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Comment by michaeljx | Hacker News Reader

Like the good nepotistic society we are

I'm struggling to understand what the desirable alternative is here. Children shouldn't be recognized by their patients? Or only lower class parents should have the burden of sharing their income with their children?

All children should be gestated in womb-bladders in state hatcheries, and raised to maturity by the state. Knowing or wanting to know your parents should be considered a deviancy, a perversion.

Oh wait that’s Brave New World. Or The Naked Sun, depending on your preferred flavour of SF nightmare.

Or Plato's Republic, if one prefers older books.

You might find interesting an old comment of mine speculating about legal rights of a human being born by an artificial womb: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37314083

> what the desirable alternative is here

Limits on how much parents can spend other people's resources on their kids. Which goes with civil office being a job rather than a special privilege.

Expert nobody is spending anything on the new prince?

He gets inheritance rights, so he'll inherit money from the royal estate (built up through his ancestors' royal allowances, or through any other means the throne has used to accumulate wealth), even though he doesn't get a royal allowance.

However, if he didn't inherit, then his share of that money would have gone to any siblings/other relatives instead, anyway. The royal family as a whole doesn't appear to gain or lose any wealth.

Unless, I guess it's possible it could affect inheritance taxes one way or the other, if the state takes inheritance taxes?

It sounds like the inheritance is following the agreed terms of a transition away from monarchy. I don't know anything about the specific situation, but in general, I'd think that maybe a generous but peaceful separation agreement with the royal estate might work out to be cheaper (in multiple ways) for the state and the people than a harsher takeover/repossession of royal wealth would be. It really depends on the political situation.

Aristocracies should not exist anywhere on earth in 2026, except in ceremonial form. Their ill-gotten gains should be expropriated into the hands of the state.

It's dishonest of you to argue that they should be treated like normal citizens while they cling desperately to their distinct and superior position. If they want to be treated as normal people all they have to do is renounce their titles.

So what's stopping the Belgian people from grabbing torches and pitchforks, marching to the castle, and demanding that this injustice be immediately reconciled?

The king is already mostly ceremonial. He seems mainly a stabilization factor for the country when both halves get a bout of separatism once more: He is the ultimate person every major politician talks to when nobody wants to talk to each other. The king does have some extra rights, but not too much, and the alternative seems worse.

King Albert 2 didn't want to become king but nobody else with enough capability was available. So it's not just a fun job.

But yes, the discussion to king or not pops up once in a while, and the general response seems to be we got much bigger problems.

European constitutional monarchies seem much less autocratic than the current US presidency, so I don't see what the big deal is.

Those are not our only alternatives.

Organized companies of men with guns, drones, tear gas, and access to the browser history of every person in the country

I mean, he's not getting a royal allowance, even though his father does. It sounds like they already have peaceful transition away from monarchy worked out, in which case, threatening or committing violence is senseless and potentially counterproductive.

There was only one Prince. One does not become Prince.

then he always was prince, just nobody knew?

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