She started with Winston Churchill and ended with Liz Truss.

You make it sound like 90% of people were under her reign while in fact 90% were thankfuly not her subjects

Nope, more like 98% of the world population.

And something like 90% of the world population was born during her reign.

Follow up: I was curious about the math, so I thought others might find these numbers interesting as well:At current continual growth rates (assuming the decline comes to a dead stop and remains steady), we will see 10 billion people late 2044.If the decline of the last 10 years continues indefinitely, humanity would go extinct around 3913.

The crazy thing is that we not ever see 10 billion at this rate. Globally we are down to 2.1 births per woman, and the majority of nations now have a birth rate below 2, meaning most countries are below replacement. And even the positive birth rate countries are rapidly trending downwards (with the exceptions of Uzbekistan, Kahzakstan, and Iran).It will be very interesting to see how the population J curve flatlining affects global society. We live in interesting times.

When she was born there were less than 2 billion people on Earth. Now there are almost 8 billion of us.

She learned to be a mechanic in WWII so she could do something tangible to support the war effort.

RIP, your majesty! The end of an era, from volunteering in WW-II, to seeing the empire break, and the world getting crazier now.

Is there another monarch in history with this many subjects in a single reign?<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_sovereign_states_headed_by_Elizabeth_II" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_sovereign_states_heade...</a>

I don&#x27;t think there is another Royal family of the same prestidge. There are other royal families in Europe but you don&#x27;t hear much about them.

I&#x27;d be surprised if there wasn&#x27;t. Does QE get credit for former colonies like Canada though? If so that might help.If you start counting what we&#x27;d usually call dictators, there definitely are bigger ones. The monarch&#x2F;dictator line gets a little blurry and subjective&#x2F;political I believe.

The emperor of Japan has 125+ mil subjects.States that recognize the British monarch as head of state: 67 mil (UK) + 38 mil (Canada) + 26 mil (Australia) + 5 mil (New Zealand) + others less than mil people = 136+ milSo pretty close, but this appears to be a correct statement.

Technically the Pope is a monarch and every Catholic a subject but it doesn&#x27;t quite play out the same way.

There can&#x27;t be very many people alive who have been to a state funeral of this magnitude, let alone actually planned one.Is there another monarch alive with this many subjects?

Operation Unicorn will happen because she died in Scotland <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Operation_London_Bridge#Operation_Unicorn" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Operation_London_Bridge#Operat...</a>

Operation London Bridge still runs, Unicorn is a sub-plan that runs on top of London Bridge for this case.

Due to her passing away in Scotland, I believe there is a different Operation in play, Operation Unicorn - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thenational.scot&#x2F;news&#x2F;21224640.operation-unicorn-happens-queen-dies-scotland&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thenational.scot&#x2F;news&#x2F;21224640.operation-unicorn...</a>

Britain’s plan for when Queen Elizabeth II dies: POLITICO has obtained documents laying out Operation LONDON BRIDGE in granular detail<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.eu&#x2F;article&#x2F;queen-elizabeth-death-plan-britain-operation-london-bridge&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politico.eu&#x2F;article&#x2F;queen-elizabeth-death-plan-b...</a>

There&#x27;s no way that&#x27;s true. Maybe one of the BBC channels

This is the first time we’ve had the TV on watching something whilst it is actually being broadcast though airwaves for months.

To be glib about it, probably Netflix can tell us in the future how much viewership in the UK went up.

Even so, it&#x27;s a different era now. When Diana died, the TV and radio were certainly very different for a good week thereafter. Nowadays, even if most TV and radio changes its schedule, there&#x27;s Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, &#x27;catch up&#x27; services and all the rest, so you could very easily not be exposed to the national mood in the same way.

If I remember correctly, the plan is that UK TV channels cancel all entertainment programs for the next ten days, so I look forward to more people going outside for the end of summer.

It should be merged, that has way too many comments to be left as-is.

That thread was posted slightly later, so we&#x27;ve merged the comments hither. Thanks!

dupe (many more comments here): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32768854" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32768854</a>

Twitter seems to be having trouble with the load.

&gt; Mass communication, mass travel, etc. were all non existentTelegraphy had allowed current news to rapidly flow around the globe for decades.

I would argue that the biggest change came to her parents&#x27; generation more or less.They were born without electricity, and everything it brought, and without cars or planes, and they lived to have pretty much all modern comfort and watch a man on the Moon on TV.

&gt; Arguably the largest change in humanity in a ~100 year span?I don&#x27;t think so. My grandmother was born in 1900 and died in 2003. Cars, airplanes, electricity, radio, TV, computers, space ships, etc..., all were invented or became commonplace in her lifetime. Queen Elizabeth was born between the birth years of my parents, who didn&#x27;t remember the &quot;horse and buggy days&quot;.

I would argue for 1870-1970. Flush toilets, motors and light bulbs, communication networks ( phones in houses, radio ) did not exist before 1870, but were rapidly being deployed in the decade or two before the Queen&#x27;s birth in 1922..A book by Robert J. Gordon from 2015, &quot;The Rise and Fall of American Growth,&quot; goes through this in great and fascinating detail. The life of an everyday American in 1870, starting off with the chamber pot and ending with an early bedtime by candlelight, was hard to even imagine by 1940. As he lays it out , life in that year would be familiar to us: toilets and plumbing, mass media via radio &amp; hardcopy webpage (i.e. newspapers), worldwide communication from home (telephone), refrigeration, etc.

A timespan anecdote I like: Bertrand Russell watched man land on the moon on tv.
He also had his grandfather tell him about meeting with Napoleon.

