Ideal Royal Succession

[metroid composite]

So...the British monarchy acts under a system where sons inherit before daughters, and older children inherit before younger children.  This seems highly unlikely to change anytime soon, but it does raise the question of, assuming you have to choose a monarch out of direct descendants based purely on age and gender, what particular algorithm is the ideal choice for the 21st century.

Before I move on, let me first say that this topic is not a discussion on whether or not England should still have a monarchy.  (The answer is yes because it brings in truckloads of tourism money).

Let me also say that I firmly suspect that the question of who is next in line to Elizabeth II is probably completely irrelevant.  She's 82, and in good health, and her mother lived past 100.  By the time Lizzie is 110, presumably scientists will be able to transplant her brain into a robot (probably a little girl robot since we seem to be a lot better at building 3-foot biped robots than 6-foot biped robots), and then Lizzy-2 will reign as Robot Queen of England forever, and all will be right with the world.


So...anyhow, what are the qualities of the best monarchs in England, at least in terms of age and gender?  A quick Google search points out the three candidates for greatest monarchs are...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6936537.stm
Queen Victoria
Gender: female
Age: 18 when she took the throne

King Henry VIII
Gender: male
Age: 17 when he took the throne

Queen Elizabeth
Gender: female
Age: 24 when she took the throne

But...okay, what made a good monarch 500 years ago may not be what makes a good monarch today (notably, Henry VIII would be a bit of a disaster, what with the 8 wives and wanting to change the church of England).  So...what makes a good monarch today?  An interesting question.  Looking at the duties that Elizabeth II performs (beyond just smile and wave), notably she meets and consults with the Prime Minister regularly.  At first she was the student--famously the first Prime Minister she swore in (Sir Winston Churchill) said to her "girl, I'm going to teach you a thing or two about politics," 55 years of experience and consultation later she acts as a voice of wisdom and experience to the current Prime Minister, which actually sounds pretty useful to me.  In other words, an ideal monarch would, much like Victoria, Elizabeth 1, and Henry 8, take the throne at a young age to experience a longer term.

Which raises the first concern about the current succession structure.  In the unfortunate event that Super Robot Elizabeth does not happen, we'll see 80-year-old Charles succeed to the throne; not only would he have a relatively short time to build up the wisdom of the prime ministers, but 80-year-olds learn a lot slower than 18-year-olds so he'd absorb less of it during the same time.  In fact, Elizabeth's youngest son would probably be at least 64 by the time she dies.  Seems to me you should be prepared to look among grandchildren / great grandchildren as well.  So the question becomes: how young do you go?  Say, 2-year-old is obviously too young.  Elizabeth II's father declined to take her on tour with him when she was 13, saying that she was too young for a strenuous month-long tour, and there's a fair bit of merit to that (for the same reason the olympics puts a minimum age on Gymnists--kids with unnatural stress when they're growing can get screwed up).  Okay, but we have Victoria and Henry starting at 18 and 17 respectively; let's see...legal age to drive a car in England is 17; sure I guess--if you can drive a car you can rule a country.  Okay, so how about the youngest direct descendant over the age of 17.

Next we come to gender.  Now, arguably England's best monarchs have been queens (Henry VIII made a lot of changes, but that's not really what we're looking for in the modern day).  Now, looking into why, among other things both Elizabeth and Victoria never married, keeping themselves open as bargaining chips; this is hardly relevant anymore.  On the more relevant end, I've also heard the argument that the British were historically more willing to defend the honour of the queen, die for the queen, etc, which...is kinda relevant to the modern pure-figurehead role, actually.  In practical considerations, going back to the age discussion, women stop growing earlier, and tend to live longer.  In terms of symbolism, perhaps I'm cynical, but I suspect the elected prime minister will more often than not be male, so having a female symbol of power too is a nice balance.  Statistically, teenage girls are less likely to commit murder than teenage boys, so the risk of "I just turned 17 and need the current monarch to die now" scenarios is somewhat lessened.

That said, while a lot of little things seem to be stacked towards females here, there is an argument for non-discrimination just because the monarch you get will be younger on-average if you don't discriminate.  Which...well, let's run some statistics on the current royal family:
1952-1976 (0 years difference; same heir)
1977-1980 (10 years difference: Anne vs Andrew)
1981-1998 (14 years difference: Anne vs Edward)
1999-2000 (32 years difference: Anne vs William)
2001-2004 (34 years difference: Anne vs Harry)
2005-2023 (0 years difference; same heir)
2023-?? (4 years difference; Severn vs Louise)
Alternatively if the genders were reversed it would be mostly a 0-2 year gap until 2005 (4 year gap), then 2007 (6 year gap) then 2020 (19 year gap).  Hmm...yeah, really not liking these 20-year-gaps; I guess fairness and equality win over sexism; sunshine and rainbows for everyone!


