Hacker News Reader

Comment by Torwald | Hacker News Reader

>in Sparta they did it by shouting (loudest won — which the Athenians thought very weird)

I don't know why the Athenians thought this to be weird, I guess they had their reasons. But I can think of one benefit of the Spartanian way.

If you raise hands, you can quickly change when you see what others are doing. When you shout, you have to inhale as much as you can to shout as loud as you can. You first have to make up your mind, before you can hear others.

View on HN

Maybe they "thought" it was "weird" retroactively after the Peloponnesian War. Athens was mishandled pretty badly after it's defeat by the pro-Spartan government of the Thirty Tyrants. That on top of being at war with Sparta for more than twenty years would have made them pretty averse to anything Spartan.

Athens was mishandled pretty badly prior to the defeat as well, but that one is on them. Ostracizing the lead architect of an invasion right before the invasion is not a smart move when you've got an adversary willing to hire him to plan the defense.

Another slightly similar situation was the loss of Constantinople https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orban

Constantinople was already doomed to fall before 1453. The 4th crusade hollowed out the city, and even after being retaken it was never the same -- by 1453, it was an island in a sea of Ottoman territory.

Even to this day some forms of parliamentary systems use voice voting only going to a show of hands or card votes if the outcome is not obvious

Sounds like 'sizism' to me.

Election by acclamation isn't a contest among the candidates to see who can shout the loudest. It's a contest to see who gets more support (shouting) from the audience.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com