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So no merit, effort or capability-based gains; instead a straight title, prestige, wealth and inheritance gain through DNA, over which no offspring has any cont
by ninjagoo 26d ago
So no merit, effort or capability-based gains; instead a straight title, prestige, wealth and inheritance gain through DNA, over which no offspring has any control.
- ck2 26d agocould be worse, there are people all over the world that look startling a lot like Musk including in Africa but he won't do DNA tests (not making this up, google it)
- michaeljx 26d agoLike the good nepotistic society we are
- zdragnar 26d agoI'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?
- madaxe_again 26d agoAll 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.
- alberto-m 26d agoOr Plato's Republic, if one prefers older books.
- waterheater 26d agoYou 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37314083
- tbrownaw 26d ago> 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.
- cromka 26d agoExpert nobody is spending anything on the new prince?
- Plont 26d agoHe 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.
- jackb4040 26d agoAristocracies 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.
- waterheater 26d agoSo what's stopping the Belgian people from grabbing torches and pitchforks, marching to the castle, and demanding that this injustice be immediately reconciled?
- hyperman1 26d agoThe 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.
- senderista 26d agoEuropean constitutional monarchies seem much less autocratic than the current US presidency, so I don't see what the big deal is.
- Gud 26d agoThose are not our only alternatives.
- jackb4040 26d agoOrganized companies of men with guns, drones, tear gas, and access to the browser history of every person in the country
- Fnoord 25d agoThere was only one Prince. One does not become Prince.
- taskforcegemini 23d agothen he always was prince, just nobody knew?
- skrebbel 26d agoWealth gain? How?
- bell-cot 26d agoAre you advocating for all children being anonymized and raised in orphanages? Or a 100% inheritance tax? Or just expressing disappointment at your own relative lack of wealthy & famous recent ancestors?
- short_sells_poo 26d ago100% inheritance tax would be ideal, but it's never going to happen in practice.
- afh1 26d agoRemove the greatest incentive for long term investment, what could go wrong?
- omgwtfbyobbq 26d agoDepending on what motivations are, separate controlling interest from personal wealth, at least above some reasonable limit. Obviously easier said than done, but unless the predominant incentive for everyone is just to generate more wealth for themselves/relatives/etc, other existing incentives should be sufficient to invest.
- jackb4040 26d ago"you can't just abolish nepotism, that's tantamount to abolishing capitalism!" yes
- 98532468997522 26d ago"People bequeathing their own property is literally nepotism" - Tankies and their idols Stalin, Mao, and Kim Jong Un
- jackb4040 26d agoRNG green username has -1 total karma as I post this
- tecleandor 26d agoHe got equal inheritance rights as every person gets from his parents. In this case I see it as "You had a kid, you better take charge of that." Also: > But he will not receive a royal allowance, nor will he be expected to take on official duties, and he has no rights to the Belgian throne. Vandenkerckhove could take his father’s family name, Saxe-Coburg, but has indicated he may not choose to.
- bombcar 26d agoI mean that's a straight loss of 7 characters, 8 letters if you count it that way. Bad deal!
- vl 26d ago” But he will not receive a royal allowance, nor will he be expected to take on official duties, and he has no rights to the Belgian throne.” So it seems nothing will change for him.
- m3kw9 26d agohe can now borrow against that inheritance
- jstanley 26d agoYou know or you merely speculate?
- tyromaniac 26d agoThe article states he's due for a share of the inheritance, as to if he could get a prodigal son style advance I dont know
- guax 26d agoI got curious about this but it seems that this is also the case for all his siblings. His bio dad gets it (EUR 300k/y) because of a transitional compromise but the future princes aside from the presumptive heir to the throne will not get it. Not that they might be any close to being destitute given the estate size. As for him, I suppose you can sue for backpay child support.
- terabytest 26d agoSounds like the definition of monarchy?
- zuzululu 26d agoIf you view this life as a simulation and that this is the only possible one you will inhibit, it all looks absurd for the very thing you mentioned, the snapshot of it alone suggests chaos stochastic properties with seemingly no order but this isn't your fault as much of Western perspective has judeo-christian roots reject the Eastern philosophy that have preceded it for several milllenias thus I'd argue would be more grounded and accurate seeing that geographically isolated and separated cultures who have never come into contact with other have discovered the same conclusions. The new wave movement in the West frame it as a simulation hypothesis perspective, your DNA is the passport through many simulations you've experienced and it carries the merit, effort and capabilities gained over time. We just call it Buddhism outside san francisco.
- green_wheel 26d agoYeah, people leave their things to their children. It's been happening for quite some time now. You should look into it.
- afpx 26d agoWait, you mean there's a place in the world where people with merit, effort, and capability thrive?
- fragmede 26d agoYes. unfortunately rich people without merit effort and capability are still rich and some of them don't work very hard, so it looks pretty much the same as every other place in the world.
- raincom 25d agoMoney can mask merit, effort, and capability. However, merit/effort/capabilities alone don't get one to the super elite class.
- geremiiah 26d agoHis ancestors murdered and stole a whole lot for him to gain that priviledge.
- RhysU 26d agoWasn't Leopold's line voluntarily offered the throne? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_I_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_I_of_Belgium
- isolay 25d agoLeopold II had millions and millions murdered in the Congo to make himself rich with rubber, but he wasted it all and in the end the Belgian people had to bail him out. No fortune to get from him.
- dgellow 26d agoThat’s what royalty is
- mrtksn 26d agoSounds like any rich kid ever TBH.
- toomuchtodo 26d agoThis is reality, meritocracy is the exception, not the rule.
- jrflowers 26d agoI like this complaint about a guy not using his merit, effort, or capability and taking the shortcut of inheritance to become a… prince