detail, geometry has important place in freemasonry. The question then is geometry of what exactly? But we are getting off topic.
Extremely famous people frequently "author" books, usually with ghostwriters. Charles' book is credit to him "with" two other people (Tony Juniper and Ian Skelly who, I suspect, did most of the heavy lifting.
Charles has for years been sympathetic to all sorts of woo, such as "alternative" medicine; his book was met with broad criticism for its cherry-picking of scientific findings to support his environmental agenda but ignoring evidence against alt medicine, etc.
I don't think there is such a thing as 'alternative medicine'. There is medicine, and there is not-medicine. Just like there is treatment and there is not-treatment.
Calling things 'alternative' puts them on the same level, which they are not.
Part of the issue is that the practice of medicine predate scientific medicine (which is known as just 'medicine' today). For example, many medicinal herbs used in traditional medicine are effective for a variety of ailments, and some have been proven scientifically. So how do we reconcile that with scientific medicine without stigmatising possibly effective remedies.
As others have said: We do the trials, and, if something from the pre-scientific era passes muster, we figure out the best way to make it as safe and efficacious as possible with the least variability in effect and fewest side effects.
I'm not saying that eating a plant is ineffective, but plants don't come with dosage information for the active ingredient printed on the stem, and knowing how much of the useful (and potentially deadly) substance you're ingesting is important. Vitally important, if you're taking something like digitalis, which comes from foxglove: Get a digitalis dosage far enough wrong and it kills you.
Yeah, but by stigmatising traditional medicine as 'not medicine', the damage has already been done. Lots of people would be turned off a remedy just because it's 'not medicine', even afterward it was proven scientifically. It is medicine, just not scientific medicine. Compare with the issue of getting people to trust in vaccines when the news headlines are all about very rare side effects.
Keep in mind that there are traditional treatments that we haven't yet isolated the cause of action or the understand the pharmacology due to it being the interaction of different compounds.
I'm not supporting traditional or alternative medicine, but I also don't think that the issue is so black and white, and treating it as such turns people away from the subject entirely.
The issue is with the devaluation of mudding of words and language. (which might not be the correct wording)
I don't think it has to be stigmatising, but I do think that calling things by their specific name helps with everyones mindset.
Some words like 'helpful' are fine, because it does wat it says it does. But calling disparate things by the same name leaves the door open for people to mentally align those things to 'be' the same thing, which they aren't. Distinction is important, even if the differentiation isn't black-and-white. Taking some aspirine vs. drinking a nice cup of green tea can both help with a slightly sore throat, but they are not the same thing. (at the same time, I'd argue that it's better to take that nice cup of tea, take a nap, eat healthy, get to bed on time etc instead of covering the symptom with aspirine)
Turning people away from a subject in itself isn't a bad thing; if someone is swayed that easily, they should probably not be entering a world of non-repeatable non-measurable non-transferable items and activities, especially if the people involved can't be held responsible for their actions. It also isn't a pharmacology thing on its own. While pharmaceuticals can help with certain issues, it's not the core of medicine and in certain cultures it's mostly just abused to cover up symptoms instead of used to mitigate or resolve root causes.
But it's a tricky comparison. In the end we're comparing something measurable with something based on feelings and traditions. Those are generally not that reconcilable.
“Lots of people would be turned off a remedy just because it's 'not medicine', even afterward it was proven scientifically.” Not sure when that has actually happened?
Willow bark to aspirin is a great example of an extremely old “traditional” treatment becoming medicine. Same with quinine for malaria, etc. Tons of real medicines originated by isolating compounds found in nature, even if the final pill form you see is purified or even synthetic. Most people are unaware or just fine with this fact. Sure there are probably many natural treatments out there that are effective (and many that aren’t, or are downright dangerous). We should do the work needed to study them scientifically, and turn the good ones into medicine. Not just promote alternative treatments indiscriminately.
> many medicinal herbs used in traditional medicine are effective for a variety of ailments, and some have been proven scientifically. So how do we reconcile that with scientific medicine without stigmatising possibly effective remedies.
If those treatments have been studied in a scientific manner, then the reconciliation, so to speak, has already happened. But, how do we define the effectiveness of treatment? In some cases, using a placebo has shown some effect, but that's because the hypothesis about the effectiveness of a proposed treatment didn't pan out.
To be fair, a placebo can be helpful in its own way. And a 'good' placebo might need to have various methods, tastes, shapes, sizes etc; on the other hand it would be more psychotherapy than what people think of when thinking 'medicine'.
Something that 'helps' in a measurable way with no drawbacks is a useful tool to have. It does of course not mend broken bones or suture cuts in the skin.
Is laughter a treatment? It depends. A treatment is something you use to treat. Not something that is effective. If you want to summarize evidence or present opinion, do so, but don't play with language.
We could expand the word to the context it was used in if that is what you desire: medical treatment. We're not talking about treatment in itself, since that would also cover unrelated issues like 'waste water treatment', which isn't exactly related to the conversational context here.
Again, depends what for. If someone told me laughter was genuinely therapeutic for clinical depression, I… ok, I would still be surprised, but I could be convinced.
If they told me it would cure Alzheimer’s, I’d make a mental note to ignore their opinions in future.
“Alternative medicine” is so often snake oil, that anything calling itself that is something I hold in the same regard as Star Trek Voyager’s plot devices. Indeed, one such “alternative medicine” is what my mother used religiously to stave off old age memory problems — she got Alzheimer’s about 16 years younger than her mother, who didn’t use them.
> If they told me it would cure Alzheimer’s, I’d make a mental note to ignore their opinions in future.
Quick thinking has its place, but wouldn't you care why the person believes that? The anecdata about your family history isn't any more credible, if that's all we have to go by.
> but wouldn't you care why the person believes that?
In the absence of any surprising circumstances, no. I grew up with all the tropes — Catholicism, New Age takes on Wicca, Hinduism, anamism; homeopathy, Bach flower remedies, dowsing, runestones, horoscopes — so I’ve got decent reason to believe I already know why they might believe this hypothetical I’ve literally just made up.
From what I understand most "Alternative Medicine" can be chalked up to the placebo effect combined with a self fulfilling prophecy of patient expectations.
You're right. Meghan appears to have been treated worse than PC.
My understanding is that there is an overall negative image of PC, but he does not constant coverage, so that helps his case I guess.
As an Anglican priest, I can confidently say that our expectation and hope runs rather the opposite direction, given the—ahem—somewhat questionable mental faculties of many who’ve served as Supreme Governour of the Church of England since the Act of Supremacy, lol.
> Because Prince Charles is heir to the throne (and has been portrayed more negatively in the news media than any other living person)
Unless your scope of attention is limited to the British Royal Family, I’m not sure how you come to approximately that conclusion. And even if it was, Prince Andrew easily beats him out.
