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Comment by orobinson | Hacker News Reader

I feel the same. I think it’s because it really represents the end of an era. The 20th and early 21st century ushered in unprecedented improvements to quality of life in Britain but it has felt of late that that has peaked and the country is facing a serious decline: Brexit, the increasingly visible effects of climate change, the aftermath of covid, the possible break up of the union, rising costs of living, recession, possibly even war. The death of Elizabeth II coincides with the end of a long period of stability and comfort and is not only a poignant point in history itself but a marker for a transitional point in history for our country.

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My understanding is that the late 70s and early 80s in England was a hopeless place. As evidence I submit Alan Moore's introduction to V for Vendetta and Ghost Town by the Specials.

- https://slendertroll.tumblr.com/post/66114152363 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Town_(Specials_song)

"Naivete can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge England toward fascism. Although in fairness to myself and David, there were no better or more accurate predictions of our country’s future available in comic form at that time. The simple fact that much of the historical background of the story proceeds from a predicted Conservative defeat in the 1982 General Election should tell you how reliable we were in our role as Cassandras. It’s 1988 now. Margaret Thatcher is entering her third term of office and talking confidently of an unbroken Conservative leadership well into the next century. My youngest daughter is seven and the tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS. The new riot police wear black visors, as do their horses, and their vans have rotating video cameras mounted on top. The government has expressed a desire to eradicate homosexuality, even as an abstract concept, and one can only speculate as to which minority will be the next legislated against. I’m thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It’s cold and it’s mean-spirited and I don’t like it here anymore."

Punk and goth also emerged in the 70s, with the UK as a particular hotpot. I don't think that's a sign of economic prosperity.

Punk was very much not a sign of prosperity, more like stagnancy. Source: was there.

Would you have preferred more prosperity, but soundtracked only by the Bay City Rollers, Pink Floyd, and Cliff Richard? Or the angry DIY spirit of punk to emerge?

Punk. 1000%.

Yes, that's my exact point.

Can't have that music anymore

> RNZ stations are instructed not to play punk music, or songs by the band Queen during this period.

Part of the "London bridge down"-protocol for New Zealand

"My understanding is that the late 70s and early 80s in England was a hopeless place."

That's not quite how it felt as a 52 year old Brit off of mostly England wot lived here at that time, as well as West Germany. I got the full Cold War experience.

I'm not sure about V for Vendetta - that's a film released in 2005 so a retrospective of {something}. "Ghost Town" by the Specials is of its time and an absolute belter and it does evoke emotions.

I can understand that a Canadian that wasn't even born at the time might find it hard to usefully engage with the past of a foreign country.

However we as Canadians and Brits and many others shared a Queen and she has passed away to all our loss.

The V for Vendetta movie was only an adaptation of the 1982 comic series written by Alan Moore.

OK but it is fiction. Not real. I'm sure we are all agreed on that.

If you'd like a tale about the 1970-80s then feel free to ask and I'll tell you what I saw. With luck, my memories aren't too shot.

Living in W Germany in the 1970/80s was rather safer than Ukraine now. A threat of nuclear shenanigans back then is nothing compared to a rocket salvo now.

Ukraine is being attacked right now by Russia and has been for months. Civilians are dying daily in this revolting attack on common civility.

I'm not too sure how important V for whatevs is. It's a story.

> OK but it is fiction. Not real. I'm sure we are all agreed on that.

Yes, it's fiction, but the comment you were replying to mentions Alan Moore's foreword to his work where he mentions the context in which he created the comic -- and that context was the despair and hopelessness he felt in the UK of the 70s and 80s.

Alan Moore is talking about the reality that inspired his fiction (and in fact, mentions how his fiction fell short of what actually happened next).

> I'm not too sure how important V for whatevs is. It's a story.

"V for whatevs"? You are being needlessly dismissive. Alan Moore is a highly influential and political comics book author whose work has a lot to say about the 70s and 80s. Just like punk was also a reflection and a product of its era.

>If you'd like a tale about the 1970-80s then feel free to ask and I'll tell you what I saw. With luck, my memories aren't too shot.

Please do.

>I'm not sure about V for Vendetta - that's a film released in 2005 so a retrospective of {something}.

I think he was referring to the 1982 graphic novel of the same name that the film was based on.

EDIT for spelling

"My understanding is that the late 70s and early 80s in England was a hopeless place."

Yet Thatcher is basically remembered as the devil.

