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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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Skylab

Beware of he who would deny you access to information...

1 follower follows 4 users
joined 2022 September 09 02:56:55 UTC

User ID: 1057

Skylab

Beware of he who would deny you access to information...

1 follower follows 4 users joined 2022 September 09 02:56:55 UTC

No bio...

User ID: 1057

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 14, 2024

Skylab Beware of he who would deny you access to information... 3mo ago

You don't really know a poem until you can recite it out loud by memory. That's how you get inside of it, imo

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 14, 2024

Skylab Beware of he who would deny you access to information... 3mo ago

I don't really comment anymore because I dislike the over moderation.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

Skylab Beware of he who would deny you access to information... 4mo ago

Hypothetical- this ruling is not contested. Instead GOP gives support to RFK jr.

In a state Biden would almost certainly win against Trump, he could conceivably lose to RFK jr thus depriving Biden of Colorado's electoral votes.

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Highlights From The Comments On Elon Musk

Skylab Beware of he who would deny you access to information... 6mo ago

As a dumb person, I still contest that street smarts exist. I would compare it growing up in in a dangerous forest compared to growing up in a gated suburb.

You learn about poisonous snakes in a way that many "smart" people never have to.

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 8, 2023

Skylab Beware of he who would deny you access to information... 6mo ago

I have a silly question about the stock market and what is meant by volume.

In my neophytic understanding, volume in the market is the number of trades taking place. Many traders pay careful attention to volume before making trades.

My question is in the age of algortihms and ai, isn't volume immensely pliable?

Why can't an A.I. make a million one dollar trades instead of one million dollar trade? Andnif they do so, won't that impact "volume" a million times more?

Maybe I fundamentally misunderstand the concept of market volume. Is it the number of agents trading or the number of trades made? And either way, wouldn't an army of a.i. trader easily manipulate volume, if possible, to their advantage?

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