Apple design chief Jonathan Ive is knighted | Hacker News Reader

Apple design chief Jonathan Ive is knighted

bbc.co.uk

103 pointsT-zex89 comments

Knighthoods derive from Royalty and as such I'm categorically against them.

I'll never be offered one but if that were the case I'd refuse on the grounds that by accepting I would implicitly recognize the fact that there are more than one kinds of people.

But good for Jonathan Ive that his contributions are recognized, too many people like that never get any recognition at all so from that point of view this is positive.

I'm not sure what protesting the historical origins of the knighthood really achieves.

These days they're awarded by the democratically elected government and the royal family's role in it is purely ceremonial. Whichever member of the royal family carries out the ceremony is basically a paid actor on behalf of that state in this context.

It's not historical, see:

http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/Honours/Knighthoods.aspx

Thank you but I'm British, I really don't need to have it explained to me what I knighthood is.

The whole Royal family works in two ways - the theoretical what they (or more usually the Queen) can do, and the way it actually works.

In theory the Queen can veto any law, could decide who to knight herself and so on but in reality this doesn't happen for the simple reason that the minute she did we the people would advance on Buckingham Palace with torches and pitchforks and burn the place to the ground. She is very much the Queen because the people and the government allow her to be, whatever the technicalities of the law say.

The reality of the situation is that the democratically elected government (sort of, see the House of Lords below) make all the decisions and the Queen merely "endorses them" (though even that suggests she has a say in it which she doesn't in any real way).

Do the Royal family have influence? Yes they do, but I'd suggest it's really no more than anyone else with that much money has (look at Adrian Beescroft right now) and they're far better than most with that much money in this sense as they're aware that they should remain neutral and do so. Generally the worst that happens is that Prince Charles runs his ill informed mouth about homoeopathy and architecture.

It's an odd system and no-one in their right mind would design one like it but as it operates now it's really not that broken.

If you want to take a swipe at something can I suggest the unelected House of Lords which has genuine power over the laws of the land and frequently uses it?

And even they tend to be a force for good, curbing the worst excesses of successive governments, though I may be more positively inclined towards them than I could otherwise be as I detest the current government so like that the Lords are giving them the run around.

Sorry, simply having a Royal class is paying lip-service to a state of affairs that is unhealthy.

How it actually works because people (or more specifically, parliament) don't feel like aligning theory and practice is not my problem.

If to the law there are more than one kinds of people then you may say that in theory it isn't like that however in practice this has all kinds of real effects and these will remain as long as Royalty is not formally abolished.

Knighthoods are one of those effects, another is the fact that people of 'royal blood' are to some extent above the law. And are protected in ways that no commoner would ever be protected.

On top of that it is still hereditary rule, you may be Knighted but your children will never accidentally be born King or Queen. And to me that is just plain wrong, ceremonial or not.

Reminds me of the Hugh Laurie joke "I used to be Princess Anne's assistant but I quit because I realised that however hard I worked they were never going to make me Princess Anne".

The difference between how it works in theory and how it works in practice is everything. British law is largely unwritten - until the EU gave us them we had no written bill of rights and most of our laws are based on precedent rather than anything parliament has decreed. If you do the immigration test one of the things you might be asked is what sort of constitution Britain has (correct answer "an unwritten one"). To try and understand Britain based on what is theoretically true is an exercise in futility that will rapidly lead you away from anything resembling reality.

I don't know if you have to live here to really understand it but what you imply simply doesn't tally with the way the Royal family are viewed. It's a strange combination of soap opera, duty, alien otherness and sentimental fondness. For most people there's more of a feeling of pity for them than any idea that they're better than us. They are an anachronistic anomaly but that's how they're viewed - so different, so outside that the comparisons you make really aren't there, any more than you'd compare yourself to something in a museum.

Now that's obviously not true of everything to do with the class system which at it's top levels embodies almost everything you say (the Prime Minister for instance is to me far worse, an elitist fop with none of the Royal family's sense of duty or propriety) but to pick on the Royal family is a little like protesting against BP by not buying sweets in their garages when you're filling up your car with petrol - it's really not the problem.

