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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Spookykou

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joined 2023 March 08 17:24:53 UTC

User ID: 2245

Spookykou

0 followers follows 0 users joined 2023 March 08 17:24:53 UTC

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User ID: 2245

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025

Spookykou 16d ago

Beware The Femboy Of One Study.

Results Gynandromorphophilia (GAMP) is sexual interest in gynandromorphs (GAMs; colloquially, shemales) ... GAMP men had arousal patterns similar to those of heterosexual men and different from those of homosexual men.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

Spookykou 19d ago

Don't ask women for sexual favors at work, avoid touching your colleagues without their consent, don't send unsolicited dick pics.

A guy got fired after being overheard joking about his big dongle at a conference.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

Spookykou 19d ago

FWIW in Japanese there is a suffix, -ne which basically means, 'isn't it so?', 'right?', this agreement seeking suffix is associated with feminine speech.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

Spookykou 22d ago

Interesting link. Does anyone else feel the author writes jokes exactly like ChatGPT?

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

Spookykou 22d ago

Ever is a long time. Probably the single largest cohort of people here are disaffected liberals who would have been pretty seriously offended by those group chats 15-20 years ago, I certainly would have been.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

Spookykou 28d ago

wolf inflation

I am so mad that I searched this.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

Spookykou 28d ago

I have never heard of Bessie Coleman before today educated in the public school system of Texas, and learning who she is, I think she is not worth celebrating or learning about.

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