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.

New post guidelines

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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SkoomaDentist

The Greater Finnish Empire

0 followers follows 0 users
joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC

User ID: 84

SkoomaDentist

The Greater Finnish Empire

0 followers follows 0 users joined 2022 September 04 19:08:00 UTC

No bio...

User ID: 84

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Friday Fun Thread for April 10, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 8hr ago

as there is no person on earth worse at MS paint than me

I bet I could challenge you in that...

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Friday Fun Thread for April 10, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 14hr ago

Thanks. Now I just need to figure out how to do that on ipad and make it persistent...

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Friday Fun Thread for April 10, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 1d ago

That site is close to unusable due to the spoilers being hidden unless you make an account. All for no good reason.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 3d ago

I don't know, man. I'm not really convinced. They really should add blockchain there somewhere to ensure the security.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 3d ago

If Marvel had been casting women who look like this instead of Scarlett Johansson, this thread probably wouldn’t have been made.

Hell, they can't even seem to bother casting women who look like this.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 4d ago · Edited 4d ago

Having just spent the Easter weekend with my brother’s small kids, there was a lot of kid stuff but remarkably little of it was anything I’d call ”dumb”. Occasional silly (and TBH fun) stuff as you’d expect but mostly helping them get toys / puzzles, dressing for outdoors, pushing them in the swing and making sure they didn’t run into the water without rubber boots on.

5/5, will do again.

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 5, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 6d ago

That would be a cruel and unusual punishment for the bears.

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 5, 2026

SkoomaDentist The Greater Finnish Empire 6d ago

Won’t someone think of the bears!

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