"it isn't like that however in practice this has all kinds of real effects and these will remain as long as Royalty is not formally abolished."

Yeah, because countries following "the modern theory" are doing so much better than countries with a Royalty.

In practice, it makes no significant difference, governments can and do have lavish expenses and luxury. So it's not like not having a monarchy is saving them any significant amount of money

"another is the fact that people of 'royal blood' are to some extent above the law. And are protected in ways that no commoner would ever be protected."

Oh you mean like diplomats or a president? I'm sure the POTUS is the most protected human being on the planet way more than any king or queen

"On top of that it is still hereditary rule, you may be Knighted but your children will never accidentally be born King or Queen"

Knighthood is not hereditary and even you're "royal blood" tough chance being born King or Queen (if not altogether impossible, but I'm not sure about that)

The bigger problem in my mind is that so many of our prime ministers and other government ministers come from a very select elite background. But then America has this problem too, even though there is supposedly no class system in the US. For example, the concept of, and everything that's wrong with, the Bullingdon club at Oxford is interchangeable with the Skull and Bones club at Yale.

If you are looking for elitism in the British system then you are missing the point when you pick on the Royals. They are probably one of the better investments the government makes in boosting the tourism sector. As your comments demonstrate, lots of people around the world take them very seriously, a lot more seriously than British people typically do.

"some extent above the law"

While I would prefer an apolitical president for Head of State of the UK, I feel that the Royals do deserve some credit for their hard work and willingness to put themselves in harms way in the Armed Forces.

My argument in favor of keeping the royalty can be summed up in one vomit inducing phrase:

President Cameron.

Shiver...

I honestly think that the monarchy represents 'god' in the UK political system. And Lizzie has behaved as a decent omnipotent hands-off nothing. Far better that, than a bunch of US politicians running around ostensibly in the service of an invisible "higher power".

As head of the Church of England she quite literally represents God in the UK political system...

In my mind, an unelected Lords is far preferable to an elected one for the simple reason that both houses will make mistakes. If the houses are both selected on the same basis, their mistakes will be correlated, rather than cancelling out. Given that the Lords is there precisely to hold the Commons in check by stopping its mistakes as early as possible, you don't want the Lords and the Commons to have the same biases.

I don't know that hereditary peerage is a good idea, but I'm pretty certain that an elected peerage would be worse.

That's why in most countries, the second house is elected on a different rythmn than the main one. So you get balance.

Interestingly, I have never seen anyone theorize about this. Everyone understands why democracy and elections are related. Parliament is a snapshot of public opinion at a given time. By using two snapshots taken at different time intervals, you get better reliability. Sounds obvious to IT engineers :-)

Elected politicans think as far ahead as the next election, be it 5 years or 5 weeks away. Hereditary peers think as far ahead as their own grandchildren, who will need to clean up and mess they make.

It's still the same fundamental selection method, though. It's less bad if elections are staggered, but it's still skewed by the the same forces - for instance, public opinion can be consistently wrong about a lot of things. A purely random selection process would be better, but I've got no idea how that would work in practice.

The Lords is virtually a non-issue IMO, given that the Commons can pass most legislation without the Lords' consent (via the Parliament Acts).

The main duties of the Lords are to impart wisdom and delay bills. On the whole this is a good thing, and it is unclear what benefits will come from being democratically elected.

I'm torn on the Lords.

In theory they are completely wrong, in practice I only see them doing good things.

I think I am more in favour of the un-elected House of Lords than you are, but I rather liked the proposal in the recent draft that elected Peers serve for 15 years. Having long terms would make them less influenced by the political wind (I would hope).

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/j...

What I'd like to see along with that is that a third of the chamber would be elected every five years so it never moves too wildly.

Think of them as a bunch of people selected at random - rather like a jury.

Nobody argues that juries should be elected, or selected by the police.

