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.

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LateMechanic

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joined 2022 November 12 00:03:16 UTC

User ID: 1841

LateMechanic

0 followers follows 0 users joined 2022 November 12 00:03:16 UTC

No bio...

User ID: 1841

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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

LateMechanic 3d ago

I'd say 'endless rule of cool' ramping like that can be rather entertaining, at least while you're into it, before falling off the train at some point when you decide you're bored or it's not leading anywhere.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

LateMechanic 16d ago

As an aside: a million views in 4 days, with commenters all japanese train-enjoyers apparently, experiencing the call of the void here. Too interesting finding random pockets of youtube.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

LateMechanic 24d ago

You never, ever, EVERRRRR see a lefty extremist going full "Vote for Donald/The Republican candidates down the ticket to teach our side a lesson!"

I think there were plenty of us who did this in 2016, and then again in 2020, both after the primaries, if you wanted to see the democrats go in the bernie direction after being disappointed by obama and democrat supermajorities in 2009. Although the culture war issues shifted such that I just abandoned the democrats anyway instead of trying to push them in any direction.

Actually the Fuentes strategic vote-for-democrats angle didn't really make sense to me at first, as someone who never really had much hope in the republicans in the first place, and am still just wanting to see the current democrats punished, wiped out, and remade as something else. But then I realized it's almost an identical feeling for him and other young guys as the 2016 era bernie bros: they actually want to see a lot of the current republicans wiped out and remade as something better, and are looking strategically to the future: 'if hillary wins, the democrats are actually more fucked long-term, she'll be the automatic candidate again in 2020, some goof is her VP next in line, no more competitive primaries for a long time, people learn the wrong lessons, etc.'. 'If vance & rubio aren't severely damaged, then there won't be an open competitive primary with any oxygen for something better / more extreme in the republican party for a decade or more'.

Maybe it's always guys in their 20s who are more willing to make moves like this. Though as you guys mentioned, for a lot of people who could never stand the social stigma of switching to voting republican, the usual (more cowardly IMO) path is just to try to loudly vote 3rd-party as punishment to at least be slightly strategic as a voting block.

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