I can't fathom the complete cognitive dissonance of people who believe these two things at once.

I don't see how they contradict. Crap time, crap prime minister

It's that dissonance between the "crap" prime minister and the ending of the crap times. Thatcher was after the 70s, lad.

Thatcher became prime minister in 1979 which isn't after the 70s. Old fogie.

The 70s were crap because of high inflation and fuel costs. Winter of discontent etc.

The 80s were crap because Thatcher basically dismantled the working class.

Is it dissonance about Germans complaining about interwar issues and complaining about the leader they ended up with?

Yes. The Thatcher era marked the end of a lot of stagnation, and while at the time people might have linked her and the era, plenty of subsequent people don't like Thatcher despite the marked increase in quality of life post her era.

The 80's weren't crap. The 80's saw a massive increase in wealth for the working class. There was even a whole comedy character about it - https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/loadsamoney

It was also the end of the mining industry, and many other manufacturing industries. There's documents discussing the managed decline of Liverpool.

Some people who were working class may have done well, but the working class as it was basically ceased to be.

I think it depends which end of the country your piece of the working class was in.

It seems to me that leaders who reduce public debt become unpopular, while those who increase it become popular.

Reduction of UK public debt by Thatcher (visible in the second half of the eighties):

https://ercouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ercchart171...

Increase of US public debt throughout the eighties by Reagan:

https://zfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/US-National-De...

As much as I recognise the good that Mrs. Thatcher did for the UK, I think a lot of the public debt reduction was down to North Sea oil.

Public debt is classic tragedy of the commons. The only way to solve it is to make citizens directly responsible for it.

The improvement only happened for some people. Thatcher made it better for a group of Tory voters at the expense of Wales, Northern England, Scotland and quite a fair chunk of the Midlands to boot.

She is adored in some of London and all the Home Counties where her polices led to increased wealth and life outcomes.

In the rest of the country, she is the person who destroyed communities and the fabric of what it was to be British for many.

This is not cognitive dissonance. It's different experiences by different people.

Given this is a thread about HRH Queen Elizabeth II, it's worth noting that she herself and her family were no real fans of how Thatcher conducted herself in relation to some of her policies that were _actively hostile_ to many working class communities.

When the Royal family quietly whisper that they think someone is a snob, well... that's saying something, eh?

Yes, years of an ineffective Labour government did that. It wasn't until Mrs Thatcher took control of the economy that the mood started to pick up.

That's a very one-sided telling of the story. Both Labour and Conservative governments struggled with the economic mess left behind by the war and the end of the empire.

And the long-term negative effects of Thatcher's legacy (much like Reagan's in the states) are being felt now. The homeless situation is (in large part) a product of Thatcher selling off public housing and turning actual care into "community care".

It seems as if you judge the past too positively. The 70s and 80s were also perceived as pretty dark at the time and anything but stable. The sentiment at the time was quite similar to the way you describe the present. You had stagnation in the 70s similar to what is happening today and a general view that the welfare system was losing its viability. The Cold War also became more serious again in the 80s and the geopolitical threats were comparable to today's.

I love the example of ancient texts that decry how the youth don’t listen to their elders any more and the lords are getting stingier with the taxes every season. It’s a universal feeling.

You mean this quote by Socrates, which was written as Athens was entering a period of (terminal) decline?

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Maybe it is not so universal, but an actual predictor of civilizational decline?

> but an actual predictor of civilizational decline?

I think it is more of an indicator of overall prosperity, which may, in fact cause civilizational decline. I'm reminded of the mouse utopia[0], and my own family.

[0]: https://www.drhpod.com/blog/mouse-utopia

Socrates never said that and he never wrote anything (that has survived, anyway).

"QI has determined that the author of the quote is not someone famous or ancient.

It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Freeman did not claim that the passage under analysis was a direct quotation of anyone; instead, he was presenting his own summary of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times. The words he used were later slightly altered to yield the modern version. In fact, more than one section of his thesis has been excerpted and then attributed classical luminaries."

* https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/

Thank you. Looking at the dissertation, it does seem though like the author was attempting to summarize of Plato and his contemporaries.

You really hit the nail on the head. Watching footage of her inauguration drives home how the world changed during her reign. She lived through the entire crazy exponential increase in, well, everything.

May she rest in peace.

Then mourn the social democratic consensus that built that prosperity, rather than the symbol of empire and privilege that it replaced?

That's not what built it. Automation and technology and burning fuel did.