I actually rather like the idea that a small part of the Lords should be selected entirely at random.

That's what hereditary basically does

Let me clarify. Randomly selected such that over time they will represent all walks off life, backgrounds, regions, ages, faiths and so on.

Heredity as it is (or rather was) favours white, male (many of the titles couldn't be passed to women), upper class, privately educated, wealthy, christian individuals.

However, it's fairly clear what one of the downsides would be: media manipulation. Allowing Rupert Murdoch and his media empire an even tighter grip on UK parliament would be nothing but a terrible thing.

Bagehots "The English Constitution" is freely available on-line at gutenberg.org (among other places). It makes the useful distinction between the efficient and ceremonial parts of government. At the time it was written, the House of Lords had a good deal more power than it has had since about 1910, but the book is still worth reading.

Not being British, I was wondering for a while if "bagehots" is some mild denial word used as one would use "bollocks." Punctuation matters ;)

I'm not sure what jacquesm's political and philosophical views are, but the whole idea of governments (including democratic governments) is that there is more than one kind of person (namely, that some people can justifiably perform violent acts like taking a portion of your income).

Many outside the UK do not seem to understand our Royal family. Just try to understand that they do not impose their wishes/power/etc upon us. They act on behalf of us. If they put a foot wrong or misjudge public opinion, there is uproar.

The Royal family is an immense force for good and long may it continue.

It certainly has nothing to do with there being "more than one kinds of people" - which is a cop out 'argument'.

I wouldn't wish being a Royal on my worst enemy. I have enormous respect for the tireless, sometimes thankless task they are forced to perform day in, day out, binding the country together towards common goals and purpose.

I'm in the UK, and I think our Royal family is a peculiar and rotten anachronism.

Although they don't in practice have political power, they're part of a system which gives some wealthy and privileged peers a hereditary right to make our laws[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords

From the article, the House of Lords doesn't "make our laws".

Also "Membership was once a right of birth to hereditary peers but, following a series of reforms, only 92 members (as of 1 July 2011) sitting by virtue of a hereditary peerage remain."

Further reforms are in the pipeline as regards the house of lords.

Unfortunately what we saw under the Labour government was "cash for honours", and politicians making their cronies lords. Which IMHO is far worse than hereditary peerages.

The vast majority in the UK are very favorable toward the Royal family (As you'll see later in the year).

>"Membership was once a right of birth to hereditary peers but, following a series of reforms, only 92 members (as of 1 July 2011) sitting by virtue of a hereditary peerage remain."

Importantly, they will not pass on their peerages to their children. There are no longer hereditary peerages in the UK, it's just that they didn't strip the current ones of their titles. There are still members of the clergy in there though, which is wrong.

IMO the unelected house of lords is often the most effective part of our government. I don't like it but I find it very difficult to argue against.

Given the odd make up of the Lords I don't necessarily object to religious leaders being part of it, just that there are quite so many of them and that they all come from one religion.

It's not been massively uncommon for knighthoods to be refused. Notable individuals include: Dirac, Faraday, Hawking, Henry Moore, GB Shaw, David Bowie and Huxley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declining_a_British_honour#Knig...

Sincere curiosity: are you, on the same grounds, against citizenship?

Edit: to clarify, I mean against citizenship as a birthright.

Yes, unfortunately I get one imposed on me. It is as though through the simple act of being born I'm signatory party to some contract that I have never even been allowed to read and for which there was no negotiation possible.

Without having a nationality suddenly a lot of things are no longer possible (such as travel or residency). I have no right to a pension but pay in to them, my children are not in any way subsidized by state sponsorships for parents with children ("kinderbijslag" it is called here), but I do pay my taxes and so on.

I opt out to the point that I'm able to but that doesn't go nearly far enough. I still think there is a net positive effect, even if that same effect might be achievable by some other means. I'm not an anarchist, I just don't believe that there is a good reason for nation states and such because in general they are just used as vehicles to control people or to motivate them to do bad things rather than to provide them with services that are for the common good. In that sense they are like democracy, it's what we've got because we have nothing better but there are plenty of warts and issues with the concept.