And if we’re going by intensity of negative portrayal, and considering just the British media, the Duke and especially Duchess of Sussex is at least in close competition with him, too, and probabyl way ahead if we are just looking at current coverage.
Hargreaves was a yeoman aboard the destroyer HMS Wallace on which Philip, son of Prince Andrew of Greece, had been appointed first lieutenant - second-in-command - at the age of 21. In July 1943, engaged in the Allied landings in Sicily, the ship came under repeated bombardment at dead of night and its crew realised that they would probably lose their lives.
It was then Philip conjured up a plan to throw overboard a wooden raft with smoke floats that would create the illusion of debris ablaze on the water. As he hoped, the German plane was fooled into attacking the raft while the Wallace sailed to safety under cover of darkness.
Hargreaves recalled the terrifying events of that night on the website: 'It was obvious that we were the target for tonight and they would not stop until we had suffered a fatal hit. It was for all the world like being blindfolded and trying to evade an enemy whose only problem was getting his aim right. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that a direct hit was inevitable.
'There was no question but to accept that on the next run or the one after that we had little chance of survival. I had been through so much that the feeling of anger and frustration was as great as the fear I and everyone else felt.
'It was less than five minutes after the aircraft had departed and - if the previous space in time was approximately the same - we had about 20 minutes to come up with something. We couldn't steam far in that time, not even far enough to make the aircraft think we had moved.'
He continued: 'The first lieutenant [Philip] went into hurried conversation with the captain, and the next thing a wooden raft was being put together on deck. Within five minutes they launched a raft over the side - at each end was fastened a smoke float. When it hit the water the smoke floats were activated and billowing clouds of smoke interspersed with small bursts of flame gave a convincing imitation of flaming debris in the water.
'The captain ordered full ahead and we steamed away from the raft for a good five minutes and then he ordered the engines stopped. The tell-tale wake subsided and we lay there quietly in the soft darkness and cursed the stars, or at least I did. Quite some time went by until we heard aircraft engines approaching.
'The sound of the aircraft grew louder until I thought it was directly overhead and I screwed up my shoulders in anticipation of the bombs. The next thing was the scream of the bombs, but at some distance. The ruse had worked and the aircraft was bombing the raft. I suppose he was under the impression that he had hit us in his last attack and was now finishing the job.
'We lay there waiting for him to leave, which he did, and, in view of the solitary attacks so well spaced apart, we were convinced he would not return. It had been marvellously quick thinking, conveyed to a willing team and put into action as if rehearsed.'
The raft may have been purely quick thinking, and it may have been influenced by a knowledge of history. Thomas Cochrane was a celebrated Royal Navy captain during the Napoleonic wars.
Here's Cochrane from his autobiography [0]: "Before they had fairly renewed the chase night was rapidly setting in, and when quite dark, we lowered a ballasted cask overboard with a lantern, to induce them to believe that we had altered our course, though we held on in the same direction during the whole night. The trick was successful, for, as had been calculated, the next morning, to our great satisfaction, we saw nothing of them, and were all much relieved on finding our dollars and his Majesty’s ship once more in safety."
Patrick O'Brian modeled his Jack Aubrey character after Cochrane, in part, and the raft decoy is woven in to the novel 'Master and Commander.'
[0] Cochrane, Admiral Lord. The Autobiography of a Seaman
British Naval History is fascinating - in a lot of ways the reform of the navy into a modern (for it's day) naval force has interesting lessons about people management and harnessing technological developments as a force multiplier.
For the 18th and much of the 19th centuries, the Royal Navy was the organisation to join if you wanted to be at the bleeding edge of adventure and exploration. A bit like NASA today, but with a military mission.
From taxi-ing Darwin all over the planet in HMS Beagle to encouraging truly accurate marine chronometers (the Harrison Watch), steam propulsion (and the maximisation of power from volume) through to research in health - 19th century equivalent of NASA is a good way to think look at it.
Tell me more. I'm four volumes in to the Aubrey-Maturin series, and will read the remaining 16, but I'm curious about, say, the top two or three non-fiction books for the interested layman.
So many and over such a wide span to narrow it down to 2-3 definitively so I'll cover ground instead.
1) The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815[1] (actually book 2 but the first covers an earlier period this covers the period across the Act of Union - when England/Scotland became with Wales the United Kingdom and when the British navy went from "decent" to not just first but first by a hilarious margin - the only modern analogue that sorta fits is the US navy compared to everyone else post-WW2 up to well right now)
2) Dreadnought[2] which covers the late 19th early 20th (Birth of Queen Victoria to the start of WW1) - when the Dreadnought type-class battleship was considered the premier strategic weapon of it's day.
For the rest it's a vast field (that I've barely scratched - history is a hobby for me part of the perpetual "why is the world the way it is" fascination with everything) as always wikipedia is your friend :-
For more modern naval stuff (where modern equals ~a century ago) I can heartily recommend the https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw Drachinifel - he has a way of providing information dense content in an entertaining way - his video on the technological arms race in metallurgy for ships armour for example is superb.
'The Command of the Ocean, "when the British navy went from "decent" to not just first but first by a hilarious margin", sounds like exactly the kind of thing I am looking for.
Some famous quotes of Prince Philip. Make your own judgement while you downvote his comments.
“If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” (to British students in China, during the 1986 state visit)
“Do you still throw spears at each other?” (in Australia in 2002, talking to a successful Indigenous Australian entrepreneur)
“There’s a lot of your family in tonight.” (after looking at the name badge of the businessman Atul Patel at a palace reception for British Indians in 2009)
“It looks as if it was put in by an Indian.” (pointing at an old-fashioned fusebox in a factory near Edinburgh in 1999)
Prince Philip is to European aristocracy is what Donald Trump is to American liberal democracy: an embarrassment - the men who flaunt the ugly truth from under the thin veneer of their bourgeois etiquette.
Those are his words and he always stood by them. Whether one wishes to cheer it or ignore it or criticize it is up to them. But he never once renounced them. This is all in the public domain.
There you go. No wonder the radicals on Twitter think that no-one should be given a pass for being a product of their time and bringing dirt on anyone else they despise as the 'enemy'.
> He could be one of the reasons why we are all not speaking in German right now.
Yet there are some who are still suffering from VR sickness by playing Wolfenstein VR every day. I don't blame then for seeing Nazis everywhere and having to police everyone to check if they are a triple agent or a intergalactic space Nazi bot on Twitter.
My grandpa grew up during Fascism. He would say stuff like that. He also guided a Jewish couple to Switzerland through the Alps in early 1945 when he was a teenager. We're all products of our education, at least in part.
Taken from a flagged comment below:
“If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” (to British students in China, during the 1986 state visit)
Relevant with all the Asian hate going on recently.