So...my proposal:
The youngest direct descendant over the age of 17.

[Cotigo]

Let me also say that I firmly suspect that the question of who is next in line to Elizabeth II is probably completely irrelevant.  She's 82, and in good health, and her mother lived past 100.  By the time Lizzie is 110, presumably scientists will be able to transplant her brain into a robot (probably a little girl robot since we seem to be a lot better at building 3-foot biped robots than 6-foot biped robots), and then Lizzy-2 will reign as Robot Queen of England forever, and all will be right with the world.

Yessssssssssss

Also don't you have a job or something MC?

[metroid composite]

I do, but today was "uninstall everything then reinstall" day for me.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Amusing read.

I think it sends a pretty rotten message to use gender into determing future monarchs; your argument that "we should have a queen because the PM is male" subtly reinforces the idea of male PMs, so even that's no go. I'd like to think we've come far enough as a society to be equal-handed about such things. I'm not really on top of these things, but they really should change the laws such that royal succession is not based on gender at all, preferably before William has children so that it's unlikely to actually matter while the law is passed.

[SnowFire]

Well, as you point out already, going to the youngest descendant is a revolving door that offers tremendous moral hazard.  Also, if it just means the youngest descendant of the current monarch, that means that once the monarch is a grandparent their first set of kids get to compete among each to time their breeding right to match up with their parent's death, hardly a fun thing to contemplate.  I'm also not entirely convinced that age at ascension matters that much.  I think it's nice just as far as not changing the coins all the time and continuity, but I'm going to presume that the prince gets to rub arms with famous people too and can train to be the King/Queen while they're in waiting.

As a quick niggle: Victoria certainly married.  She was the grandmother of 2/3 of the European royalty and all.

Also, I'm not sure I follow why non-discrimination would cause monarchs to be younger.  If there's an elder sister, currently she gets passed over for a younger brother, but with strict primogeniture that wouldn't be true.

Also, the "tourism argument" for the monarchy... is extreme bunk, at least IMHO.  Plenty of tourists go to see Versailles and the Bastille, or for that matter Washington DC.  And monarchs are expensive.  I don't think it's clear at all that it's a money maker...  and even if it was, then that really doesn't overwhelm republican arguments against the monarchy.  It's a matter of whether rewarding anybody by birth is the right thing a society should do.  (Not to get too sidetracked into the "should England be a monarchy" debate, of course, but if I were a pro-monarchist campaigner preparing for a referendum, I wouldn't try advertising this argument at all.  Reducing your side to tawdry money grubbing would be bad.)

[metroid composite]

I think it sends a pretty rotten message to use gender into determing future monarchs;

Well, yeah; I kinda tried to use as few assumptions as possible going into this, which included assumptions like "institutionalized discrimination is always a bad idea".  Funny how it still ended up being a remarkably bad idea without making any particular assumption that discrimination is something to avoid >_>

Also, I'm not sure I follow why non-discrimination would cause monarchs to be younger.  If there's an elder sister, currently she gets passed over for a younger brother, but with strict primogeniture that wouldn't be true.

It does if you're working under a "youngest descendant" inheretance policy; which is to say, "youngest female descendant" will be older on average than just "youngest descendant".

By contrast, if you're working with "oldest descendant" it has the effect of emphasizing the strengths of that model.  Oldest nongendered descendants will be more experienced and have seen more of the world when they succeed to the throne.  The royal parents can't try to mess with the heir by pumping out more children (which they currently can if they have a daughter whom they don't like, for instance).

It's a matter of whether rewarding anybody by birth is the right thing a society should do.

Ehh...more and more I'm really not sold on 100% principled philosophical morals.

Q: Is it morally acceptable to execute criminals? 
A: Does it matter?  The Canadian government determined that it's actually cheaper to keep them in jail for life than to provide a full death-trial.

Q: Is it really right to have seatbelt laws?  If people want to be stupid why not let them?
A: We pay their public emergency services bill, so let's put our foot down.

Q: Should alcohol be illegal?  It causes a great deal of dangerous situations.
A: No, because as we saw in the 30s, people will buy it anyway, providing lots of extra income to black market smugglers.  Also: we can tax it this way.

Q: Should Quebec scede from Canada?  There is a very clear cultural divide between French Canada and English Canada.
A: That would be very bad economically both for Quebec and for Canada as trade lanes and offices get split up by an artificial border.

Q: Was it really the right thing for BC to legalize gay marriage before the rest of Canada?
A: Hell yes, some estimated 1,000 weddings from out-of-Province = cash from tourism.

I mean, for each of these there are deep philosophical arguments on both sides of the table...but at the end of the day there's one really obvious practical economical answer.  Yes, I understand that the two sides of the argument aren't going to argue in economic terms, they're going to argue in terms of principles and philosophy.  But frankly, generally you're looking at 10% zealots for, 10% zealots against, and 80% of people who don't really care that much and are more interested in the country running smoothly.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Regarding the economic arguments on the monarchy, I can't say I'm convinced either way. Measuring how much tourism the monarchy specifically brings in seems like it would be hard to measure.

Regardless, its economic effect isn't significant. I would wager a good amount of money that, even if Snowfire is correct and it's an economic drain, that it's much less of one than other things kept around for "principled" or symbolic reasons. I'm sure the U.S. spends more on its national parks, yet if someone suggested getting rid of those I'd be appalled. And if met is correct that it's making money, I doubt it's enough to be at that significant; the U.S. has done quite well for itself economically and tourist-wise without a monarchy.

So yeah, I'd consider that debate to be largely a principled one. (And one which I would leave to the British; it's their symbol. Though I think that if I lived there I would be in favour of keeping it; it kinda encapsulates a 942 years of national history.) And one that's not really really the point of this topic, anyway.

[Grefter]

To lazy to chime in since for some reason someone else is actually arguing my side of the argument for me (what the hell mc, you need to say fuck more often in your arguments by the way).

That said

It's a matter of whether rewarding anybody by birth is the right thing a society should do.

Hey if you want to abolish inheritance law I am down with that.  If not, then big fucking whoop as far as I am concerned.  Monarchy doesn't claim to rule by divine rule anymore last I checked, so big fat meh on any other philosophical pointer there.  They are a weird artifact, but they aren't in the way of running the countries in the Empire and they give us cool outs in our systems with things like Govenor Generals and whatnot.

Don't get me wrong, if a referendum came up for becoming a republic in Australia if the presented government was acceptable (last time it was not) I would support it, but it isn't a big enough deal to really push it.

[metroid composite]

To lazy to chime in since for some reason someone else is actually arguing my side of the argument for me (what the hell mc, you need to say fuck more often in your arguments by the way).

Haven't we already established that the two of us have identical idealistic views?  Namely, that the ideal world would be communist, enforced by little girls wielding umbrellas that shoot fire.

[SnowFire]

I was actually trying to stay out of the debate about royalism vs. monarchism and was merely pointing out that you're not going to convince people who are opposed on philosophical grounds with a very questionable fiscal argument.  Metroid composite, you raised the death penalty as an example.  Your logic says that zealots cancel out, so let's do whatever's cheaper.  The only reason that the death penalty is more expensive is because people want to waste time on wussy appeals nowadays to make sure they've got the right man.  If you just have the sheriff chop off his head after a single trial, the death penalty is considerably cheaper - this was certainly true in the past, for example, when food was comparatively more expensive and appeals didn't really exist.  So if the death penalty were to become cheaper again, should it be reinstituted?  Don't use this argument with "zealots" on either side!

Amusingly enough, I actually agree with the general thrust of your argument, except I'd say that the price has to be way higher for this to come into play.  There is no moral imperative to do the impossible, and CSI: Dark Ages just didn't have anywhere near the techniques we have nowadays to determine guilt or innocence.  Nevertheless, even with what was surely a higher error rate, crime needs to be punished.  And the expense in keeping a person alive in jail was very much non-trivial, and might risk the nutrition of everyone in the event of a famine.  That said, now that we can genuinely make a choice on the issue, we have to - it really is a moral issue now, and no waving the "necessity" flag either way.  It's a similar issue with, say, vegetarianism.  Vegetarianism was basically impossible "back in the day," but that doesn't magically mean meat-eating is right.  Maybe we just had to be evil back then, but now we can change.  Yay for the is-ought distinction.

The economic effects of the monarchy are pretty subtle.  My suspicion is that it's a slight drain on the economy - which can still be entirely be justified if you on principle believe that the monarchy is something worth preserving, as DHE notes.  But even if it's a slight boon to the economy, it can be argued against on principle too.  No way is the monarchy somehow keeping hungry mouths fed where there would be an economic imperative and necessity to keep it.

