92% of the world's population was born after Queen Elizabeth became queen.

[jasc15]

Apparently today is the day QEII becomes the longest reigning monarch in British history.

I just read this article hoping to find some interesting factoids, but most weren't that interesting:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/09/queen-elizabeth-ii-about-become-britains-longest-reigning-monarch-so-here-are
Except maybe that she is 7% of English history.

What I thought was more interesting was that 92% figure, which I found by looking for world population by age:
https://www.census.gov/idb/worldpopinfo.html

Here is a distribution chart i just made from that table, showing that 92% of the world is younger than 64:



Also of interest is that half the world's population is under 24.

[black_biff_stadler]

I think that has to do with the ever-increasing rate of population growth. Similar to how more humans have existed since 1900 than the rest of history combined.

[El Barto]

Something I wondered about when I read about her, whatever you'd call this event, is how many British people actually care about the monarchy. She certainly seems like a wonderful person, and the princes certainly enjoy some popularity, although that seems as much like typical, modern day celebrity, to be honest, but the monarchy itself seems almost completely meaningless at this point. As I understand it what's made her such a popular queen is that she's done absolutely nothing except minimize the role of the monarch. Great. It seems like she's succeeded, so what's the point now?

[jonnybaxy]

Something I wondered about when I read about her, whatever you'd call this event, is how many British people actually care about the monarchy. She certainly seems like a wonderful person, and the princes certainly enjoy some popularity, although that seems as much like typical, modern day celebrity, to be honest, but the monarchy itself seems almost completely meaningless at this point. As I understand it what's made her such a popular queen is that she's done absolutely nothing except minimize the role of the monarch. Great. It seems like she's succeeded, so what's the point now?

As an English person, I like a good monarchy, but this one is useless, the current queen gave up our power after the second world war, destroyed our empire, then decided that the Prime Minister should have all the power and she'll just sign off any laws they come to her with...

She's nothing but a figure head now.

[jasc15]

I think that has to do with the ever-increasing rate of population growth.

The rate of population growth has actually decreased over the last 50 years, and the median age of the worlds population has increased at least over the last 5 years.  When I made that chart in my OP, I initially did it for 2010, but realized there was data for 2015.  When I changed it, the cumulative curve and histogram shifted slightly to the right from 2010 to 2015.

Similar to how more humans have existed since 1900 than the rest of history combined.

This isn't correct either.  It's estimated that there have been about 100 billion humans to have lived on earth.

[Kwyjibo]

Something I wondered about when I read about her, whatever you'd call this event, is how many British people actually care about the monarchy. She certainly seems like a wonderful person, and the princes certainly enjoy some popularity, although that seems as much like typical, modern day celebrity, to be honest, but the monarchy itself seems almost completely meaningless at this point. As I understand it what's made her such a popular queen is that she's done absolutely nothing except minimize the role of the monarch. Great. It seems like she's succeeded, so what's the point now?

Not english, so I don't know how they feel, but if you want the be a democratic state, your monarchy can only exist for representative reasons and it's probably nostalgia that they haven't ditched it completely.

Seems like an european thing, maybe because of historical reasons, as there are currently kings or queens in Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and probably other countries I forgot to mention, that have no real function besides representing the country and filling the yellow press.

[jasc15]

I don't know much about the royal family or its cultural role in Britain, but I wonder what the likelihood is of the future King William dissolving the monarchy somehow.  Since QEII greatly reduced or even eliminated any power of the monarchy, dissolving it entirely might be the next step.  Otherwise, what could his legacy be?

[ariich]

Something I wondered about when I read about her, whatever you'd call this event, is how many British people actually care about the monarchy. She certainly seems like a wonderful person, and the princes certainly enjoy some popularity, although that seems as much like typical, modern day celebrity, to be honest, but the monarchy itself seems almost completely meaningless at this point. As I understand it what's made her such a popular queen is that she's done absolutely nothing except minimize the role of the monarch. Great. It seems like she's succeeded, so what's the point now?

Not english, so I don't know how they feel, but if you want the be a democratic state, your monarchy can only exist for representative reasons and it's probably nostalgia that they haven't ditched it completely.

I would say that it's tourism and all the economic benefits that come with it, more than nostalgia. I'm British and not pro- or anti- monarchy, but I can definitely see the economic benefits of keeping them around.

[Genowyn]

It's an economic thing. The Royal family owns a lot of land privately that the elected government has the right to any profits from, a small portion of which is used to support the Royal family. Ending the monarchy would mean they are just a rich family who still owns all that land, and now none of the profit goes to the government. In other words it would cost uk taxpayers more if they ditched the monarchy.

[Sub Luna Vitrea]

What if they ditched the monarchy and seized the means of production in the name of the proletariat?

[ZirconBlue]

They could convert to a sort of anarcho-syndicalist commune, where they take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting.

[Sub Luna Vitrea]