It's not an either/or proposition. The early industrial revolution had automation and technology and burning fuel too.

Indeed. That was the start of the big push of thousands of big and small inventions and commercial progressions that has gradually allowed more and more of the whole world to achieve heights no one could've dreamed of even 100 years ago.

No. Statistically, the reason the gp was celebrating their post war prosperity was because the proceeds or automation and burning fossil fuels were much more equitably shared in that period than any other in history.

None of those things you mentioned are real or big problems visible at an individual level any more than the problems of previous decades. If nobody told you they'd happened, you'd be enjoying the same stability and comfort as before. Perhaps the problem is how the media presents events, not the events themselves.

Without an objective way to measure "badness", all you're doing it reflecting what the TV told you to feel.

I think humans have evolved to need rulers and hierarchy to look up to to some extent. Look at what happened to Americans -- once the UK royalty was gone it was replaced with celebrity. It's just human nature.

The Queen is not a 'ruler' though, she's a figurehead.

Which is fully appropriate where it exists.

I would be 100% against the US having a 'Constitutional Monarch' but I'm 100% in support of the UK Constitutional Monarchy, given that it has come from their long established culture, nearly a 1000-year-old 'contiguous-ish' institution.

FYI in 1258 the Monarch signed documents which required him to 'Confer with Parliament' when changing rates of taxation. That's only 40 years past Magna Carta, and the first reference to 'Parliament'.

I think the British Monarch could in _theory_ have some political power as parliamentary bills go by the monarch for approval. The Queen always approved them of course.

The romantic in me likes to believe the Queen would step in if the British parliament tried passing some truly terrible bill. Basically acting as a last stop gap of human and British sensibility. Though with Queen Elizabeth II gone I'd have less trust in the judgement of a monarch.

Part of me does wonder if US politics would've been much different with a ceremonial figurehead. And that'd be a fun alt-history where a great-great-grandchild of George Washington is the ceremonial head of the US government and has to deal with intrigues of Washington politics while just wanting to live quietly on the ancestral Virginian home.

The power of the Monarch is kind of real actually, particularly because of the way Parliaments are created and dissolved etc..

There is no clear '4 years to election' as they have in the US.

In my home country, Canada, it gets dicey as we wonder sometimes just what the 'Governor General' (Queen's rep in Canada) will do.

I don't think the Queen is going to be interjecting on any 'legislation' unless there is something fundamentally unconstitutional about how it was passed; but there's definitely some question marks about 'how and when government falls and is formed' - and especially, how 'minority governments' are formed. If there's no obvious winner, then minority situations form, and it can get weird.

That's still a thing.

I suggest the US would have been a better country were the American revolution to not have happened. Sounds totally crazy, but true. I think the US would have healthcare, be a bit more socially minded, slavery would have ended a lot sooner, and the US still have all of the 'good parts' (except a cool national anthem).

I don’t think that’s really a thing in the UK. In every election for over a century, when there are disagreements (and there have been many), the parties thrash it out and pick somebody to be prime minister, and that person drives to the palace for the Queen to make it official. It’s entirely ceremonial and I haven’t heard of any instance at all where she was actually involved in the decision.

There has been a lot of speculation over the years about whether Charles might be a more activist monarch, but I’ll be really surprised if he actually tries to exercise any of his theoretical powers. He might be a bit more outspoken in public, and do a lot more lobbying in private, at most.

Yes, there are question marks though that the Queen theoretically fulfills.

Otherwise, we might need a 'Supreme Parliamentary Council' to basically enact those duties, and if any members of Parliament didn't agree on the outcome, they'd take it to the Supreme Court who would rule on it kind of thing. Something that would only happen 'once in a century'.

Where there are Presidents, it's generally straight forward: the Dude with the most votes (of whatever type) is the Dude and that's it. There can be voting shenanigans but generally not outcome shenanigans.

I'm fine the way it is in the UK and Canada, I wouldn't change a thing.

If we want reforms, we can do that at more operational levels, aka 'governance by blockchain' to put it in 2019 Valley terms.

She passed the Brexit bill.

The reality is that it’s consistently been the House of Lords that save us from the nuttier ideas.

Of course she passed the Brexit bill. The irrational hatred of Brexit you see in some quarters is the exact sort of thing the Queen, in her role as a constitutional icon of long term stability, stood against.

You have to remember how old she was. The Queen's first Prime Minister was Winston Churchill, born in the 1870s. A staunch Empire man to the last, he was one of only two Prime Ministers for whom the Queen attended their funeral. He is famous for successfully defeating Europe when it was united under a dictator determined to reduce Britain to rubble and ship its population to labour camps. She was Queen as the British Empire wound itself up and became the Commonwealth. She saw the nationalization of the British railways and then the re-privatization of them decades later. She saw the birth of the European Coal and Steel Community, she watched as it evolved into the European Economic Community, and then into the European Union. She saw Stalin fall, then she saw the Berlin wall fall, and then the USSR. She observed passively as millions of people from the former Eastern Bloc then moved to the UK a decade later to make a new life. She saw the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She saw the space race. She was Queen throughout the Troubles, living with the constant threat of being assassinated by the IRA, who at one point dropped a concrete breeze block on her car. She visited over 100 countries. She watched as countries fell to communist revolutions. She watched her country be brought to the brink during the Winter of Discontent, she watched as European nations transitioned from dictatorship to democracy. She watched global COVID lockdowns. She watched the Euro debt crisis and a thousand other crises come and go.

In short, she saw political institutions far larger and more important than British membership of the EU rise and fall over her lifetime, and far more dramatically. She saw the UK join the EEC, she saw it transform into the EU and then she saw the UK leave it again. Of all the things she's seen and done, of all the life and death battles she witnessed or even took part in, EU related events were surely some of the less memorable and important, especially given the relatively imperceptible changes Brexit so far brought about.

If you really want to engage in speculation about the Queen's views on Brexit and the EU, consider this. I already said Churchill was one of only two Prime Ministers the Queen honored by attending their funeral. The other was Margaret Thatcher. Both had complex views on the merits of European integration, with both being positive in their earlier years but coming to regard it as a mistake in their later years.[1][2] Both were strongly committed throughout their lives to the strength and independence of the United Kingdom regardless of what Europe did.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2639328

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55454106

Right, the Queen was (unsurprisingly given her privilege) a closet Tory and couldn't be relied upon to stop dirty Tory shenanigans. I don't think anyone was disagreeing? Not sure what the point of this comment was apart from to assert your opinion on Brexit.

> if the British parliament tried passing some truly terrible bill

> ... She passed the Brexit bill ...

> Of course she passed the Brexit bill

> not sure what the point of this comment was

It was to point out the absurdity of picking out this particular example given her long life and the many, many events and bills you could describe as 'terrible' along the way. If she was going to have broken her convention and tried to assert real power, that would be have a really odd one to pick.

BTW I didn't assert any opinion on Brexit itself, only that the level of hatred of it reached by some people is irrational.

> the Queen was ... a closet Tory

You don't actually know what the Queen's politics were. She lived through several Labour governments and never stopped their bills or expressed opinions on them either, that's just not the sort of monarch she was.

I appreciated the passion in that comment as well as the detail on the Queen's life. I learned something today. That alone is point enough for me.

She's the disabled root account account of the British constitution. Her ministers are the sudoers

Maybe it's ok to have a Queen, but I'm not so sure about Kings. Men in un-elected positions of power have very rarely done any good.

Yeah, not sure about that. If QE1 was any better, it wasn't because of her gender, it was the constraints placed on her because of her gender back in the day. And we are into 'constitutional monarchies' now, not the absolutist version. Also, see: Queen Isabella I.

There are two (bad) extreme ideas: 1. Women are inferior and should never rule 2. Women are superior and can do no wrong

True equality comes when we realize both men and women screw up just as much, and have just as much good potential IMO.

But men and women don't screw up in equal measure. Biological specialization between the sexes has led to men taking greater risks.

A risk not hazarded can be a bigger screwup than the other way around.

What makes you think Charles is a man ? Are you judging of his gender on the basis of old stereotypes ? And if he is a man, but decided to identify as a woman, would you then be ok with him being king ?

With leftists nutcases... never short of a good laugh!

It isn't just human nature, though, is it?

Celebrities don't wield any power comparable to that of rulers or monarchs. We allow unbounded accumulation of wealth but that's a facet of our political and economic system.

Most social animals imbue their elders with some level of authority but this is easy to explain as an evolutionary habit to make use of lived experience and thus, hopefully, expertise. It's obvious why you'd ask the person with the most experience or the best domain knowledge for their assessment or even to lead you in that domain. It also makes sense to appoint a leader during times of war when the battlefield requires split second decisions that don't allow for consensus seeking.