Because HN is going yellow press ... I mean there are all the time debates about what belongs here and what not. Bottom up - if something reaches the front page it belongs here. Top down - this definitely does not belong here. It's simply irrelevant. You say because he did something with computers once - great - then we'll have obituaries about every body soon on here.
552 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 327 ms ] threadYou promised us instant messaging. All we got is colour postcards. This is the beginning of a dark age.
Most electronic messaging forms are either closed (do you have Telegram? How bout Signal? Or maybe Messenger? Snapchat? Etc.) or basically inundated with electronic spam. If I got an email claiming to be from the Queen of England I’d just think it’d be a more ballsy version of the Nigerian prince scam.
https://youtu.be/7Quyte7zN70?list=PLkX9Ba6AAK_2g3Y9Y8MdLbbcT...
I organised one for my grandparents a couple of years back. They also received a card from the Prime Minister [of New Zealand], the Leader of the Opposition, their local MP, and a couple of other random politicians and dignitaries.
It's not something that I thought about at the time, but I'm quite happy that it's something you need to apply for. It would be a bit disconcerting if the Queen had access to the birth, death, and marriage records of everybody in New Zealand.
I sent Bill Clinton an invitation to my high school graduation party, and got a letter back from the White House telling me to work hard in college.
But mailing a birth announcement to the White House is a much better idea. They send a card back to the child welcoming them to the world. You can file it away and then give it to your kid when they are an adult and tell them this is the first letter they ever got.
I believe my grandmother waited around for this, at the end. She had never been particularly interested in the monarchy, I’d thought, but when she got older and had trouble reading I noticed that among her large print gardening books were a couple on the monarchy.
she'd crafted and penned -
A letter to Philip
that she'd never send.
From reddit's resident poet, "poem_for_your_sprog": https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/mnerwn/prince_ph...
I thought The Sprog had emerged on HN
“If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” (to British students in China, during the 1986 state visit)
“I declare this thing open, whatever it is.” (on a visit to Canada in 1969)
“I hope he breaks his bloody neck.” (when a photographer covering a royal visit to India fell out of a tree)
“Do you still throw spears at each other?” (in Australia in 2002, talking to a successful Indigenous Australian entrepreneur)
“Where did you get that hat?” (supposedly to the Queen at her coronation)
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/04/prince-phili...
http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2010/05/quote-prince-philip.h...
I really should be offended by this, but... XD
It doesn't translate at all across cultures.
- I would like to go to Russia very much — although the bastards murdered half my family.
- Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, which I've practised for many years.
- You're just a silly little Whitehall [civil service] twit: you don't trust me and I don't trust you.
- I don't care what kind it is, just get me a beer.
- So you are the people tearing down the Brazilian rainforest and breeding cattle. [This was when he was a figurehead for the WWF.]
- Anyone who is concerned about his dignity would be well advised to keep away from horses.
Anyhow, it is a shame to lose an entertaining tradition. Also a shame to lose someone with such character from the royal family. Only Princess Anne has the same outspoken, blunt manner and a penchant for the odd swearword.
"[Prince Philip and the Queen] were coming down the [cable car] and we were putting on a special performance," Warren Clements recalled.
"We had royal fever so we said 'Let's go out the back and throw some boomerangs and spears and hopefully we'll get a glimpse of them as they come down'.
"They waved and we were showing off. I think Prince Philip took that in and that's why he said it.
"He's been taken out of context."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-03/prince-philip-was-not...
Is this information why you are here?
See this search for the many other figures whose deaths have made the front page here:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
She should really be like a couples therapist for political leaders.
She never did this. She always stayed out of politics.
King George VI publicly praised Chamberlain for appeasing Hitler and apparently preventing another world war. I'd be wary of making _any_ public statement of that sort as a royal with that kind of precedent.
It was 1928.
1928 equalised it to everyone over 21
Like most things, Suffrage was a scale - before 1835 most men didn't have a vote either, working men got it in 1867, 1918 all men over 21 and property holding women over 30 got the vote, in 1928 all women over 21 and in 1969 everyone over 18. In devloved areas like Scotland suffrage is even lower (16).
Unlike in the US I don't think it's ever regressed
Only for certain elections -- local and Scottish parliamentary. You still have to be 18 to vote in elections for Westminster; the same was true of European elections when they were still a thing in the UK.
She didn’t want to have to wear seatbelts on public roads passing through her property. That’s being involved in politics; it’s just the public didn’t know about it.
If this is your idea of a political issue then I strongly recommend the reading of newspapers and engagement with local institutions.
Also, I am of "the public" and I knew, due to reading Private Eye which had reported on all this repeatedly for the last 10 or more years.
Oh and maybe don't attack my character. My ideas can be vilified, but you don't know what I know or don't.
How did she do that?
[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49810261
While the office may have had consecutive local minima, one would be hard pushed to suggest Major, Blair or even Brown - were "downhill" from Callaghan.
Frankly I would rather have this lobbying out in the open where it can be held accountable.
She is also the only person in the world who has the experience of a weekly conversation with the last 14 prime ministers of Britain. She is the embodiment of the state’s institutional memory.
The monarch also vets laws while they're being drafted and can make suggestions for changes if they affect their interests.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...
The Queen isn't just the head of the armed forces - they swear an oath of loyalty directly to the Monarch, not to the people or the country as a whole - she's also one of the richest people in the world, running an organisation with centuries of experience in internal diplomacy, impression management, and PR.
So it's a complete myth that the monarchy is apolitical. The monarchy is the centre around which the (antiquated) British political system revolves.
She doesn’t get to ‘vet’ laws in any meaningful way. She rubber-stamps them. The fact that the armed forces swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen is simply because she is head of state.
Nothing in your comment actually demonstrates politicality.
Queen's Consent happens before parliament votes, and details on what actions occurred (other than the number that were screened) are not known. The lack of knowledge, combined with the pattern of laws she has screened provide the space for making the inference that the Queen may have actively lobbied or modified laws for some purpose. What the purpose is (actively politically, or merely "self-serving") is unknown.
Interestingly (to me, anyways) is the oath is made directly to Queen Elizabeth by name, not to the crown in general. And isn't made by officers in the Royal Navy, because the navy wasn't created by act of Parliament, but by royal prerogative, so their fealty is assumed.
Also far from no institution being "above" it the Parliament is sovereign and so it can, and has, dissolved the monarchy entirely if it wants to. The reason the UK has a monarchy today is that parliament decided it didn't like it better without one (puritans suck, basically they hate fun, if you're American you may have noticed this already)
So when a monarch dies does everyone in the armed forces take a new oath?
I ASSuMEd the oath would more like "I swear ... to the Crown ..."