--
Grefter: Inheritance is a different kettle of fish than monarchy.  Money/property are private in most governments nowadays, and there's nothing stopping me from giving my money and property to somebody else.  As it happens many people like to give their stuff to their kids.  Selfish perhaps, but that's their choice - I'm uncomfortable with the government saying "No you can't give your stuff to the following people" because that can soon lead into, say, prohibiting donations to disliked group X.  I mean, how would an inheritance be any different from the many people who give their fortunes to charitable foundations after they die?  Or political advocacy groups / religions?  Anyway, if you allow people to give their money to whoever while they're alive, but make inheritance law too tough, then people just sign over all their assets in name while they're alive and "borrow" their own stuff, so it doesn't actually work.  I say this as somebody who has nothing but disgust for "old rich" dynasties and is fearful of the concentration of economic power...  but this is a case where the cure is worse than the disease. 

Governmental positions are different, because they're not private - they're for the benefit of "the People", that is the public, at least in republics.  A mayor can't "give" his position to his son because it was never his to give in the first place.  Similarly, since theoretically princes/kings are governmental officials, they really shouldn't have this power be privately theirs, but rather hold it in trust.  (Note that this falls apart under a 16th century reading of governmental power - the King really does "own" the whole nation, and all positions are handed out at his pleasure.  Hence all the references to "the Crown" where in the US it would say "the People," such as in trials.  But very few of even the hardcore monarchists hold to that nowadays.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Money/property are private in most governments nowadays, and there's nothing stopping me from giving my money and property to somebody else.

Actually, yes, there is. You're required by law to leave a minimum amount of your estate to your spouse/kids/etc. Also, if you don't leave a will, it defaults to them.

Governmental positions are different, because they're not private - they're for the benefit of "the People", that is the public, at least in republics.

The key word there is Republic. If the UK were one, we'd be calling it the UR instead. <_<

[SnowFire]

Correct but I suspect that what Grefter meant by "reform inheritance law" was "forbid people from giving their fortunes to their kids" or at least "tax the hell out of this."  Neither of us will complain about standard stuff like that (and I support the "tax the hell out of it" approach to a degree anyway).

Also, no, in the UK I'm pretty sure that the King no longer owns the entire state and everyone in it, officially, if it ever did (though hints remain in the language).  The English were actually pretty good about making it clear that the King serves the State, not the other way around (see: the Magna Carta), which is the only way a constitutional monarchy makes any sense since an absolute monarch could always tear up any constitution.  Sure, some kings claimed that they were absolute anyway (James II), but it didn't generally work (maybe Henry VIII was the last to get away with really ignoring Parliament?).  However this idea was pretty clear in, say, the old French monarchy, which is why I added my disclaimer.  (For monarchies, the English one is pretty enlightened, I think we can all agree.)

[Grefter]

The Monarch has very little real power, they handed most of that over to the people.  The Monarch is about as big a deal for an elected official as a loaf of bread functionally.  The office passing down via bloodline is roughly the same as a father passing along a company to a child.  The employees have no say who the owner is, but functionally unless the new owner actually gets actively involved int he company they have no real powerto change a great deal in it.  The Queen is just a really good consultant that has been trained for life to her position, if the next in line turns out to be a shit consultant they will just be ignored.

So yes I meant it in that giving a shit about Monarcy trading hands that way is about as big a deal as inheritance law.  Also see what NEB said.  The UK and all the people in the Empire may be Democracies, but we are not Republics.  We still are technically under the power of the Sovereign, but the reality of the situation is that if any particular Monarch kicks up a stink over something unreasonable they will be ignored, removed or revolted against while we generally only stick around in the empire because we as countries kind of like it.  That one is something to really remember.  Every country in the Empire is still part of it because they choose to be, even the UK.  So you could say they have hereditary succession because we let them.

mc well yeah, but normally our arguments towards those goals are kind of polar opposites at times, I mean sure we both want world peace and a solution to problems, but your solution isn't always to kill of 3/4 of the planets population >_>

[metroid composite]

mc well yeah, but normally our arguments towards those goals are kind of polar opposites at times, I mean sure we both want world peace and a solution to problems, but your solution isn't always to kill of 3/4 of the planets population >_>

Depends on how loose your definition of "kill" is.

I mean, if you magically transform the person into a little girl, then overwrite their memory so they become a person who loves hopscotch, sharing, and math problems...does that count as killing?  You've pretty much wiped the original from existence....

[Excal]

...

So, the real evil genius of the DL is, in fact, MC.  Never would have seen that one coming.