But human nature is cooperative if nothing else. We resort to exclusion, hierarchy and domination/obedience only under duress, which our current system helpfully maintains perpetually.

LOL. Is that why you have president dynasties? Clintons, Bushes, Kennedys?

Yes. Our political and economic system maintaining duress perpetually is why the US has those, not human nature. It's also how we got monarchies, which modern capitalist systems evolved from.

This is exactly how I feel

An upvote for you (if I could). I'm American but have lived in the UK for near 20 years. My great-whatever grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence so I'm hardly a royalist... So WTF am I doing living in the UK??? (the NHS etc...)

My general sense is that of respect for the Queen as a symbol. She did it right and wasn't a useless numpty like ... oh... all of the rest of them. Primarily nothing but B list celebrities. William and Kate seem fine enough, Harry and Meghan are .. irrelevant except to the nonces who have no actual lives, and let's not discuss Andrew...

Hopefully Charles will use the "soft power" he supposedly has to corral the professional sociopaths destroying this country (e.g. wind and solar power, given his supposed environmental leanings) but I don't know.... it very well may be all downhill from now. England (and by extension all of the UK) is destined to become a failed state.

Which is why I am looking hard at moving to Scotland (soon to be independent!) or even the EU to get the F out of here ASAP. It really is a transitional point.

Which is why I am looking hard at moving to Scotland (soon to be independent!)

Has there been any real progress towards another referendum on independence? I know SNP still has the lion’s share of seats in Scottish parliament, but what else? As a Scottish ex-pat of sorts (born UAE, to Scottish parents, but raised and educated in the US), I have nostalgic notions of moving to Scotland. Then I remember its dark much of the year and rains a fair bit. Heck, it even snowed in June the last summer I visited (yes, that was up Glenshee, but still).

No one seriously thinks Scotland will leave soon. The energy is moving to a new settlement of the four nations. That will come in the next ten years. We're fine. Edinburgh got loads of tech energy. Glasgow's a massive city with loads of opportunity. We have a large financial sector that needs geeks. Come. We need you. Lived here thirty years now. No regrets. Weather is improving with climate change (ducks).

Not to mention ability to generate its own energy from various renewable sources and with climate change, more ability to grow food in the lower regions.

Minority opinion: that kind of weather needs no improvement.

Definitely pay attention to how much sun Scotland -- heck, any part of the UK -- gets before moving there if you have even the slightest inkling that you might have seasonal affective disorder. You need to be pretty happy with very little sun.

I'm a fellow UAE born! Hello!! I live in Canada. Was just looking up moving to Scotland after seeing footage of Balmoral castle. Something about the beauty of the highlands captures the imagination. I'm of South Asian decent so I am a bit weary of how welcoming a new place will be.

What a great privilege it is to be able to move from country to country whenever one feels like it. I am jealous.

Odds heavily against Scottish independence in the next 20 years.

Bookmakers price a referendum before 2025 at about 10% probability. I think that's too big a number - I'd say 10% chance by 2030.

Let's suppose it happens in 2025, though. At that point, the UK and EU will still be at loggerheads over the border with NI meaning the SNP's central premise - that Scotland should be able to rejoin the EU - will look more and more like a dangerous and economically calamitous poison pill. Even pro-independence financial analysts will warn of a deep recession with house prices falling off a cliff. That'll make independence about as popular as mouldy bread.

In addition, the EU will be quite feckless and tone deaf to what that SNP promise of independence is centred on, and during any campaign will confirm confidently that yes, Scotland could rejoin the EU, all it'll take is adoption of the Euro (non-negotiable), and a complete adoption of all protocols and laws that the UK - including Scotland - will have mostly dismantled by that point (for better or worse). The timeline will be a decade or more, and the estimated costs will be in the billions, but the EU think it's still value. Meanwhile Scottish voters will wonder if a generation of being out of the UK _and_ the EU is worth the candle.

The idea that against that backdrop the SNP think their argument for independence is stronger, not weaker, is strange.

I think you'll also see a slight shift in polls in coming days and weeks because of the death of the Queen. Operation Unicorn is designed in a small way to allow Scottish unionists to show what the United Kingdom is all about. Sentimentality has been proven time, and time again, to be incredibly powerful in changing people's minds quite irrationally.

Coupled with Charles' political will - as you note, towards radical environmentalism and architectural protectionism that aligns neatly with a decent proportion of the Scottish populace - you might find Sturgeon and the SNP looks more and more marginal as time goes by.