But, if the Queen is in fact the Crown (as stated by a different response), then I suppose it's a distinction without a difference.
I don't think I misrepresented it in any way.
Not that the oath is needed, obviously. If BoJo (or any other such government apparatchik) told me to do something I'd tell him to shove it; if HRH issued a lawful order, well, fair enough your Majesty, I'll see what I can do. Had lunch with her back in 2003 or thereabouts, and a free lunch is always welcome.
It's written by the Government; she reads it out. She has no part in its preparation.
As to her riches, we might note that unlike some of the very richest people on the planet the Queen has no power and seemingly no inclination to use her wealth as a powerful tool to censor publicly expressed views. It's certainly arguable that in an ideal society, a monarchy is an anachronism but that's hardly the situation we're in. Presidential systems are not without their critics.
Seems to be an open question as to whether the 'centuries of experience in internal diplomacy, impression management, and PR' (of the monarchy) are working to their advantage. The word antiquated is perjorative but it can also refer to a protocol that prevails via adaptation. The Brits will see and decide for themselves if it does.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29200...
No, definitely not 'bring together'. It's 'stay above'.
Even 'mediating' is 'interference'.
Not sure what the support for that is in Canada.
Will be interesting how it's dealt with due to covid. Will be especially interesting in Northern Ireland, which is currently inflames because of the fallout from a funeral for a republican figure which had many people attending it in breach of lockdown rules, but with no police action (which, combined with Boris's Border, has led to a narrative of "the other side {republicans} are winning")
But yes, channel 4 does look like some trashy auction show
Indeed, 12-year old me found this the worst part of Diana dying: all the cartoons in the morning were pre-empted! I was looking forward to watching Pinky & The Brain :-(
There's a reason celebrity and mainstream stories are off topic unless they present evidence of a new and interesting phenomenon that sparks intellectual curiosity - discussions tend to wallow in maudlin sentimentality, political snark or pop culture nonsense otherwise. A person's death alone, while unfortunate, doesn't meet the quality bar.
He served on British warships and almost certainly used analogue computers to do fire calculations for the big ships guns.
He's an unequivocally political figure for a variety of reasons. I don't see anything intellectually interesting in the fact that he's died.
At best we might discuss why he wasn't king despite being married to the monarch.
When the queen dies that will be another matter - there are constitutional issues around that and the death of a long-reigning monarch who spans the end of empire will have some historical weight.
Edit: ...and flagged before I finished posting. Good.
Edit2: ...and now apparently unflagged? I didn't know that was a thing on HN.
This is the most robotic response to a public figure's death I have ever seen. Well done.
Maybe because in human networks monarchy is one of the major legacy operating systems?
I, for one, am glad that it has lasted this long. I've learned a bunch of new things and added a book to my reading list.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/27/islanders-who-call-prince-phil...
She sounds like a good candidate to me.
“One of the oarsmen taking them ashore was a chap from Tanna called Chief Jack,” former Buckingham Palace spokesman Dickie Arbiter recalled to The Post. “He thought Philip was a warrior from a long time ago who had come down from the mountains and gone off to England in search of a bride."
This part of the world has some very unique culture, particularly their takes on politics, religion and such. At first glance, it's easy to be derisive of (literal, original) cargo cults. A more nuanced view takes you to interesting questions about the unique political philosophies of people with a deep island and mariners' history.
If they were wearing suits and commenting on these same ideas in a philosophy journal, in some cases it might be brilliant outsider thinking. A lot of it relates to an assimilation of outside political cultures outwardly, but with a totally unexpected internal meta.
I think you misread "deified" (with the extra i, meaning "To worship or revere as a god"). I did too the first time
Rest in Peace
Please do not comment with the sole intent of causing a flamewar.
You guys are somehow special because what? Useless social fiction from antiquity.
Which has advantages, admittedly -- far lower expenditures and a far lower rate of child-rapes among them -- a lot of the British royalists might object to a change of rulers on that basis.
There are two different typos possible here and I am undecided which one is funnier ;)
They got nothing on Gul Dukat.
They have power because they inherited it from someone that conquered it. Just like people may inherit companies and fortunes.
Besides, to a modern democrat, what could be more legitimate that receiving something from parliament?
So yeah, getting rid of the monarchy seems to have worked.
But we probably have no need to get rid of our monarchy, the family seems to be doing that job for us. When that happens, we can see whether tourist revenues go up or down :-)
It is absolutely amazing to see so many people who obviously have no skin in this particular game crawling out from under their rocks to share their strongly held beliefs about the royal family, as if the rest of us give a toss about your opinion...
I wish we could do away with the democratic election and public government nonsense.
You’re getting it twisted because of this whole “the royal family are racist” baloney
Personally my grandmother's civilian ship was fired on by the british navy because ... well fun!
Today it's seen as almost quaint and cutesy. The history of it all is anything but. The monarchy originally would have gained power like most other cases in world history where someone raised an army and took it by force. That, while not my favourite thing, is legitimate. After parliament became a thing and the monarchy was no longer running the show, what legitimacy does it have? What's the need to keep it? Who would stop anyone getting rid of it? The monarchy themselves aren't in the position to raise an army and conquer the nation again.
What it is today vs. how it originated leave me feeling like there is a big disconnect in how it's viewed. Ask anyone "should we get rid of it?", plenty say no. Ask those same people "should we get rid of parliament then and go back to monastic rule" they will say no. Ok, so you _dont_ like what it used to represent but you like what it represents now? What the heck?
Some of the celebrities are at least self made. Rich assh0les get to live in perpetual luxury just because of birth seems unfortunate.
I respect the Kim K more than the queen of England (although I absolutely hate Kim K) because Kim K is self-made, and the queen is there because of birth.
Does that sentiment extend to Henry VIII?
Monarchy is not something to be celebrated.
Remarks like "useless social fiction from antiquity" come across as uninformed, provincial snobbery motivated by some kind of superficial progressive mythology. There are forms of government that are objectively bad, others that are poorly suited to time and place, but the notion that the best form of government is the democratic republic, everywhere and in all times and places, is silly.
as for celebrities and "royalty", humans are hard-wired to follow hierarchies and thus be fascinated by those at the top
My whole thing is we used to be _dominated_ by the monarchy without a choice about it. Now that we aren't, what's even the point in being _fascinated_ by it? They're at the top, but of what anymore?
Yet you still have to continue working to fuel this royal family bullshit.
Plus the guy served in an active combat role in WW2 so my hat is off to him. I have a Great Uncle nearing that age who served and I will never not give them a pass.
This day and age people will run away screaming about their rights before serving their fellows in any capacity let alone one that is dangerous and possibly life ending. People who will create any reason under the sun to denigrate another who usually has done far more in life than they will ever dream of.
Gotta say, this sounds like a better argument for abolition than against.
I doubt I could even get just the chips for that. Amazingly good value.
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/the-royal-accounts-this-is-why-th...
I have always felt strongly against monarchy. Especially against the British royal family, more so as I am an Indian. They never apologized for any of the massacres (Jallianwala is just one example) or pogroms committed at their behest and in their name. I do believe they are a disgusting symbol of colonialism, racism, subjugation. It is very disturbing that a good part of the world and an entire nation validates them, bows to them officially.
But again, he was a fellow human being after all - I hope he finds peace if at all there's something after this and I hope he was at peace and content towards the end.
Re your second, you are a much more mature and compassionate person than I am about this. I am completely ambivalent about his death. He was a very old man who lived a spectacularly privileged life and had little to no worries. I care not a jot whether he found peace.
Also, it's interesting that it's you that is casting personal aspersions...
Calm down, dear.
If you are bothered by his passing then fine, I'm sorry for your loss. But maybe trying to pick fights on HN is not the most productive way to grieve.
I'm fairly sure many people of more actual worth die every day with no one here giving a shit. The monarchy is a relic that really should be dismantled.
- As an infant, was evacuated from Greece with his (and his family's) life in grave danger. Spent his childhood mostly estranged from his family
- As a young man, served on a naval ship as part of the campaign to defeat fascist Germany and Japan. At least once helped save his ship's crew from a German bombing attack. Probably faced many other threats to his own life and to his comrades.
- Spent the rest of his life as an ambassador for his family and country, and counsel to his wife whose job it is to ensure the country and Commonwealth continues to function with stability and prosperity, including through political/economic crises, national emergencies, local/global cultural shifts, etc.
- Attended 22,000 official events and delivered 5000 speeches. Was an early advocate for environmentalism and animal welfare. Conceived and headed a youth development organisation for most of his public life.
- Endured family tragedies, relentless media/public scrutiny and criticism, and constant campaign against his family's wealth and role in the political system.
You may not like him. Fine. I didn't care much for him, and I don't hold a great deal of pity for him for the difficulties he and his family have faced.
But "little to no worries" is a giant leap.
If you’re looking for someone to blame, Churchill deserves some. Many Prime Ministers before him as well.
But I don’t think Philip deserves any. You call them a symbol, that’s all they are. They’re someone to point at and say “yeah that’s our country”, so no single politician can claim that mantle. As an Indian you must be aware how easy it is for a politician to claim they’re the personification of the nation (“India is Indira and Indira is India”). That cannot happen in the UK because the PM is merely a temporary caretaker appointed by the monarch. The symbolism matters.
Source: The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot (1867)
nothing new, see “religion”.
For me there's little point making people feel shame for what country they happened to be born in - we do not get to choose. However it's important that we do not forget what caused these awful atrocities and make sure that we never let them happen again.
Personally I feel that we do not learn enough about these atrocities at school in the UK, and would be happy if we focused on them more but I wouldn't want people to feel too guilty about things that could not control.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjTSgP6Lm0A
Here's a interesting tweet about how the global north is sucking dry the global south: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1377180178690940934
One would think her influence particularly would have gone unquestioned to a larger degree, by the PM or politicians & their constituencies in general, in that era - when the royal family enjoyed far greater popularity than it does now.
So the OP isn't too far off the mark to assume they deserve ample blame.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26749513
I see two main obstacles to this apology.
1. Teaching kids history. Currently British kids learn all about Henry VIII’s wives ... and then it’s straight to the World Wars. It’s hard to tell a nation of 70 million people to reckon with their past when they know nothing about it.
2. Philip himself was quite old. He grew up at a time when the Empire was a great thing, something that helped resist the tides of Nazism. Britain could not have managed it without the colonies. And later, he became old. I’m willing to give older people the benefit of the doubt - they can’t change their minds easily.
But if his grandson can’t come to grips with it either when he becomes monarch, I won’t be making any excuses for him.
I do agree that more should be taught about the details of colonialism but the idea that British history started with Henry VIII and skipped to WW1 is nonsense.
I can say that I did Ancient Greece, Romans, Tudors, touched a little on the Spanish Armada before skipping straight to WW2.
Neither of the two schools I attended touched on Colonialism in any recognisable degree, and Slavery was more "We stopped slavery, good job england", when in reality it wasn't done from a place of morality, and instead was driven by mass slave revolts, a decline in plantations culminated by an era of overproduction by slavery, which was leading to economic decline.
When we were very young it was the tudors and earlier, then there was a little social history where we covered things like the building of canals and the invention of the spinning jenny, the industrial revolution, enclosure etc, then Cold War history IIRC. Big blank spot where colonial history might have been. You'd think it might be relevant...
It is mandated that pupils learn about "ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745-1901" [1]. Some examples schools can choose are the transatlantic slave trade, the American civil war, Ireland and Home Rule and the development of the British Empire with a depth study (for example, of India).
For 20th century history, only learning about the Holocaust is actually mandated. But Indian independence and end of Empire can be chosen by schools and is quite a common choice.
Kids are learning about these things. Maybe not as much as they could be and likely with some bias, but it's not true that it jumps from Henry VIII's wives to world wars.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curricul...
I feel like "The Empire was great otherwise we would all be living under Naziism" is a poor take.
It assumes that whatever features of the world existed then must have been necessary to accomplish whatever was accomplished.
Imagine the US was still a British colony, and Hitler was still defeated. It would stand to reason then, that it was because the US was still a British colony that Hitler was defeated, right?
In a made-up timeline when Britain had already voluntarily broken up the empire, we're in a very different world, once that perhaps wouldn't include Germany trying to expand its power and/or wouldn't have felt itself under threat from the surrounding pre-WWI European empires.
In fact, in some sense, there is an attempt to try to deify/lionize the PM as a royal. I don't think that it is a symptom of the failure of parliamentary democracy, rather it is a tendency among people.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._K._Barooah
Heres the opening for Patrick Freyne in the Irish Times on the British Monarchy:
"Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown."
>You call them a symbol, that’s all they are.
Yet swastikas are illegal in Germany. Symbols have meaning and the British monarchy does represent imperialism and colonialism even if it makes British people feel uncomfortable.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/harry-and-me...
[1]: <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/royal-family-nazi-...>
[2]: <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/19/queens-nazi-...>
[3]: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4170083.stm>
If you read the complete thread, you'll see that it's not random. And I disagree that bringing up something negative after someone dies is bad taste.
Yeah, I don't think we'd get along.
Exactly this. The institution of the monarchy is why the family is to blame.
They aren't to blame simply for who they are descended from, but they are to blame for choosing to continue to participate in the monarchy.
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India
There is no such thing as a 'self made' millionaire or billionaire. They just got lucky and most of the time somebody helped them.
