5 ms·
My own no-basis 30 second gun theory - what if they are all the same way because one guy who was really good at making them passed the knowledge down that way.
by gretch 3y ago
My own no-basis 30 second gun theory - what if they are all the same way because one guy who was really good at making them passed the knowledge down that way. Then everyone else followed from that one teaching and never bothered flipping it. It wasn’t better, it just won the coin flip
- mmanfrin 3y agoYou can go a step further and (maybe, I acknowledge this is a stretch) apply some evolutionary pressure in that it gave defensive advantages they didn't think about and so the people whose castles this guy/his students built retained their wealth and built more castles from the same building style.
- slim 3y agoalso, when the number of stairs built that way reaches critical mass, any stair built otherwise will feel awkward
- usrusr 3y agoThat's what I find most fascinating about the claimed 70/30 distribution, I'd either expect something very close to even or far more lopsided. Perhaps a closer look at the numbers would show a very clear default direction plus a strong priority for symmetry where applicable?
- edgarvaldes 3y agoWhat if the 30 percent are more close in region or time?
- derekp7 3y agoI recall an interview with someone doing a late night talk show, that they tried putting the guest on the right side of the host but that didn't sit to well with audiences because they were used to seeing the guest on the left side. No reason for it other than that is what the first popular late show did, so everything else followed.
- vjk800 3y agoI like this, and the comment you replied to. I think most of the things we have are the way they are because of reasons like these, not because someone rationally planned them.
- dbrueck 3y ago> You can go a step further I see what you did there.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoI thought the current thinking was that no battle would ever come down to fighting on the stairway. If someone has already made it through all of your castle's defences to even be on the stairs, then the battle is over.
- dexwiz 3y agoAnd if you were defining a stairway, a spear is much better than a sword. Stand at the top, poke down.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoWouldn't a spear be much better than a sword for any defensive position? The problem with a phalanx is that it's hard to turn, not that attacking from short range is somehow better than attacking from long range.
- dexwiz 3y agoWho said anything about a phalanx? You can have a spear and a makeshift barricade at the top of the stairs.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago> Who said anything about a phalanx? I did. It's right there in my comment. I'm supporting the idea that a spear is superior in any defensive position by pointing out that the problem with an offensive block of spears is the need to move, which doesn't apply to defense.
- pas 3y agoit sort of does very much. defenders need to move a lot to compensate for their smaller numbers, no?
- 3y ago
- nonethewiser 3y agoSurvivorship bias
- ffgjgf1 3y ago> evolutionary pressure Wouldn’t you need the relevant event to not be extremely rare for that to matter? I mean a sieges were once in a several decades or even once in 100-200 years events on average. Actual direct assaults with combat occurring on the stairs were significantly less frequent than that. The defender being able to turn the tide at that point? Even less.
- fanf2 3y agoBut they aren’t all the same, they are 1/3 : 2/3
- lawlessone 3y agoMaybe that's the ratio of left and right handedness in medieval staircase builders. i joke.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoMy own guess - there’s already a bias towards right handedness. I assume that is related. I don’t know how these staircases were built but it may be that it’s slightly easier to build these staircases for right-handed people. And then maybe 30% of builders were left handed or some minority of the time the architect wanted to prioritize symmetry with another tower.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]