site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4169 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 24, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

People really like Sherlock Holmes stories, to the point that they're probably the best candidate for the progenitor of the entire Mystery genre. To those here who enjoy these stories, would you mind putting on your over-analysis caps and explaining what it is about the stories that you enjoy?

I think for me they're "intelligence and competence porn". Roughly, it's the idea that an intelligent and competent person, put into a dark and evil situation, can use the light of reason to restore order and uncover hidden secrets. Thriller novels, of the techno- and military- varieties, also do that for me. As with porn, I worry that over-consumption by susceptible demographics can induce unrealistic expectations of human behavior. ;-)

It took a couple of read-throughs of HPMOR for me to get that a) Harry was not being held up by EY as a role model, and b) the main moral of the story is that (spoilers all) he left a trail of pointless wreckage as he broke anything that got in the way of him doing what he thought was right, and if not for the vow Quirrelmort had him take, he would have broken everything.

Even contemporaneously with the release of the story, Yudkowsky was complaining at length that people read both Harry and Quirrel as both far more correct and far more competent than they actually were, whether not noticing their failures or overstating their accomplishments. Reality ended up pushing that even further, for Harry -- the first twenty chapters are filled with a lot of pop social science that was iffy to start with and didn't really survive the replication crisis -- but there are other errors that I think were intentional, even fairly early on.

Great post. I think many LWers and HPMOR readers were probably so starved for a single decent teacher in their entire schooling that they latched onto themselves as Harry and yearned for someone with Quirrel's attitude to BS.

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!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats