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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   4363 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 04, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Are people sentimentally attached to the motte logo? I don’t recall seeing it much under the old.Reddit layout. Might this be a time to switch? I generally don’t love modern aesthetics, but I imagine someone could come up with something a bit better that still retains the motte and Bailey imagery.

Also the name itself. Through it's definitely too late to change this.

Scott himself, in the post where he introduced (popularised?) the term, said

This is a metaphor that only historians of medieval warfare could love, so maybe we can just call the whole thing “strategic equivocation”, which is perfectly clear without the digression into feudal fortifications.

There's a motte logo? Is it the weird liquid metal-esque image at the top of this site?

At the top of the page I see liquid metal. Scrolling down I see a drawing of a medieval fortress.

The image of a “motte and bailey” that reminds me of the box art from Castle II: Seige and Conquest.

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.

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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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