Probably my views are pretty extremist but having seen a lot of misery in people close to me grounded in nationality it is an easy one to come by. For me nationality/citizenship is a matter of choosing the least bad option, not the best. We have nothing better so this is what I'll have to live with, it's like the weather, I am incapable of making significant change so I make the best of it.

I agree with you. If nationality/citizenship weren't enforced on people, suddenly so many things would be better. We wouldn't have opressive governments - people would just leave the country and left it to go bankrupt. Countries would be forced to compete on giving the best quality of life to attract labour force. Corrupt governments with inneficient policies and economy would be forced to improve or go broke. We could have decent services offered for people across the globe without huge public debts - just look at how many NGOs are capable of offering help to remote areas basically on donations and good will, now imagine it on scale. I still have hope, though.

> We wouldn't have opressive governments - people would just leave the country and left it to go bankrupt.

This happens now. Governments might try to prevent people from leaving but at that point they are only buying time.

> Countries would be forced to compete on giving the best quality of life to attract labour force.

This, to some approximation regarding which parts of labour force are sought, happens now.

> Corrupt governments with inneficient policies and economy would be forced to improve or go broke.

This, to a degree, happens now.

Allow me to disagree. China is an opressive government, but that fact gets conveniently ignored by other countries who use it as a factory floor. My own country (Brazil) is riddled with corruption for decades and still economy moves forward driven by credit and consumption. Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Laos, Burma, just to name a few, are plagued with porvertry as result of bad governance and ethnic genocides but the only movement for change you see there is voluntary work paid by donations - you don't see USA or Europe interested in democracy there because they don't have oil to get sucked or money to buy their crap.

People, particularly rich people, do leave China in considerable numbers. The same with Brazil. States with corrupt or inefficient governments do go bankrupt, sizeable amounts of people leave one way or another, and some of them are forced to improve (for some values of improvement) as terms of their financial rescue.

All the things you mentioned do happen, the issue is that few things concerning large organizations happen fast. Even in near-perfect-capitalist Silicon Valley environment organizations as troubled as Yahoo or Palm can keep on going for quite a while.

Governments might try to prevent people from leaving but at that point they are only buying time.

That's not the problem with citizenship. The problem is, other countries will refuse to let you in, or make your life miserable and you won't have the same rights as citizens.

Of course. Why would they let you just show up? You have to offer your target state something they value, it will depend on the state whether it's cheap manual labour or learned skills, or something else, or in some cases both. Once you can do that, proceed to my second point.

By the same logic you support nobility I suppose.

s/citizen/noble/ in the following:

I am a citizen of a wealthy country, but I didn't earn this privilege, I got it by birth, and that gives me more rights than a lot of poor people working here much harder than I do.

Oh, go ahead, eliminate citizenship. Then states will instead privilege their current residents, a rose by any other name.

Countries/states/provinces/regions/cities are organizations of people, by definition people living in the geographical area (minor modern aberrations like small amounts of nonresident citizens notwithstanding). I'm really not sure how you imagine doing away with a notion of citizenship will convince a group of people to allow "others" into "their" group if the others don't offer the group something it values. This isn't evil statesmanship, it's basic human psychology.

I'm really not sure how you imagine doing away with a notion of citizenship will convince a group of people to allow "others" into "their" group if the others don't offer the group something it values.

That's a fair point and I don't know what would happen if we eliminate citizenship. It might be replaced by something just as bad. I'm just pointing out why I dislike the concept, how it is similar to nobility.

I share you view. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, many (most?) people are against unearned privilege, only when they don't have it.

In my opinion, Political affiliations ought to be chosen by mature persons not forced upon infants.

No state should have claim upon a person simply because of where they were born or spent their childhood because the logic which underlies such claims is the same logic which underlies chattel slavery. The nexus is most obvious in places such as North Korea, however, if one considers the proportion of states which one considers repressive it will probably represent several percent of the entities one recognizes as states.

While I am probably not an anarchist, I find utility in their analysis of politics and nationalism.

For similar reasons, for decades Canadian government policy (although not law) has forbidden Canadians from accepting foreign titular honours. The Canadian Honours System does not grant titular honours (those that go before not after the name). You may find this an interesting read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_titles_debate

I have always felt this way. I categorically denounce the concept of royalty. Period.

A couple of things to note about Jony Ive. One, he's from Chingford, a painfully unfashionable suburb of London in Essex, the brunt of most geographically targeted UK humour.

And two: he studied at Newcastle Polytechnic (as I believe it was then), about as far as you can get from the hallowed halls of Oxford and Cambridge (both physically and metaphorically) whilst still staying in higher education in the UK.

In short - it's not where you come from, it's what you do.

This whole knighting business is a bit dubious if you ask me, however if anyone deserves it, I think Jonathan is one of them. He's really achieved so much and inspired millions of people, whether that inspiration came directly or indirectly.

Dubious? What's dubious about nationally recognising one person's achievements? Britain is hardly the only country to do it, anyway.

I can't speak for the grandparent, but one obvious thing is of course that being knighted seems to bring with it "more" respect from people, automatically (being addressed as Sir, for instance).

This is not very compatible with the idea that all humans have equal value, it's rather the opposite. It's very much a "class society" thing, at least in some respects.

Note: I'm not saying I oppose, I'm trying to explain what could be dubious about the concept.

> "all humans have equal value"

That's because they don't. Pretending all humans have equal value is insane, and stupid.

This is why we have pass rates of 97%+ in school exams. Because of loonies who refuse to acknowledge that people are different, and have different strengths and weaknesses.

I think parent is referring to the human value, i.e. the value of being human.

I'm going to play devil's advocate with this one.

The title is no different to becoming a Doctor after getting a PhD. Here, you become a Sir after getting a knighthood.

It could be said that the PhD title is equally dubious as it also automatically commands more respect. The only difference is they both come before the name and not after (as with MBEs, OBEs, academic qualifications like BSc (Hons), etc.)

But anyway, isn't that the purpose of a title?

Indeed. One who is against knighting must also be against honorary doctorates, for example.

I think the dubiousness comes from the history - it's a way of granting commoners a part in the aristocracy, somewhere below the rank of the existing nobility and clergy.

'It's very much a "class society" thing'

Given that knighthoods are usually handed out based on merit I think that's pretty much the opposite of the UK class system (which is not based primarily on wealth and therefore doesn't have an implicit link to merit).

Cough. Splutter.

While the lower orders of knights are generally given out on merit the higher orders are not. At least as far as I'm concerned.

The UK Class System is inherently based on a pecking order and the top of the pecking chain is kept for those who are more anointed than useful.

Take a look at this list. It is two orders higher than most Knights (and therefore two orders more special). Are they two orders more deserving?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Victorian_Order

I guess my comment (note the "mostly") was based on the assumption that more of the bog standard knighthoods are handed out rather than the fancy ones.

Wealth implies merit? Have you been asleep the past three or four years?

That's the problem - it's mostly a "jobs for the boys" Almost all the civil service above a certain rank get knighted same with the armed forces and retired politicians. They throw in a few show biz celebs and the occasional worker.

It would probably better if the system was a sort of "living blue plaque". There are people who have genuinely made the country a better place, either in business, arts, science etc - they should get recognition above those who simply became a permanent secretary.

On the other hand, nobody is enforcing you to address knights as "Sir", so no freedom is taken away from you. I know many doctors but rarely address them as "Dr"..

I find the "Sir" part to be the most interesting... you get a hint of how subserviently someone views the world by their use of "Sir" when describing a knight.

That said, I like the tradition. It's good to reward people for hard work, especially for the non-celebrities who rarely see the limelight.

This titling/tradition thing is really what distinguishes the old world (England) from the new world (America); we got rid of that baggage when we got off the Mayflower. But Ives deserved this if anyone did, congrats to him! In America, all we can offer him is some hero worship.