The Queen oversaw a decline in Empire and a rise in the British believing in - and committing to - a people's right to self-determination. And so it will be in Scotland, just as it has been for so many countries that have gained independence from British rule in the last 75 years. But the backdrop right now is firmly that the SNP is about to slide, independence will become less popular to many, and Scotland will either be part of the renaissance we are all hoping for, or is coming down with the rest of us.

'Long period of stability' since WW1? WW2? The Cold War?

Maybe you're young, but this 'feeling of stability' really has only happened since 1991.

I remember before that, and it was very scary living with the Soviet Union and all those countries with nukes pointed at us.

Also, the 1960s-1980s wrought huge economic change, as the last phase of major 'Democratic Socialist' changes occurred, desegregation/civil rights in the US along with giant leap in crime, and most of the west moved out of a very chaotic political climate only towards the end of that.

1990-2010 was a bit of a calm period.

Also, 'Brexit' is not a net negative thing (I think it's neutral on the whole). The EEC (i.e. trade) is almost all of the benefit of the EU, some of the post EEC i.e. EU artifacts are actually quite a bad thing (though not all of course). Even Euro itself, is probably only 'neutral' in that it has very harsh externalities that are just not obvious.

Notably, we have seen a massive failure in the EU to not only protect itself, 100% dependent on US military defence, even in 2020 - but one of the 'root problems' was the EU powerhouse, Germany, abdicating it's defence responsibilities, and selling out the entirety of the EU to Russian energy dependence which put the EU in an existentially weak position vis-a-vis Russia. If the US did not exist, Putin would be dominating the EU via it's vast tentacles (like it is in Hungary, but much worse, and all over).

Obviously some nations, like France, Sweden and Finland are quite prepared, but on the whole, it's bad.

Europeans are know this, Macron himself has suggested 'something else' for Ukraine and Georgia.

It will literally take decades for Ukraine get into the EU, which is nary impossible for any normal country as they cannot maintain a consistent strategic orientation for that long, which speaks to the gigantic bureaucratic complexity of the EU.

Instead - UK, Turkey, Ukraine, Finland, Georgia, Switzerland will possibly join the 'expanded' EU (by another name), which will mostly be trade focused. The interesting thing about that however, the other nations, notably Spain, Italy, Greece will definitely start to wonder about 'the grass being greener' in those countries.

QE2's death is definitely a kind of geostrategic demarcation, along with the failure of Russia in Ukraine as it's 'last gasp' as a major power, and COVID. The rise of China as well, but that's in phases.

This is kind of a WW1 moment.

As for the future of the Royals? It's hard to say - some progressives may want to think more 'Republican' but I'm not so sure. We are choking on materialism and people are yearning for authentic things.

'Secular Ideologies' including Socialism and Capitalism have brought us some nice things, but we are fundamentally more hollow. 'De-culturlization' isn't going so well, people are spiritually empty, we lack community. Putting a 'Starbucks on Every Corner' of the world is good for the GDP, but it's woefully lacking otherwise. A trip to the suburubs of Toronto where things are actually technically 'good' from a culturally secular perspective (i.e. peace, jobs, people get along well) ... but you'll find it's a kind of cultural death: absolutely no local culture whatsoever, almost the entire population working for 'local offices' of international firms, nothing to even identify the area as belonging to it's actual nation, culture and values being dictated by the marketing rooms of foreign countries, mostly in the name of selling sneakers and iPhones. That's 'materialism' not true 'prosperity'. It's amazing if you were a poor kid from Hyderabad (i.e. to have material stability), but not so good otherwise.

In that context, everything that has cultural authenticity is basically worth more than anything else. Do you know what's exploding in value? Authentic Faberge eggs. As we also realize the value of cultural institutions. Other things, even neat things like iPhones, are ultimately just commodities.

> Notably, we have seen a massive failure in the EU to not only protect itself, 100% dependent on US military defence, even in 2020 - but one of the 'root problems' was the EU powerhouse, Germany, abdicating it's defence responsibilities, and selling out the entirety of the EU to Russian energy dependence which put the EU in an existentially weak position vis-a-vis Russia. If the US did not exist, Putin would be dominating the EU via it's vast tentacles (like it is in Hungary, but much worse, and all over).

