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When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

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Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#271

Post by lyu07282 »

graemep wrote: post #177
throawaywpg wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some Indians benefitted, but the vast majority suffered.

Th vast majority suffered under various Indian empires too. The lower castes suffered millennia of oppression (and still do) - imagine millennia of Jim Crow or apartheid. Some of them benefited hugely from British rule as a result, probably including my mother's ancestors.

The caste system itself is wildly considered to be exacerbated and promoted by British colonial rule in post colonial studies, not unlike the US empire promoting sectarianism in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

The caste divisions did exist before British rule but it wasn't as systematic and unified across India as after.

Boy how do we even talk about neocolonialism today if there are still people with full on colonialist sympathies holy shit

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#272

Post by retsibsi »

falcor84 wrote: post #250
lugao wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because you can't measure borders due to the coastline paradox.

I'm not aware of any 2 countries having their border be a natural coastline

Same principle applies to rivers, though, and there are lots of river borders.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#273

Post by diggan »

seszett wrote: post #267
diggan wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had*, seems it was added to work around American Covid restrictions, and it was only active for ~1 month.

You're thinking of the (temporary) Tahiti flight, but that was much longer than 9349 km. The person you're responding to was talking about the Paris-Réunion flight that has been active for a long time and still active today. I took it 15 years ago when I had to go to Réunion.

Oh, seems indeed I confused the two, thanks for the correction!

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#274

Post by arccy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #77
ozim wrote: post #75

As an outsider I consider Canada and Australia - British Empire. Hard to think otherwise as they have the same king.

To be satisfyingly pedantic, my King isn’t the same King. Mine is the King of Canada. It just happens to be the same person as the King of England and the King of Australia ;)

The King also works remotely from home with only the occasional trip in...

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#275

Post by fsflover »

leosanchez wrote: post #98
msgodel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America? the Anglosphere? the improvements to India? The almost complete eradication of slavery? The web? The British Empire arguably has a greater legacy than the Roman Empire.

> the improvements to India You can't be serious.

Shallow dismissals are against the HN Guidelines.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#276

Post by vixen99 »

closewith wrote: post #125
tonymet wrote: post #115

Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. The ones who are thriving today owe a huge debt of gratitude, and the languishing ones are that way because they decided not to continue the British tradition. The 20th century decline of the British empire is one of civilization's worst failures, on par with the decline of the Roman Empire.

> Though empires are out of fashion , British colonies universally benefited from the British empire. That's not at all true. There are many examples, but no need to look farther afield than Ireland, which has not yet recovered from the deliberate genocide of the Irish famine. The island of Ireland had not yet reached the population it held pre-famine, and if Ireland had grown at the rate of its neighbours, it would…

Rather surprising then that we have the Commonwealth of 56 member states, most of which were former territories of the British Empire from which the Commonwealth developed. They are connected through their use of the English language and cultural and historical ties. Doubtless these countries have appalling memories of the evils perpetrated by the Brits. And yet they even accept Charles III as the head of the Commonwealth. Also amazing that in most colonies independence was achieved without a shot being fired.

Unbelievable eh? Maybe it's a case of Stockholm Syndrome.

On the other hand it could have been worse. We should remember that for almost every colonized people, the alternative to British Jurisdiction was not unmolested progress towards modernity but conquest by someone else, the French, the Germans,the Turks, the Russians,the Japanese and worst of all, the Belgians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#277

Post by [deleted] »

School-Cotton wrote: post #173
ineedaj0b wrote: post #157

I’ve been really sad getting older and having so much more context on Britain. My family weirdly had access to all of British TV in US growing up and they had fantastic programs. Now, I feel they are a joke. They seem like a strong example of what absolutely not to do. Their cultural exports have sunk. The arrested citizens for social media posts seems draconian. The economy barely hanging on. I understand the Media…

I assume you mean William, not Andrew.

[deleted]

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#278

Post by Waterluvian »

qingcharles wrote: post #258
KoolKat23 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it walks like King Charles, and quacks like King Charles, then it must be...

Which King Charles? The one with his head or the one without?

We’ll see.

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#279

Post by heavenlyblue »

jcattle wrote: post #245
lugao wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because you can't measure borders due to the coastline paradox.

Eh. If you care about relative measurements it doesn't matter much. Pick a sensible resolution, stick with it, you got yourself a ranking.

It also makes sense to pick a resolution because coastline changes on an hourly basis (and minute-basis, for rivers during rainfall), so that these differences would not massively affect the measurement every single second

Re: When the sun will literally set on what's left of the British Empire

#280

Post by heavenlyblue »

crazygringo wrote: post #203
throwup238 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re thinking of a hydrological thalweg. In international law (w.r.t. borders) thalwegs are not dependent on coastlines but on navigable channels with a finite precision . The boundary monuments are often kilometers apart which creates a straight line regardless of the shifting coastline (which is a much bigger problem than the coastline paradox, since rivers can change on a dime).

Fascinating, I wasn't aware, thank you. But when I look at Google Maps, the Oyapock river is extremely meandering. Major 180° bends within just 500 ft, e.g.: https://www.google.com/maps/@2.3210582,-52.7667375,16z/data=... Are you sure there's an official survey of every twist and turn, composed of "boundary monuments"? Is there a link to these things or something? It's not really clear to me there's any official "nav…

However, it's quite improbable that bends like that would repeat at a 1-metre scale, at least because the river itself has a minimum width (or maximum depth it can go, if we assume some incredibly narrow gorge)
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