Rest In Peace
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56172496
More like spending his life having the country serve him.
It's the minor royals who have it best, I think. Zara Tindall could walk down most roads in Britain and not be recognised - she gets the riches and privileges, but only a tiny fraction of the downsides experienced by her grandmother.
"In the car ride over, however, the importance of the meeting sunk in as Harry asked Meghan, "Do you know how to curtsy?" She told Oprah: "I thought genuinely that that was what happens outside. I thought that was part of the fanfare. I didn't think that's what happens inside. I said, 'But it's your grandmother.' He goes, 'It's the queen.' That was really the first moment that the penny dropped.""[0]
Per her telling of the story, we may concluded that Harry really never had a grandmother like many other people do. It seems it's always been 'formal' in the royal family. That the ideas of duty and royalty have come before family. That's not a life that I would want to live or a family I would want to have. That said, their wealth and privilege may make up for it. But it's not perfect.
[0]https://www.popsugar.com/celebrity/meghan-markle-oprah-inter...
These Royals cant spent their wealth like billionaires either. So wealth certainly isn't a thing to be worth considering. And I mean if that is all the stuff we could tell and see, imagine all the other things we dont. In a modern world, most people, even in the high middle class wouldn't want to trade what they have to what is considered to be privilege as Royal.
What would they spend it on? Fancy houses? Private transport around the world? Lavish vacations? They get all of those things for free already.
I suppose it wouldn't do for Prince Charles to buy a 200' yacht. But other than that, I'm not sure how much he, or any other royal, is suffering for not being able to spend their wealth like the rest of the 0.1%.
Spending like billionaires means political power or privately funded moonshot projects.
Perhaps they can't singlehandedly fund moonshot projects. But if that's the extent to which royals are hampered, then perhaps they have an alright deal after all, what with being born into a system where enjoy a lifestyle that would cost tens of millions to sustain for anyone else.
0. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-que...
They also have (use of) a royal train.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Britannia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Royal_Train
A 'curtsy' for your grandmother, the Queen, is a obviously a bit formal but it's not remotely irreproachable. It's literally just a form of greeting.
Japanese culture has a zillion of elements of common formality - literally entire modes of language - that are an every day occurrence.
Golden handcuffs are not actual handcuffs.
Unfortunately, Meghan seems to have captured the imagination for some reason.
Not to imply equivalence in magnitude, but people say say the same about people trapped in abusive relationships.
You stay rich, wealthy and influential and parlay your newfound celebrity into millions of dollars' worth of streaming media and book deals?
Oh no wait, sorry, they're just wealthy now but no longer obscenely wealthy. The horror.
The truth is, we may never know the psychological pressures they've endured, or will.
That could be said about literally everyone ever. So instead we look at the things that can actually be quantified, where I see nothing but net.
Robert Lacey claims that Prince Philip’s immediate response to the outcome of the 1999 republic referendum was, “What’s the matter with these people? Can’t they see what’s good for them?”
If it’s not clear to non-Australians, in the 1999 referendum we voted to keep the monarchy (though probably more through the phrasing of the question in the opinion of some)
From https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/prince-philip-duke-of-ed...*
The man was almost 100 years old, almost 30 when India and many other countries got independence from British after a long multi-decade struggle, with many many innocent dead. Frankly I see him as a wealthy old man from a very influential family who should have done better. Am I wrong that this was my first though after seeing this comment? Am I supposed to feel sorry for the royal family and their lack of "freedom"?
Yes.
Thanks Phil.
Many old people, still alive, lived a good chunk of their lives in what was a British colony then and he was the prince then too. Neither was it that far back in history, nor was it harmless :) You can be indifferent like many others and celebrate the British monarchy, but I suppose I cannot, like many others.
The point is to let go of the decades old past.
There are probably valid reason why Indian hate the Brits. But not all period and all colonisation are bad and involves oppression. And I am sure there are some good involves that people excluded for their own interest. AFAIK Modern India is united to become one because of the Brits. The Turks also at one point ruled India.
To me the reaction in the UK (for example all BBC radio stations are broadcasting the same crap news about him all day) has been way more over the top than I expected, but I can see the impact he has had on UK diplomacy over the years but it still seems highly out of proportion.
The man had a very difficult upbringing, risked his life fighting Nazis and then did his family duty for the rest of his life. He was witty and funny until the end.
Gandhi was a pedophile who slept with young boys and girls almost his entire life, and who refused 'foreign medicine' (antibiotics) on the basis of principle for his dying wife, but took 'foreign medicine' (quinine) to save his own later. At the same time, leading a major liberation movement. History is complicated.
Philip had the title of Duke of Edinburgh and the Forth Bridge is a large bridge near Edinburgh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_London_Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge
Edinburgh sits on the south side of the Firth of Forth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firth_of_Forth
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/be+like+painting+the+Fo...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge#Maintenance
QE is - Operation London Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_London_Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hope_Not
Usually when there are preperations for a future event to hide the markers of what it is there are code names.
Operations for preparing the necessary for the deaths of heads of state are typically named bridges.
The Queens death is (or was) Operation London Bridge.
Of course with the internet means they code words are widely known (they were also named on The Crown) - and indeed trending on twitter, which is amusing given how some documentation still says they are super secret. The information can't be easily kept underwraps now as the chance of someone scooping it on twitter increases with the number of people aware of it and the time taken, I suspect there's only a few minutes between the palace announcing it to bbc/sky/itn and the embargo time - certainly BBC didn't have enough time to get Huw Edwards in for example (he's in now)
Other bridges includ(ed)
Menai (Charles - Price of Wales, Menai Bridge is from Bangor to Anglesey)
Tay (Queen Mother, near balmoral which I think was her ancestral home)
London (Queen, London being the captial)
Forth being the bridge at Edinburgh, so makes sense for the Duke of Edinburh)
Not sure if William has one, maybe it would be the River Cam.
The specific details however aren't public knowlege, with various secrecy levels, and there are various different plans depending on the situation (what happens if the queen was on a plane that crashed for example, or what if Charles died in an avalanche in Austria), and plans of course are constantly changing (what happens if there's a massive pandemic which means people can't congregate in their millions to pay respects as they did with Diana, what happens if the news is leaked on twitter before coordinated official announcement)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens...
Seems like the monarchy cannot win either way to rectify their errors with British colonialism.
So the commonwealth is also bad as well? or you prefer it to be abolished?
But I agree with you, the monarchy cannot win. They have a very privileged upbringing and life, far removed from the rest of us, and it is at our expense. They are no better or different to the rest of us, so why are they treated as if they are. Their ancestors were lucky enough to be the ones on the throne when we, as a people, decided to stop killing off monarchs when we wanted to replace them. And on that basis they have enjoyed decades of power, influence and wealth, and they continue to accrue it too.
https://www.amazon.com/Harmony-New-Way-Looking-World/dp/0061...