&gt; Arguably the largest change in humanity in a ~100 year span?1870-1970 (or about that range) probably would be bigger change. That would cover time from before commercial light bulbs to commercial computers[1] and man on the moon. Societally it would include WW1 and the series of Russian revolutions leading to wave of other revolutions in Europe[2], and major advances in Womens&#x27; suffrage[3] among other things.[1] e.g. PDP-8 and S&#x2F;360[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Revolutions_of_1917%E2%80%931923" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Revolutions_of_1917%E2%80%9319...</a>[3] &quot;The Representation of the People Act 1918 saw British women over 30 gain the vote. Dutch women won the vote in 1919, and American women on August 26, 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Women%27s_suffrage" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Women%27s_suffrage</a>

On the margin, we&#x27;re comparing 2022 to 1922, 2021-2022 to 1921-1922, &amp;c. There&#x27;s little question that this span overlaps substantially, probably 80+%, with the 100-year spam of greatest change in humanity, but I think there&#x27;s a strong argument that, pretty say, 1914-2014 &gt; 1922-2022 (which amounts to that the changes of 1914-1922 were more substantial than those of 2014-2022). Where exactly the optimum is, of course, hard to say, though I do think the 2000s have been on the whole exciting enough that that the next serious cutoffs would be around 1905 or 1903, and not likely in between.

Arguably the largest change in humanity in a ~100 year span? Especially if we go back to 1922. Mass communication, mass travel, etc. were all non existent.Like the first radio stations had just started broadcasting when she was born, now we&#x27;re all discussing her passing on a communications network that connects the entire globe. Possibly some of us while on flights from one side of the world to the other.

This really is hard to comprehend. We live in more or less a completely different reality then when she was born.

&gt; 1929Actually 1926 but yes, a lot of history in those nearly 100 years.

Winston Churchill was her first prime minister.

A less charitable take could say that she oversaw the decline of the crown and collapse of the empire.

It&#x27;s always vague statements like that, or something to the effect of &quot;she witnessed some pretty important events&quot;, or &quot;she lived for very long&quot;. What did she do exactly, of note, in these 75 years? I still don&#x27;t know.

She navigated the changing world, role and importance of the crown across her reign with a lot of intelligence and grace.

It’s even higher now, the commonwealth countries have a population of 2.5 billion (almost 1&#x2F;3)

When she was born, the British Empire ruled over a quarter of the world’s population.

Born in April, 1926, it&#x27;s crazy how much the world has changed in her lifetime. May she rest in peace.

Closer to 2 years, as Louis reigned for 72 years and 110 days [1].[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_longest-reigning_monarchs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_longest-reigning_monar...</a>

She was just a year and a bit short of passing Louis XIV for longest reigning monarch. Almost made it...

There was a fairly mind-boggling bit in there too about the age gap of the Prime Ministers which served her.Winston Churchill born in 1874 and Liz Truss born in 1975 were her first and last Prime Ministers.

Closer to a fourth, but still impressive.

She reigned for about 1&#x2F;3rd of the time America has existed. Incredible.

:(It&#x27;s mind-boggling to me to think about how long 70 years of reign actually is. How many world leaders she has seen come and go. How much the world changed since then.

Saying that will take a bit of getting used to!

I don&#x27;t think so. From what I read and see I think the world is about to change or die trying in the next 30 years.This monarch and the following one will also witness great changes and they may play some role in it.

This is the end of an era.  I doubt any monarch can truly follow her legacy.

Spoiler: &quot;Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t even have a driver’s license. As Queen, she doesn’t need one.&quot; but &quot;as an Army driver during a war, she knew how to roll along Scotland’s winding roads.&quot;

Nice read!&gt;&gt;Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t even have a driver’s license. As Queen, she doesn’t need oneDidn&#x27;t know that either.

The driving the Saudi King story is my favorite <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;queen-england-terrified-saudi-king-driving-2017-2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;queen-england-terrified-saud...</a>

She always struck me as a person with extraordinary character and integrity. RIP

The many-many crisis&#x27; going on, the strikes, the incredibly unpopular ascent of a new prime minister and now this?Definitely destabilising.I suspect a collective mourning and unity of the country followed closely by civil unrest the likes of which hasn&#x27;t been seen in living British memory.

Argh, and she was so close to overtaking Louis XIV as the longest reigning monarch in history! I was really hoping we&#x27;d beat the French.But seriously, this is a momentous day for Britain and the world. She was a titan of public life, known to billions. The world will never be the same without her. I don&#x27;t know what these means for Britain but I expect it will be quite destabilising.May she rest in peace. Long live the king!

Stalwart and solemn, she lived a life submitted to one&#x27;s duty. Truly an end of an era.

Constitutional amendments that only come into force upon the death of the next monarch; I like it!

The Governor General does, and must, have real power. The King-Bing affair was controversial, but the Governor General&#x27;s action was arguably justified, and negative opinions of it do not set a precedent that the Governor General can never do anything. The Governor general arguably should have taken a more active role in some recent times - when Paul Martin and Stephen Harper were trying to dodge (successfully, it turned out) votes of non-confidence, which have to be allowed in a democracy. Certainly, if the Prime Minister blatantly violates constitutional convention, such as by refusing to resign after losing the confidence of the House, it is necessary for the Governor General to dismiss them.Since the Governor General must have real power, it follows that the Monarch must have real power regarding the appointment of the Governor General - rejecting the Prime Minister&#x27;s request to dismiss or appoint a Governor General when this is clearly an attempt to fill the position with someone who will allow the Prime Minister to act non-democratically.A dead person will not be able to fulfill this role.

&gt; I have an idea that&#x27;s only half insane.In the unlikely event that the UK were to abolish or deprecate its monarchy, Canada would still prefer not to re-open the Constitution. This might indeed lead to Canada worshipping &quot;The Crown&quot; without anybody to wear said ceremonial headgear.In other words, the logical contortions of a democracy naming one family as being more important than anyone else, and it being a family without power anyway, are less painfully absurd in Canadian politics than discussing the Constitution. ^_^

I have an idea that&#x27;s only half insane. Bear with me. Let&#x27;s assume we want to get rid of the monarch as Canada&#x27;s head-of-state. Canada will not be able to feasibly do so because it opens up too many difficult questions about re-structuring our government. Ergo, we will probably just coast on the status-quo. But we could use the desire for everything to stay the same to our advantage by declaring the Queen Elizabeth II the Eternal Monarch even in death.The Monarch of Canada is a ceremonial position. The Monarch&#x27;s representative (the Governor General) is appointed by the Prime Minister and has no real power (see: the King-Bing Affair for legal precedent), and therefore could technically be done by anyone from anywhere (even beyond the grave). Politically speaking, absolutely nothing would have to change. The Monarch&#x27;s effective power in our political system would go from basically zero to literally zero, thus eliminating an avenue for potential abuse of power that we risk by keeping a living Monarch as head-of-state. We could achieve this without having to re-open difficult constitutional questions. Traditionalist Canadian institutions with &quot;Royal&quot; in their names (Mounted Police, Army, Airforce, etc) would not have to change their names or branding. Heck, we wouldn&#x27;t even have to change the designs on our money. Literally nothing would change except closing a loop-hole (albeit a very low-risk one) for potential power abuse in our political system.The only down side is that smug know-it-alls can say &quot;actually Canada is not a democracy, it&#x27;s a Constitutional Necrocracy&quot;

RIP. As a Canadian I&#x27;ve always liked that we technically had the Queen as our head of state. I wonder how attitudes will change now that her 70 year reign.

Queen Victoria also reigned for a very long time - 63 years, seven months and two days.A list, British Kings &amp; Queens - by Length of Reign: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;britroyals.com&#x2F;reigned.asp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;britroyals.com&#x2F;reigned.asp</a>These two women take the two top spots.By the way, in the otherwise completely unremarkable hobby-writer webnovel &quot;Monroe&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.royalroad.com&#x2F;fiction&#x2F;35398&#x2F;monroe" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.royalroad.com&#x2F;fiction&#x2F;35398&#x2F;monroe</a>) the queen was a - very popular - side character. After the introduction of &quot;magic&quot; in our universe she got her youth back and started killing monsters using armor and huge sword used by her ancestors hundreds of years earlier, in a sword and magic and levels fantasy universe. The author kept writing chapters about this initially not very important side character after it turned out a lot of readers found the Queen returning to youth and becoming a sword fighting and magic throwing monster killer at least as if not more appealing than following the story&#x27;s actual main character.Sample chapter where she appears (look for &quot;queen&quot;, it&#x27;s down the middle of this chapter): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.royalroad.com&#x2F;fiction&#x2F;35398&#x2F;monroe&#x2F;chapter&#x2F;847152&#x2F;chapter-two-hundred-and-ten-god-save-the-queen" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.royalroad.com&#x2F;fiction&#x2F;35398&#x2F;monroe&#x2F;chapter&#x2F;84715...</a>

Hm. I count six.Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II (joint monarch with Willam III), Anne, Victoria, Elizabeth II.

6th I think:  Mary I, Elizabeth I (from Henry viii), Mary II (with William iii), Anne (both Stuarts), Victoria and Elizabeth II.

Surely not.* Matilda (Rarely listed)* Jane (1553 for 9 days)* Mary I (1553-1558)* Elisabeth I (1558-1603)* Mary II (1689-1694, joint with William III)* Anne (1702-1714)* Victoria (1837-1901)* Elisabeth II (1952-2022)

Interestingly, for 134 of the last 200 years (i.e. 2&#x2F;3), the UK was ruled by a Queen.

Yes. Interestingly, though, she was only the 3rd Queen in British history (Edit: Oops, ok, 6th actually. Edit 2: ok the point is that there have been many more kings than queens!). But since her reign was so long there are few people alive who can remember a king on the throne.

In the Netherlands we changed from queen to king in 2013, and you get used to it quicker than you&#x27;d think. There had been queens (rather than kings) since 1890!

&gt; In a statement, Buckingham Palace said: &quot;The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and the Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.&quot;Hearing &quot;The King&quot; in this context will take a long time getting used to.

There were admirable things about her as a person, but the concept of monarchy is a stain on humanity. I can&#x27;t respect anyone who supports the idea of superiority by virtue of bloodline.

Fascism, communism and monarchy are a different side of the same coin.

Please don&#x27;t respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes everything worse.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>

&gt; Sad on a human level, but she spent her years as the figurehead of an inherently fascist, racist institution — royalty.She was fighting fascist and Nazis before your parents were even born

It&#x27;s the concept of monarchy I have a problem with. Not the UK in particular ( though your actions in Northern Ireland remain shameful).

&quot;Don&#x27;t feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead.&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>

Look at Liz Truss&#x27; cabinet and the overall upward mobility of minorities in the UK and explain how there&#x27;s any credible argument of fascist&#x2F;racist leadership that pervades (as opposed to harasses) UK society? No doubt your assessment standard will be perfection from which you will cherry pick counter examples, but the reality is no country in the world has integrated more successfully - overall - than the UK.

Apologies. In retrospect a comment that didn&#x27;t add much.

Please don&#x27;t take HN threads into political flamewar or on tedious generic tangents.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>

Sad on a human level, but she spent her years as the figurehead of an inherently fascist, racist institution — royalty.&quot;Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.”

I&#x27;m not British so I won&#x27;t recommend what they do with their monarchy, but I agree with you that her descendants are an unimpressive lot

No they do not and for that very reason we should abolish the monarchy. It is nothing but disappointment and indifference from here on. Go out on a high note I say. It doesn&#x27;t have to be in the French style, but it also doesn&#x27;t not have to be in the French style.

I admired her grace and incredible sensitivity to the role she played. To use an Americanism: &quot;they don&#x27;t make &#x27;em like her anymore&quot;

Heard on the BBC that Liz Truss was born 101 years after Winston Churchill.

Along those lines, Britain joined the EU a year after Smalltalk-72 and K&amp;R C were introduced. Smalltalk inspired Objective-C, which is still used today in Macs.

Yea, it seems like yesterday it got announced. I was working in Berlin with an English guy, he took it super hard. We went out for drinks after work and at the end of the night he was telling one of the Germans they were lucky - because they were still in the EU.

Counterpoint: it feels like it’s been going on forever

Can&#x27;t believe Brexit was voted 6 years ago, time flies so fast.

Truss wouldn’t care about that. If anything she’ll spin this to her advantage. It’s pretty common for governments to release embarrassing documents or unpopular changes during busy news weeks, or at the weekend, knowing that peoples attention is elsewhere.You don’t get to become a PM by playing nice.

She&#x27;s got much bigger things to worry about.

Oh I&#x27;m sure she at least appreciates the opportunity to bury some unappealing news. News broke e.g. of her decision to rescind all restrictions on fracking (and – just a funny coincidence – of the fact that her campaign&#x27;s biggest donation came from the wife of a BP exec), at about the same time as news of the Queen&#x27;s deteriorating health.

Well at this rate she may end up more well known for dismantling the Northern Ireland Protocol and breaking the Good Friday Agreement.

It&#x27;s a great cover for her potential early mistakes.

She was an abolitionist in her youth <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2qfg1AQnWIM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2qfg1AQnWIM</a>

It&#x27;s interesting you bring this up as in my view Truss is the antithesis of Queen Elizabeth II. Truss is somebody that would say anything that people wanted to hear to be popular and amass political power whereas Queen Elizabeth refrained from staying anything people didn&#x27;t want to hear to be dutifully detached from the fickleness of politics.

Alternatively, a new King took power less than 48hrs into her government. The ascendancy of a new monarch is at least as memorable as the passing of, in this instance his, predecessor.

I feel slightly bad for Liz Truss, since I imagine that one of the things she will be remembered is that the Queen died less than 48 hours into her government.

And she was queen of Australia for over 57% of its history.

Wow. That puts in perspective how long she lived and reigned... And how young the U.S. is.

Indeed she reigned for about 30% of U.S. history.(credit for observation goes to Matt Glassman)

&gt; her Prime MinistersI suspect that you don&#x27;t realize how bizarre this phrasing is for the vast majority of the world.

Put another way, her Prime Ministers saw the world from 1874 - 2022, nearly 150 years.

15 - Wilson served non-consecutive terms.

16 prime ministers came and went across her reign? Wow. Sounds like a year in the life of an Italian.

It will be hard to define Second Elizabethan architecture.

Technically the UK is a constitutional monarchy, which is a form of monarchy <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Constitutional_monarchy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Constitutional_monarchy</a>

You&#x27;re illustrating the difference between a monarchy and a democracy.The regular rotation of power is a feature, not a bug.

From independent India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru to current PM Narendra Modi - she met with a lot of them too.

Winston Churchill (1951–55)Anthony Eden (1955–57)Harold Macmillan (1957–63)Alec Douglas-Home (1963–64)Harold Wilson (1964–70)Edward Heath (1970–74)Harold Wilson (1974–76)James Callaghan (1976–79)Margaret Thatcher (1979–90)John Major (1990–97)Tony Blair (1997–07)Gordon Brown (2007–10)David Cameron (2010–16)Theresa May (2016–19)Boris Johnson (2019–22)Liz Truss (2022 (two days ago) - current)Quite the reign! Can&#x27;t help but feel a bit sad really.

Please stop posting flamebait comments to HN. We ban such accounts and have had to warn you about this multiple times before.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>(for anyone rushing to post &#x27;oh so you support $hideous-thing do you&#x27; – no, just trying to have an internet forum that doesn&#x27;t suck)

Maybe he&#x27;ll be less corrupt than her, though. Unlikely, sure.Never forget that Beth used all of those skills to further enrich herself and her family, and protecting her pedofile son.

Rip. May she rest in peace. And the timing was impeccably terrible... Charles doesn&#x27;t have the skills, charisma, connections or political capital to help his nation in the upcoming hard times.

As a former Hong Konger from before the handover but has long ago become American, the news also made me sad. I&#x27;ve always maintained a degree of affection for her throughout the years. I think the dignity you mentioned really helped in that.

Was she? Did she? I couldn&#x27;t place a single example she set for the country, or moral she espoused other than aloofness and politeness. I&#x27;m not sure I would count either of those as a moral.Her behind doors effects on laws and how they would effect her interests may have set an example[0], but not a positive one.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;jul&#x2F;14&#x2F;queen-immunity-british-laws-private-property" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;jul&#x2F;14&#x2F;queen-immuni...</a>

The Queen is the moral heart of the kingdom. She set an example for us. There remains a feeling that we lost a light to look towards.

As a Brit who&#x27;s never really &quot;followed&quot; the Royals - I gotta say this makes me sad. The Queen stood for so much, in such a dignified way. May she rest in peace

And Josip Manolić still lives. [0](For context, this politician&#x27;s ability to keep outliving his peers is a local running joke.)[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Josip_Manoli%C4%87" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Josip_Manoli%C4%87</a>

She&#x27;s also been a moral authority.  She avoided the soap opera situations that have dogged the rest of the moral family and frequently she&#x27;s shown leadership.  In WWII she trained as a mechanic so she could do something tangible to support the war effort.

Not just British people.  Canadians, for instance, still have a role for the head of the commonwealth...

It&#x27;s understandable, she&#x27;s been a constant vague presence for a lot of British people.It feels like a minor part of our personal history died. I definitely feel saddened, even if I don&#x27;t have a connection with royalty.

I think it’s quite understandable to have an emotional response. People who become fixtures in our lives die and it instantly fires the signals of our own mortality we spend our lives suppressing.

Same here. And I&#x27;m an immigrant to the UK. Can&#x27;t help but feeling sad

&gt; I can’t see the commonwealth nations welcoming King Charles as their new head of state.Well this is precisely what is about to happen. There may be some hand wringing articles in major newspapers about whether the Royal head of state is still relevant, appropriate, blah blah blah, but there is approximately zero chance that anything will change in reaction to this news.

What is the sentiment like in the UK about Charles vs William? Heard lots of people calling for him to just hand it over to William straight away.

&gt; UK international relationsYeah, no. Countries don&#x27;t care about who is on the throne. They nod along to the British monarchy because they value diplomatic relations with Britain. Just like how they put up with Trump&#x27;s children.&gt; I can’t see the commonwealth nations welcoming King Charles as their new head of state.If you meant the Commonwealth of Nations, Charles was confirmed as the successor in CHOGM 2018. If you meant Commonwealth Realms, their close economic and military ties to Britain are not going to change anyways.I get that this is an emotional loss to Britain. But let&#x27;s not pretend there&#x27;s going to be a material difference.

Apparently, when I was little, I got excited one Christmas when the Queen’s speech was on tv, because I thought it was my Grandmother…I used to take comfort in the idea that all things pass in time, now not so much. Probably because I realised that includes everyone I love, and myself!I’ve no great love for the monarchy, but this is certainly the end of an era in British public life and likely in UK international relations - I can’t see the commonwealth nations welcoming King Charles as their new head of state.And it is weird, there are some things you just never expect to change. I’m hardly a spring chicken, but Queen Elizabeth was not only there my entire life, but Queen far enough into the past before I was born to have interacted with historical figures (like Churchill).

There is just that thing with those prison camps littering North Korea, the recurring famines, the fact that the Kim dynasty claims god-like status and more... so no, this is not a good comparison even though we of course do not really know how much of all this is known to the North-Korean populace.

Just reflect when we (as outsiders) were astonished by North Koreans mourning Kim Jong-Il.

during her lifetime the British Empire went from its zenith to its endleaving a trade bloc (Brexit) is hardly notable by comparison

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.

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&#x27;s just human nature.

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

An upvote for you (if I could). I&#x27;m American but have lived in the UK for near 20 years. My great-whatever grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence so I&#x27;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&#x27;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&#x27;s not discuss Andrew...Hopefully Charles will use the &quot;soft power&quot; 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&#x27;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.

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&#x27;s.

My understanding is that the late 70s and early 80s in England was a hopeless place. As evidence I submit Alan Moore&#x27;s introduction to V for Vendetta and Ghost Town by the Specials.- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slendertroll.tumblr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;66114152363" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slendertroll.tumblr.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;66114152363</a>
- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ghost_Town_(Specials_song)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ghost_Town_(Specials_song)</a>&quot;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.&quot;

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&#x27;d happened, you&#x27;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 &quot;badness&quot;, all you&#x27;re doing it reflecting what the TV told you to feel.

&#x27;Long period of stability&#x27; since WW1? WW2? The Cold War?Maybe you&#x27;re young, but this &#x27;feeling of stability&#x27; 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 &#x27;Democratic Socialist&#x27; changes occurred, desegregation&#x2F;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, &#x27;Brexit&#x27; is not a net negative thing (I think it&#x27;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 &#x27;neutral&#x27; 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 &#x27;root problems&#x27; was the EU powerhouse, Germany, abdicating it&#x27;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&#x27;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&#x27;s bad.Europeans are know this, Macron himself has suggested &#x27;something else&#x27; 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 &#x27;expanded&#x27; 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 &#x27;the grass being greener&#x27; in those countries.QE2&#x27;s death is definitely a kind of geostrategic demarcation, along with the failure of Russia in Ukraine as it&#x27;s &#x27;last gasp&#x27; as a major power, and COVID. The rise of China as well, but that&#x27;s in phases.This is kind of a WW1 moment.As for the future of the Royals? It&#x27;s hard to say - some progressives may want to think more &#x27;Republican&#x27; but I&#x27;m not so sure. We are choking on materialism and people are yearning for authentic things.&#x27;Secular Ideologies&#x27; including Socialism and Capitalism have brought us some nice things, but we are fundamentally more hollow. &#x27;De-culturlization&#x27; isn&#x27;t going so well, people are spiritually empty, we lack community. Putting a &#x27;Starbucks on Every Corner&#x27; of the world is good for the GDP, but it&#x27;s woefully lacking otherwise. A trip to the suburubs of Toronto where things are actually technically &#x27;good&#x27; from a culturally secular perspective (i.e. peace, jobs, people get along well) ... but you&#x27;ll find it&#x27;s a kind of cultural death: absolutely no local culture whatsoever, almost the entire population working for &#x27;local offices&#x27; of international firms, nothing to even identify the area as belonging to it&#x27;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&#x27;s &#x27;materialism&#x27; not true &#x27;prosperity&#x27;. It&#x27;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&#x27;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.

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.

Twitter is an echo chamber of edginess and not indicative of the average person in the real world.It&#x27;s like wondering what 4chan thinks of this.

That&#x27;s more a matter of what circles you&#x27;re in. Most people I&#x27;ve encountered have been much more moderate, separating the human being, who deserves to be mourned, from the institution.

The hashtag #IrishTwitter that artificially gets pumped up by Twitter&#x27;s recommendation algorithm does not equal Irish Twitter, and it certainly does not equal Ireland.

Speaking as an Irish person who hates inherited titles, those people are effing assholes. What part of don&#x27;t speak I&#x27;ll of the dead did they miss out on?

meanwhile, Irish Twitter and TikTok have been absolutely ablaze with celebration...

The phrase &#x27;free world&#x27; is ironically apt. It was developed in the Cold War to refer to the US-led anti-communist bloc, precisely because &#x27;free&#x27; is equivocal enough to cover despots ruling over capitalist economies. Of course, a Queen by definition is not an emblem of free government.

as an American this also makes me sad, the Queen is one of the leaders of the free world and in her passing, the world has lost a great leader

The most useful Twitter comment I saw today described the Queen as &quot;iconic&quot;.And I realised that&#x27;s exactly what she was. She was iconic in the religious sense - an embodied icon of a nationalist religion.This suddenly made a lot of things about the current state of the UK much clearer.There is no practical sense in which she was genuinely &quot;grandma of the nation.&quot; That personification goes one way only - from the population to what psychologists would call a parental projection.Objectively she paid almost no attention to her subjects, except for a tiny number who were socially or financially notable.She may have been witty and personable socially - as reported by many people - and perhaps the most interesting thing about her as an individual is that she trained as a mechanic during the war, taking delight in a job that women didn&#x27;t usually do, and continued that interest through her life.But I find the crypto-religious elements of the UK&#x27;s (actually mostly just England&#x27;s) relationship with her very unsettling.And I genuinely believe she could have done far more for the people of the UK than she did. Especially recently.Monarchy is a strange thing. When I flew to Bali on a Thai airline in the 90s a fair few pages of the inflight magazine were full of carefully manicured praise for the talents of the reigning monarch.It seemed bizarre and alien. But over time I realised the UK has a similar relationship with its monarchy.And where Heads of State are nominally expected to work for the Greater Good, it seems to be assumed that monarchs do the same, mostly by modelling social ease and extreme privilege.This is all quite odd. I&#x27;m sure there are reasons for it - possibly evolutionary - and I suspect they&#x27;re not obvious.

I share your feeling. I was struck by a deep sense of sadness as well. Maybe it’s silly, I don’t know, I sort of felt she was the grandma of the nation. It was a nice feeling knowing she’s there and a sad one knowing she no longer is.One thing is for sure. She did leave a mark. Winston God damn Churchill was her first time minister! When I will be old and have grandchildren, I will tell my grandchildren how I became a British citizen. And when they’ll ask me when, I’ll tell them during the reign of The Queen. And they will know who I mean.God rest her soul.

I&#x27;m very much the same, and have an enormous amount of respect for her. There&#x27;s a part of me that wonders whether this feeling of continuity - from the start of her reign which was only a few years after the independence of India until now - has kept the country in a kind of a weird stasis though. It&#x27;ll be interesting to see whether the UK&#x27;s view of itself shifts significantly over the next few years.

Honestly even the phrase from the article &quot;In a statement, His Majesty the King said&quot; struck me as unfamiliar.

Now would be a great time to change the national anthem to something without God or royalty in it.There is no place in modern society for a family who got all their wealth from wars and stealing it. Only to parade it around infront of millions of people in poverty.Lets get rid of them. Start by turning the palaces into social housing.

The words &#x27;God save the King&#x27; in the national anthem are going to feel very alien for a while I think, I feel a genuine sense of loss with the Queen&#x27;s death. I think it comes from a place of national identity in general rather than royalism specifically, royalist or republican it can&#x27;t be denied that Queen Elizabeth played a significant role in how the UK sees itself and to an extent how the rest of the world sees us and now she&#x27;s suddenly not there.

I was reading [1] (from 2017) this afternoon, I guess it came up because the queen was reported as being ill.&quot;People who are not expecting to cry will cry.&quot;Looks like they were right!Interesting read by the way which touches on many aspects.[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;mar&#x2F;16&#x2F;what-happens-when-queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;mar&#x2F;16&#x2F;what-happens...</a>

&gt; The only odd thing about a noble class in that sense is that we decide the job of &quot;role model and leader&quot; should be hereditary.I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s odd at all, in fact it&#x27;s pretty normal when you look at a long stretch of history. I&#x27;d wager that heredity based monarchy is probably the most common form of regime.

Royalty is interesting.I think it&#x27;s a very understandably human urge to hold up someone for emulation. The only odd thing about a noble class in that sense is that we decide the job of &quot;role model and leader&quot; should be hereditary.But I think it&#x27;s a very understandably human reaction to feel sorrow when someone who millions of people have invested so much energy into making the best person that can be is still mortal.

Now you know why people say &quot;good old days&quot;. Even though you&#x27;re living in the best days and the future will be even better.Your emotions is a result of imparted and perceived.

