The Constitution of Athens

Why HN readers recommended it

Recommended in governance threads for showing how randomness and short terms prevented power concentration.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Historia Civilis

Topic

athenian democracy

Format

explainer

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

3

Recommendation years in dataset

2018–2026

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• In ancient Athens only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military duties were able to vote, roughly 20% of the population. This seems pretty oligarchic today but it was a massive improvement in the council of elders that used to rule before that. …

• The ancient Athenians used something similar to select their leaders: [LINK] EDIT: I remember this from a Historia Civilis video: [VIDEO] You should watch the whole thing (it's pretty interesting) but skip to 8m00s to watch the part about sortition.

• Perhaps you're joking, but Athenian democracy had a significant amount of randomness, with candidates being chosen randomly from the top vote winners. Terms were also only 1 year for most positions. These, and other systems, helped prevent any one person from monopolizing power. This is …