There is no 'massive' failure in the EU to protect itself as it has no such objective nor a mandate to protect itself. It's up to individual countries to spend on their armed forces as was up to Britain to spend when it was part of it and the EU didn't stop it, it did so just fine. If the US did not exist that would have been taken into account by the member countries themselves and acted accordingly.

> Instead - UK, Turkey, Ukraine, Finland, Georgia, Switzerland will possibly join the 'expanded' EU (by another name), which will mostly be trade focused. The interesting thing about that however, the other nations, notably Spain, Italy, Greece will definitely start to wonder about 'the grass being greener' in those countries.

Spain, Italy and Greece have all joined the Eurozone (Italy is a founding member btw) for their own good reasons. If they wanted less integration they could have not adopted the Euro just like a number of other countries. People seem to forget what inflation looked like for their national currencies of these countries before getting the Euro and it was not very green.

"There is no 'massive' failure in the EU to protect itself as it has no such objective nor a mandate to protect itself."

First - change EU to Europe and the point is more clear: 'Europe' failed to defend itself.

Second - Though you're right, EU is not a defensive pact, it's inexorably irresponsible for EU to not provide for defence. Defence is an existential concept - one that involves parts of the state.

How can there be 'ever closer union' and 'open borders' if nations can't even provide for their own defence.

This is 100% clear with Germany's 'sellout' to Russia: Germany, the leading 'political' block in the EU, gave Russia massive leverage which has put Estonia, Latvia etc. at huge risk, and effectively handed over Ukraine do the hungry dogs.

In that dsyfunctional dynamic, 'Sovereign Europe' is still dependent on the Anglosphere: USA, UK and even Canada (!) all of whom have provided much more support than France, Italy, Spain etc (!) in defence of Europe.

"People seem to forget what inflation looked like for their national currencies of these countries before getting the Euro and it was not very green. "

"If they wanted less integration they could have not adopted the Euro just like a number of other countries."

Inflation is much more preferrable than the current straight-jacket death of a hard currency. The lack of inflation relative to Germany is killing Europe.

As for 'adopting and not' - there's no way for them to adjust otherwise. The EU is a 'one size fits all' regime and also a 'Hotel California' (i.e. cannot leave) game.

The Euro won't work without political and fiscal integration and that will never, ever happen, so it's probably better to find something a bit looser.

Soft agree with you about the secular ideologies, I keep wondering if the alternative was actually better. Pre globalization with hard borders, little travel, suspicious of your neighbours, long distance travel reserved for the rich. Is the old situation of social pressure to comply to local social norms better? I am not so hot about the culture of places with abject poverty. As you correctly pointed out it's amazing for a poor kid from Hyderabad or rather millions of other poor kids from similar places. I don't think there can be any kind of positive culture without peace, jobs and people getting along well.

> It's amazing if you were a poor kid from Hyderabad (i.e. to have material stability), but not so good otherwise.

Indeed. It is amazing to not starve and live a prosperous yet "boring" lives. Wouldn't have it any other way.

? A prosperous Hyderabad for citizens would be considerably more ideal then moving them to some culturally secular place where their history is lost.

Imagine kids in Hyderabad having the stability, economic opportunity, 'decent government', clean air of Ontario ... but in Hyderabad.

I think that's 'easy to imagine' and 'much better'.

I mean, different strokes for different folks etc. but to me it seems fairly straight forward.

during her lifetime the British Empire went from its zenith to its end

leaving a trade bloc (Brexit) is hardly notable by comparison

It is when you see Brexit as part of that end.

the Empire ended in 1997 with the handover of Hong Kong

before the EU existed

The EEC became the EU in 1993.

The EU was founded in 1993, and traces its roots back to EEC (1957) and ECSC (1951).

it is quite clear in the Maastrict treaty that the EU was a newly established entity that absorbed the obligations and responsibilities of the former entities

(in the same way the United States absorbed the obligations and responsibilities of Great Britain in the 13 colonies)

(regardless, I got my dates wrong, I was thinking of Nice...)

Buddy take the L on that comment

Do you mean the eurozone? The EU as we know it today came into existence (Maastricht treaty). The eurozone was 1999.

To be fair, deals Churchill made with Roosevelt during Lend Lease ushered in the end. She inherited that situation from her dad.

The EU is not a 'trade bloc' (sic).

In the grand scheme of things, Brexit and its consequences were much alike to what I imagine would happen were $STATE to leave the USA.

The USA is much more culturally, politically, economically, etc. integrated than the EU.

True but the comparison is more correct than the former

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