I&#x27;m surprised to say I feel the same. I&#x27;m Scottish and never really had much affection for the royal family, but I also feel quite sad and that it&#x27;s the end of an era.She was the last of the best, we&#x27;ll see what comes next.

&gt;It&#x27;s weird, I&#x27;ve never considered myself a &quot;royalist&quot; but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don&#x27;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 &quot;God save the Queen&quot; etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all things pass in time, which makes my heart ache deeply.I&#x27;m not even British and find myself feeling likewise. The Queen has been a fixture for a long time (before my birth and even before my parent&#x27;s birth as well). It is also probably because of Queen Elisabeth&#x27;s story was somewhat moving. It will take some time to get used to King Charles III...

Beautifully said. I’m an American and I feel this one too for some reason. It feels nice to stop and reflect on this a bit today — life, and all of it.

Even many non-Brits shared that respect and admiration.In 70 years, the number of gaffes&#x2F;crises linked to her person (rather than other members of her family) are few, perhaps the only dents were the Diana incident and the secret influencing of the law by the crown (&quot;royal consent&quot; and &quot;royal assent&quot; - e.g. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2021&#x2F;feb&#x2F;08&#x2F;royals-vetted-more-than-1000-laws-via-queens-consent" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2021&#x2F;feb&#x2F;08&#x2F;royals-vette...</a>).

I&#x27;m am American, but with a substantial Commonwealth connection. I am vigorously, vocally, unapologetically antiroyal. (I&#x27;m going to take this to an absurd extreme to make point, not to be incendiary.) I despise the whole cosplay, exploitative embrace of what is effectively an echo of dictatorship.But...Elizabeth was a remarkable person, filled with evident curiosity and willingness to connect with people despite being a reserved personality. She was a bit mischievous. She wasn&#x27;t defined by her job, she defined it.And beyond that, there are just so many constants that are about to change. I keep thinking how lucky we are that we have cashless transactions, because the abrupt switch from the ubiquity of Elizabeth&#x27;s face would have been much more noticeable 15 years ago (which sounds like a non sequitur, but ... her face is everywhere on money).

Fellow Brit here. I share this sentiment.I&#x27;ve never had strong views for or against the royal family but always felt genuine respect towards the Queen herself.She always appeared to be a morally strong character who tried to do the right thing.I always expected this would feel like a very strange moment when it finally arrived. I wasn&#x27;t wrong.

In some way, she was like one of those nice Grannies from your neighborhood. Had no big negatives, also not much positive for the average observer. Just a nice old lady, doing stuff with her family and being around for such a long time that she was some casual part of your world awareness.

IMO this is a normal way to feel about it. I&#x27;m american and while I&#x27;m not shedding tears, I do feel the significance. I&#x27;d have immense respect for her even if it were only for fulfilling one large role, honorably and consistently, for an entire human lifespan. How many politicians have? And I think she had a hard, hard job. Imagine having to live up to the expectations of a great Queen of England for that long without a meltdown or scandal.It&#x27;s quite a different context, however I felt sort of similar about John McCain, mostly for what he endured as a POW, and what he nevertheless went on to accomplish in politics.

there is something that harkens to our mortality when we witness something come to an end. I remember having some reactions to businesses failing and closing shop that I encountered as a youth. They always seemed and appeared so permanent. A place we&#x27;d always go to or pass by. Then the years go by and after encountering enough mainstays that had their heyday go under you realize that sentiment of durability and a perpetual landmark were never warranted in the first place and its kind of jarring and unsettling to realize how much flux there is in life.

I was very quietly watching BBC News whilst in a meeting. The news was announced just a couple minutes in, I didn&#x27;t expect to particularly care, but, apparently I do...

As an American, the news also made me very sad. Though it&#x27;s definitely not the same thing, we all &quot;grew up&quot; with the Queen.

We sometimes feel the weight of what we loved only when we lost them.

And, I have this dreaded sense that the turmoil is only going to get worse.

Perhaps it&#x27;s because the world is in such turmoil these days and we just lost one of the most (if not the most) stalwart figures on the world stage. I&#x27;m not British but that&#x27;s how it hits me.

I find this super interesting, and I have a hunch it has to do with how much the Queen&#x2F;monarchy has been revealed as human to us through media, movies, entire Netflix shows, etc.I mean, the Queen could just as well have been a made up figure to you or me, given the vanishing possibility she would affect any of our lives directly. Yet after watching those stories about her life, the monarchy, it manipulates your neurons to actually have a person to mourn. Funny, isn&#x27;t it? And the length of her life certainly gave enough material to feel some story.I imagine that before QE2, much state&#x2F;people mourning of the sovereign was just symbolic, and though perhaps somewhat heartfelt (I daresay, but more for loss of the symbol), not deep. For all their quirks and personality problems revealed to us on TV, it actually caused them to mean more to us.

I can&#x27;t think of much else that has been the case as long as Queen Elizabeth II being the monarch. There are more than a few pensioners out there who weren&#x27;t even born when she ascended the throne; I daresay that very few people under 75 years of age remember a time when she wasn&#x27;t queen before today.As a Canadian, the idea that she&#x27;s gone is... strange? Every single time I&#x27;ve ever held a coin (in Canada), she&#x27;s been on it. Every dime, every cent, every ten dollar bill. I have a difficult time with visual memory, but I know what those images look like because I&#x27;ve seen them a hundred thousand times.Now it&#x27;s going to be someone else? It makes sense, but it doesn&#x27;t feel right.

I feel similar. I am pro-monarchy but I&#x27;m not usually attached in this manner.