Or the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Congressional Silver Medal... etc.

Titles didn't disappear from the US until the revolution, hundreds of years after the Mayflower landed.

Congratulations to him!

Although people will often credit Jobs with the creation of Apple's products, it's great that Jony is getting recognition here. I can't even imagine the amount of time and effort he and his team must've put in to developing their designs.

With the industrial design of products like the iPhone or MacBook, every single dimension must be precisely calculated. There's no "eh, it's a bit off, but that'll do" like what we may do with web apps. The number of concepts and iterations they must've gone through is staggering, I'm sure.

Edit: It's sad to see only two other commenters recognizing Ive's achievements. It seems now that almost every single accomplishment posted to HN is questioned, overanalyzed and criticized out of what is likely a place of envy. We don't need your commentary on the social ramifications of knighthoods. If that's your reaction to a post like this, then you need to seriously reassess your perspective.

I would argue the exact opposite: celebration of apple and their achievements is a subject that has been done to death on here and elsewhere. Everyone here takes Ive's achievements as a given. Discussion of the social ramifications of knighthoods is likely to be much more fruitful. It certainly seems that way from this instance.

This isn't about Apple, though. This is about Jony Ive. And although people here might know who he is and what influence he's had over the years with creating such iconic designs, I highly doubt that the every day person on the street knows.

This is simply about him gaining public recognition. Nothing more.

I am having a hard time finding a comment on this thread criticizing Mr. Ive's achievements.

Another great achievement and recognition.

Interesting how he worked as a consultant to Apple, eventually becoming a full time employee.

A knighthood is a special title but has been handed out to some dubious characters in the past... Goodwin, Mugabe. Not taking anything away from Ive.

At least Fred's title was taken away:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16821650

That was an insult to the people of britain and the world, a silly little dance to try and placate us. The worst kind of political manoeuvring, and typical of the ex PR men who "lead" us.

The guy should be in the dock.

"The guy should be in the dock"

While I am no fan of ex-Sir Fred I'm struggling to think of what criminal offence he should be charged with.

Some sort of professional negligence. Many other people should have been charged as well.

It may well be true that there is no specific law he has broken, that's part of what I'm raging against.

I accept that the post-80s regime of light-touch regulation means that these people were basically doing what they were supposed to be doing, and that kinda makes it impossible to punish them.

Hooray for the Aluminum Knight. The rounded rectangles of the universe salute you.

I think Knighthood benefited from this more than Jonathan.

I now expect him to commute to work on a horse. Wearing a suit of armor.

"This seamless armor, is stunningly beautiful and perfectly smooth. It feels like cool liquid to the touch. It is also, incredibly strong. It's a fantastic fusion of design and function."

Unibody Aluminum Armor; No edges, no stitching; taken off with the press of the (only) button. Magical(R). Touch-sensitive shield with reinforced glass finishing that no amount of multi-touching can break. Sword with rounded-corners (that one's a bummer but it looks beautiful). Optional aluminum quiver that accomodates 20 iArrows. Stunning design.

Free stickers.

But unfortunately only works on iHorses which are much smaller and slower than regular horses while being a lot more expensive.

Well, at least I learned that the Queen has a daughter. Is she a household name outside of the UK?

She's not even a household name in the UK.

In general, the rest of the world is far more interested in the british royal family than the british.

Really? Whilst noone would talk ever talk or gossip about her engagements, I'd like to think that most people are at least aware of her existence; particularly given her competing in the Olympics and huge visibility as Britain's IOC representative and huge visibility in the run-up to this year's games.

Go out onto the streets of britain and ask people who princess anne is. I seriously doubt you'll get a good rate of correct answers, especially if you ask people under 50.

There are so many minor royals, and their lives form such a complex soap opera, it's very easy for them all to blend into one if you don't actually follow it, which very few people do.

How many times will he gets Knighted? IPod is his sword,Ipad his shield,Mac his armour :-)

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