I found the book to be astonishingly good. It takes a design approach to Platonism and western esotericism. It goes deep into "sacred geometry" but steers clear of woo or religion. He adopts a Pythagorean perennialism and advocates for an ecological "spirituality" that is integrated with science. It contains examples from his own urban design projects. I was reeeeally surprised to find this kind of thinking coming from the Prince of Wales.
Bold statement.
Um, did you forget about his first wife?
I can sit and name persons more negatively treated for hours and not run out of names.
EDIT: Why is my comment collapsed? Genuine question, don't know how this works.
The UK should quickly tweak their royal succession laws, and give the crown to Edward, or Anne, while the queen is still alive.
If Charles abdicates, the line of succession dispute would be rather funny under the current succession laws.
If they too decline, line goes to their children below the age of majority, and the icky question of regency appears.
The regency in question notionally gives quite a lot of power, as the crown itself. If regency goes to the executive branch, it will throw out the last check on the Downing st. for may many thing, including the use of UK's nuclear weapons.
The monarchists were out in force, and downvoted your comment. I've upvoted it, but otherwise there's not much to do -- I think a lot of people who don't care for the monarchy probably avoiding the discussion.
Anyplace to read up on it? Obviously their ceremonies are full of masonic and other esoteric pagan ritual. THey are a pagan Germanic-druid hybrid after-all.
Freemasonry isn't pagan in any major sense. It's pretty solidly Abrahamic, and parts of it are explicitly Christian. The closest you'll get to paganism is a continuation of themes and symbolism which are shared in common between ancient cultures.
https://www.ugle.org.uk/about-us/whos-who/12-governance/155-...
Sacred Geometry is an ancient Greek concept that has nothing to do with Freemasons. Pythagoras was the most famous person to push it. It's that thing where they thought the world was made out of the Platonic solids, tried to explain the planetary orbits in terms of polygons, et cetera. It remained huge through Greece and Italy until the 1400s. The Leonardo piece "Vitruvian Man," where the guy has his arms at a couple of angles, and all the describing shapes behind him? That's Sacred Geometry. People used to think those shapes were evidence of design by God.
This was extremely common throughout Europe, especially in Christian churches and cathedrals (much like Islamic) until the late 1400s, when an Italian named Alberti wrote a book that basically pushed religious architecture forward 100 years in ability to make safe large buildings.
That book pushed for a return to circles and the cross, and most of Europe followed. However, that was also 60 years before the Anglican split, and about how long it took things to move from one end of a continent to another back then, so when it was getting to England, England decided to say that the rest of Europe was losing the beat, and stuck to the more complex Greek styled visuals
Most of Europe removed the Sacred Geometry, but England (and Italy) kept theirs. England in particular sees this as a tie to historic legitimacy; one of the things that makes Their Church Different And Better (tm). "We didn't forget the old ways" kind of thing.
Freemasonry? This isn't the Flintstones.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=891qV-7Y42w
[2] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFoke4cads8VNAi1pbi7IkM7p...
Charles has for years been sympathetic to all sorts of woo, such as "alternative" medicine; his book was met with broad criticism for its cherry-picking of scientific findings to support his environmental agenda but ignoring evidence against alt medicine, etc.
Calling things 'alternative' puts them on the same level, which they are not.
I'm not saying that eating a plant is ineffective, but plants don't come with dosage information for the active ingredient printed on the stem, and knowing how much of the useful (and potentially deadly) substance you're ingesting is important. Vitally important, if you're taking something like digitalis, which comes from foxglove: Get a digitalis dosage far enough wrong and it kills you.
Keep in mind that there are traditional treatments that we haven't yet isolated the cause of action or the understand the pharmacology due to it being the interaction of different compounds.
I'm not supporting traditional or alternative medicine, but I also don't think that the issue is so black and white, and treating it as such turns people away from the subject entirely.
I don't think it has to be stigmatising, but I do think that calling things by their specific name helps with everyones mindset.
Some words like 'helpful' are fine, because it does wat it says it does. But calling disparate things by the same name leaves the door open for people to mentally align those things to 'be' the same thing, which they aren't. Distinction is important, even if the differentiation isn't black-and-white. Taking some aspirine vs. drinking a nice cup of green tea can both help with a slightly sore throat, but they are not the same thing. (at the same time, I'd argue that it's better to take that nice cup of tea, take a nap, eat healthy, get to bed on time etc instead of covering the symptom with aspirine)
Turning people away from a subject in itself isn't a bad thing; if someone is swayed that easily, they should probably not be entering a world of non-repeatable non-measurable non-transferable items and activities, especially if the people involved can't be held responsible for their actions. It also isn't a pharmacology thing on its own. While pharmaceuticals can help with certain issues, it's not the core of medicine and in certain cultures it's mostly just abused to cover up symptoms instead of used to mitigate or resolve root causes.
But it's a tricky comparison. In the end we're comparing something measurable with something based on feelings and traditions. Those are generally not that reconcilable.
Willow bark to aspirin is a great example of an extremely old “traditional” treatment becoming medicine. Same with quinine for malaria, etc. Tons of real medicines originated by isolating compounds found in nature, even if the final pill form you see is purified or even synthetic. Most people are unaware or just fine with this fact. Sure there are probably many natural treatments out there that are effective (and many that aren’t, or are downright dangerous). We should do the work needed to study them scientifically, and turn the good ones into medicine. Not just promote alternative treatments indiscriminately.
If those treatments have been studied in a scientific manner, then the reconciliation, so to speak, has already happened. But, how do we define the effectiveness of treatment? In some cases, using a placebo has shown some effect, but that's because the hypothesis about the effectiveness of a proposed treatment didn't pan out.
Something that 'helps' in a measurable way with no drawbacks is a useful tool to have. It does of course not mend broken bones or suture cuts in the skin.
If they told me it would cure Alzheimer’s, I’d make a mental note to ignore their opinions in future.
“Alternative medicine” is so often snake oil, that anything calling itself that is something I hold in the same regard as Star Trek Voyager’s plot devices. Indeed, one such “alternative medicine” is what my mother used religiously to stave off old age memory problems — she got Alzheimer’s about 16 years younger than her mother, who didn’t use them.
Quick thinking has its place, but wouldn't you care why the person believes that? The anecdata about your family history isn't any more credible, if that's all we have to go by.
I think quick think should be addressed with slow think. By thinking speed I'm referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
In the absence of any surprising circumstances, no. I grew up with all the tropes — Catholicism, New Age takes on Wicca, Hinduism, anamism; homeopathy, Bach flower remedies, dowsing, runestones, horoscopes — so I’ve got decent reason to believe I already know why they might believe this hypothetical I’ve literally just made up.
