The Motte

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What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.

Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.

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If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!

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ChickenOverlord

1 follower follows 0 users
joined 2022 September 04 22:31:16 UTC

User ID: 218

ChickenOverlord

1 follower follows 0 users joined 2022 September 04 22:31:16 UTC

No bio...

User ID: 218

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

ChickenOverlord 16hr ago

Roadside Picnic

I have to wonder how many of the developers of various clones/knockoffs of the Stalker video games are aware of the franchise's origins.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

ChickenOverlord 22hr ago

Would you consider Salazar's Portugal to be fascist? Because it committed no mass murders, the only significant civilian deaths his regime caused were in various conflicts to maintain control of Portuguese colonies in Africa etc. And it doesn't seem like his track record there is any worse than the other European colonial powers. And certainly far better than literally every communist regime ever.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

ChickenOverlord 1d ago

Also even if we assume it true that all men are created equal, there's no reason to assume that they remain forever equal.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

ChickenOverlord 1d ago

Children insisting upon receiving the full rights and privileges of adults would be a congruent third leg but at least so far almost nobody seems dumb enough to push for that.

We did have that one guy (I think his username was something to do with baseball?) who wouldn't ever talk about anything other than child emancipation. I think his arguments were retarded, but really his biggest flaw is that he was unwilling to talk about literally any other topic, it was always the same points rehashed over and over and over.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

ChickenOverlord 6d ago

Also the worst times for jews have been in all white societies.

What does Purim celebrate again?

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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 23, 2026

ChickenOverlord 6d ago

Oswald? Or one of the grassy knoll guys?

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