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Wikipedia wasted no time updating King Charles' page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles,_King_of_the_United_Ki...
It’s technically easier for a muslim to become king/queen than for a Catholic.
Catholics are the only ones who are banned by law to become English royals.
To everyone who feels sad by these news, my condolences. I respect your pain. However, I have to confess that to whenever I hear that someone aged 90+ (80+, even) died, I don't really feel sad. Actually, I feel an urge to praise this person's achievements, as I'm aware we are all mortals, and death is unavoidable. I prefer to rejoice in how much this person has witnessed throughout her life, how she had enough health…
I have been a republican for most of my life and don't like to have her name in my passport. Nevertheless the first time we brought our young son to the UK we had a picture of him in front of Buckingham Palace (and I have the same picture of myself at that same location).
Some view the monarchy as anachronistic. Of course there's merit to that argument but the monarchy as an institution really doesn't cost that much and has worked in the British political system as really a check on abuse of government power. The Queen's consent in forming government is routine but it can be withheld. Australia had an example of this where the Governor General (the Queen's representative in the Austra…
Having an unelected, unaccountable individual who leeches off the tax system: this is anachronistic but fair, it's about balance of powers, its an important part of our cultural heritage, it doesn't even cost that much why do you care.
Having strong founding principles and rights that are cautiously amended: this is tenuous, this goes too far, free speech too extremist, why bad man own gun.
This story is on topic because it's a major historical event and history has always been on topic here. If it doesn't produce an intellectually curious response in you, you're welcome to find something else that does—there are plenty of other things to read—but in that case please refrain from posting.
Positive-empty comments aren't substantive either, but as pg pointed out way back when HN was getting started (https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html), those are benign. The comments we need to avoid are the malignant ones.
Edit: by positive-empty I just meant comments like these:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32770030
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769786
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769037
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32769019
I'm not telling you guys to be royalists! I'm just asking you not to post crap comments, which this thread was filled with when I first saw it. We don't care what you're for or against, we just care about people using HN as intended.
Edit 2: I think the problem is that this comment has outlived its usefulness at the top of the thread because the bottom of the barrel comments have mostly been moderated away, whether by user flags or by us. I'm going to unpin this and mark it offtopic now. Please don't post any more bottom-of-barrel comments!—and if you see some, please flag them.
It's weird, I've never considered myself a "royalist" but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don't quite understand why I feel so very sad. I guess I have grown up and lived my whole life (as a Brit) seeing and hearing the Queen, singing "God save the Queen" etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all…