The pithy joke about it is this:
"What do you call alternative medicine that works?"
"Medicine."
― Tim Minchin
Uhm, what?
He's not even the worst treated person in the British royal family, and Diana has been off of the television for decades
The Prince was largely irrelevant even on British television, let alone the rest of the world
If he was the worst treated person on TV, we'd have heard a whole lot more about his Epstein time
They really do love making victims out of their predatory world leaders, don't they?
Trump fans do this too
Unless your scope of attention is limited to the British Royal Family, I’m not sure how you come to approximately that conclusion. And even if it was, Prince Andrew easily beats him out.
And if we’re going by intensity of negative portrayal, and considering just the British media, the Duke and especially Duchess of Sussex is at least in close competition with him, too, and probabyl way ahead if we are just looking at current coverage.
Hargreaves was a yeoman aboard the destroyer HMS Wallace on which Philip, son of Prince Andrew of Greece, had been appointed first lieutenant - second-in-command - at the age of 21. In July 1943, engaged in the Allied landings in Sicily, the ship came under repeated bombardment at dead of night and its crew realised that they would probably lose their lives.
It was then Philip conjured up a plan to throw overboard a wooden raft with smoke floats that would create the illusion of debris ablaze on the water. As he hoped, the German plane was fooled into attacking the raft while the Wallace sailed to safety under cover of darkness.
Hargreaves recalled the terrifying events of that night on the website: 'It was obvious that we were the target for tonight and they would not stop until we had suffered a fatal hit. It was for all the world like being blindfolded and trying to evade an enemy whose only problem was getting his aim right. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that a direct hit was inevitable.
'There was no question but to accept that on the next run or the one after that we had little chance of survival. I had been through so much that the feeling of anger and frustration was as great as the fear I and everyone else felt.
'It was less than five minutes after the aircraft had departed and - if the previous space in time was approximately the same - we had about 20 minutes to come up with something. We couldn't steam far in that time, not even far enough to make the aircraft think we had moved.'
He continued: 'The first lieutenant [Philip] went into hurried conversation with the captain, and the next thing a wooden raft was being put together on deck. Within five minutes they launched a raft over the side - at each end was fastened a smoke float. When it hit the water the smoke floats were activated and billowing clouds of smoke interspersed with small bursts of flame gave a convincing imitation of flaming debris in the water.
'The captain ordered full ahead and we steamed away from the raft for a good five minutes and then he ordered the engines stopped. The tell-tale wake subsided and we lay there quietly in the soft darkness and cursed the stars, or at least I did. Quite some time went by until we heard aircraft engines approaching.
'The sound of the aircraft grew louder until I thought it was directly overhead and I screwed up my shoulders in anticipation of the bombs. The next thing was the scream of the bombs, but at some distance. The ruse had worked and the aircraft was bombing the raft. I suppose he was under the impression that he had hit us in his last attack and was now finishing the job.
'We lay there waiting for him to leave, which he did, and, in view of the solitary attacks so well spaced apart, we were convinced he would not return. It had been marvellously quick thinking, conveyed to a willing team and put into action as if rehearsed.'
Here's Cochrane from his autobiography [0]: "Before they had fairly renewed the chase night was rapidly setting in, and when quite dark, we lowered a ballasted cask overboard with a lantern, to induce them to believe that we had altered our course, though we held on in the same direction during the whole night. The trick was successful, for, as had been calculated, the next morning, to our great satisfaction, we saw nothing of them, and were all much relieved on finding our dollars and his Majesty’s ship once more in safety."
Patrick O'Brian modeled his Jack Aubrey character after Cochrane, in part, and the raft decoy is woven in to the novel 'Master and Commander.'
[0] Cochrane, Admiral Lord. The Autobiography of a Seaman
Things like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing gave the navy a marked advantage against it's peers.
For the 18th and much of the 19th centuries, the Royal Navy was the organisation to join if you wanted to be at the bleeding edge of adventure and exploration. A bit like NASA today, but with a military mission.
From taxi-ing Darwin all over the planet in HMS Beagle to encouraging truly accurate marine chronometers (the Harrison Watch), steam propulsion (and the maximisation of power from volume) through to research in health - 19th century equivalent of NASA is a good way to think look at it.
Tell me more. I'm four volumes in to the Aubrey-Maturin series, and will read the remaining 16, but I'm curious about, say, the top two or three non-fiction books for the interested layman.
1) The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815[1] (actually book 2 but the first covers an earlier period this covers the period across the Act of Union - when England/Scotland became with Wales the United Kingdom and when the British navy went from "decent" to not just first but first by a hilarious margin - the only modern analogue that sorta fits is the US navy compared to everyone else post-WW2 up to well right now)
2) Dreadnought[2] which covers the late 19th early 20th (Birth of Queen Victoria to the start of WW1) - when the Dreadnought type-class battleship was considered the premier strategic weapon of it's day.
For the rest it's a vast field (that I've barely scratched - history is a hobby for me part of the perpetual "why is the world the way it is" fascination with everything) as always wikipedia is your friend :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_18th%E2%80%931...
For more modern naval stuff (where modern equals ~a century ago) I can heartily recommend the https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw Drachinifel - he has a way of providing information dense content in an entertaining way - his video on the technological arms race in metallurgy for ships armour for example is superb.
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Ocean-History-Britain-1649-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_(book)
“If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” (to British students in China, during the 1986 state visit)
“Do you still throw spears at each other?” (in Australia in 2002, talking to a successful Indigenous Australian entrepreneur)
“There’s a lot of your family in tonight.” (after looking at the name badge of the businessman Atul Patel at a palace reception for British Indians in 2009)
“It looks as if it was put in by an Indian.” (pointing at an old-fashioned fusebox in a factory near Edinburgh in 1999)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/04/prince-phili...
—-
“You are a woman, aren’t you?” (in Kenya after accepting a small gift from a local woman).
“Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?” (to a wealthy islander in the Cayman Islands).
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2017/8/13/the-priceless-r...
Prince Philip is to European aristocracy is what Donald Trump is to American liberal democracy: an embarrassment - the men who flaunt the ugly truth from under the thin veneer of their bourgeois etiquette.
There is no point to what you are doing except statisfying your own narcism.
> He could be one of the reasons why we are all not speaking in German right now.
Yet there are some who are still suffering from VR sickness by playing Wolfenstein VR every day. I don't blame then for seeing Nazis everywhere and having to police everyone to check if they are a triple agent or a intergalactic space Nazi bot on Twitter.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/04/prince-phili...
Taken from a flagged comment below: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” (to British students in China, during the 1986 state visit)
Relevant with all the Asian hate going on recently.
The death of a royal may be of interest to nerds.