That&#x27;s perfectly normal - people felt that way (cried) when Kim Il-sung died, for some reason some people tend to worship their rulers.

I also don&#x27;t know why I feel that, but I wonder if it&#x27;s not for a more selfish reason. As in: &quot;I&#x27;m getting old and the things I knew disappear&quot;

I would respectfully submit that this is perhaps the product of conditioning.

Well now you mention it I do feel rather odd myself today, to the extent that I visited the cafe downstairs of my place of work and bought a lolly cake, which is simply the last thing I expected to happen today. Or perhaps the second-to-last thing… well, you get the picture.

Yes it immediately changed to God Save the King.

Would you guys change the national anthem?

Dat double rainbow …Gotta agree, what the fuck lol

Dude, I&#x27;m American and even more anti-monarchy. Hell, I&#x27;m anti-president, anti-congress, everything.But I feel the exactly same as you do, and it&#x27;s not even my damn country to boot.But, we all know why, or at least it seems to me...a lifetime of dedicated service, consistent and steady service to UK and the world both. Calm, cool. Loyal to country, husband, the whole shooting match.There&#x27;s a LOT to admire about the woman that has nothing to do with monarchy. But, almost everyone likes tradition. The 60 second minute and 60 minute hour have been around since Sumerian epoch 5,000 years ago. Tradition. We still use the name of the months from Rome 2,000 years ago. When a head of government has been around for 70 years, the person is not a monarch, that person an institution.So I had a lump in my throat, and felt some tears well up. Especially as I read that there was a double-rainbow as it was announced. I am not superstitious in the least, and still not about that, but still...

I am an atheist and as a french who lived in the Paris surroundings for years I got some tears when I saw Notre-Dame de Paris burning. I guess it is more nostalgia and the loss of what feels like a constant in our life. The more they stay the harder it is to see them go.Having said that while I am not the kind to wish for heads to roll I think it is a good time to realise you might not wish to allow someone else take her place and be an expensive parasite now =)

It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for political&#x2F;ideological&#x2F;nationalistic battle. We ban accounts that do that, because it&#x27;s not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. I&#x27;m not going to ban you right now because you posted a few better comments when you first created the account, but if you keep up this pattern, we&#x27;re going to have to. Same for posting flamewar comments generally, so please don&#x27;t do that either.Incidentally, we don&#x27;t need you to change any of your views, nor do we need you to conform to the majority here (which, although highly international, is certainly mostly Western). But we need you to follow the site guidelines, which means using the site for intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation, avoiding name-calling and personal attacks, avoiding flamebait, and not using an account for a mostly-political agenda. There are other places on the internet to fight those wars. We&#x27;re trying for a different sort of forum here.If you wouldn&#x27;t mind reviewing <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a> and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we&#x27;d be grateful.

I found the psychology of this comment very interesting. Beautiful expression of the realization that the West has lost to Russia.

&quot;God save the Queen&quot; is a beautiful song and anthem. I know it wouldn&#x27;t be kosher, given that it uses the same underlying music, but &quot;My country &#x27;tis of thee&quot; would be ten times better the US anthem than the &quot;Star-Spangled Banner&quot;. It&#x27;d be a stretch, but we could just say its metaphoric. :-) Musically, I think even &quot;Dixie&quot; is much better than SSB.  My condolences the the country of GB and the world for this loss.

The Queen was mostly a symbol, right? It makes sense that you feel sad - it is not just the person who has passed, but also, in part, some essence of that which she symbolized.

You most likely not one of those who were at the end of her might. You were not the one who suffered when she went on a tour to curtail the independence movements in the colonies, making her one of the biggest PR person for death and destruction.Or one of the Children that her son raped and who she protected.And so on and so forth.One less evil person in the World.

The same effect as watching a cartoon from your childhood.

She was a motherly figure to all Brits. It&#x27;s painful to lose someone who you know genuinely cared for you. Even if she never met you.

It&#x27;s weird, I&#x27;ve never considered myself a &quot;royalist&quot; but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don&#x27;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 &quot;God save the Queen&quot; etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all things pass in time, which makes my heart ache deeply.

“I declare before you all, that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service”Rest in peace.

I had a similar experience. I saw news of her death online and assumed it was some sort of hoax. When I woke up the next morning and saw it on the (TV) news I had this weird “Holy shit! The internet was right!?” moment. It was very surreal. Up until that point I hadn’t even considered that the internet could be used for much beyond screwing around and chat rooms let alone that it could be a platform for breaking news!

Your parent comment never claimed that real-time news was a good or bad thing.

&gt; My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.I&#x27;ve had the opposite experience. It&#x27;s clear that real-time news is detrimental, and it&#x27;s better for reporting to wait a bit for facts to come in and analysis to be done.Early reporting is vague, light on facts, disjointed, facts are hedged, etc. It&#x27;s really quite worthless.

The Queen learned of her father’s death by telegraph — her own death was announced by tweet.

I remember clearly the time when Princess Diana died (1997). For me, it was THE moment when I understood the impact of the Internet. I was randomly browsing the web during the night in Mexico, and suddenly I started to see websites (I think Yahoo and MSN at that time) showing the news. I went to sleep without giving it too much attention.Next day, all the news in my country were mentioning the death as breaking news. My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.May the Queen rest in Peace.

I think he means literally on the bank notes and coins.

Don&#x27;t worry too much about for money. From what I know, the royal family brings in far more in taxes on merch &#x2F; tv coverage rights &#x2F; other revenues than it takes to sustain them. They also have a considerable estate which is likely profitable.

RIP. I don&#x27;t look forward to her being replaced by Charles on my money.

Queen Elizabeth II has died