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Prince Philip has died

royal.uk

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Re: Prince Philip has died

#471

Post by kitd »

noir_lord wrote: post #454
jmartrican wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brits storied history at sea must give them access to tons of tactics to pull from.

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. Things like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing gave the navy a marked advantage against it's peers.

Indeed.

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.

Re: Prince Philip has died

#472

Post by oblio »

akmarinov wrote: post #427
thefringthing wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting, what's the situation with Quebec?

Quebec would very much want to not be a part of Canada, so I imagine that's a big roadblock for any big changes in Canada :-)

Re: Prince Philip has died

#473

Post by Nursie »

Agr0tera wrote: post #417
Nursie wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Re: Prince Philip has died

#474

Post by TwBJHghcam »

jariel wrote: post #465
F1Qy94GJ55 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You can think anything you want. 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 sav…

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)

Re: Prince Philip has died

#475

Post by skinkestek »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #165
dalbasal wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this count as a technological regression?

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.

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 ;-)

Re: Prince Philip has died

#476

Post by cheaprentalyeti »

pjmorris wrote: post #262
kitd wrote: post #75

Story about him (from the Guardian, via Reddit): 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 the…

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 altere…

I feel I should add that one should be careful to not get him mixed up with Alexander Cochrane, who was also an admiral...

Re: Prince Philip has died

#477

Post by dang »

toiletfuneral wrote: post #344
dang wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Honest question Dang, why is it ‘flame war’ to denounce racist monarchs?

That sounds more like a loaded question than an honest one, but here you go: generic ideology plus repetitive indignation equals flamewar. Other things equal flamewar too, but that's a big one. 10x for shallow one-liners.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Re: Prince Philip has died

#478

Post by throw0101a »

mclightning wrote: post #349
throw0101a wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Democracy? you know, the one that's already in place. Royal families has no direct influence on the democracy of these countries. Correlation doesn't mean Causation.

Canada is already democratic: we regularly vote in municipal, provincial, and federal elections.

What exactly would be improved by removing the Crown?

Re: Prince Philip has died

#479

Post by stjohnswarts »

F1Qy94GJ55 wrote: post #385
ksec wrote: post #36

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. Rest In Peace [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56172496

> 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…

Not really, no more wrong than people who do think they will miss him. As with most things in life it's about context.
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