site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   4281 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 23, 2024

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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Activity does seem to be declining, with 750 comments on the last CWR. Any idea why? This is, at least to me, the only place online that has good generalist discussion other than the posts (not comments though) of some substacks.

Is there anything interesting happening out there in the world this week?

I probably wouldn't know, since I use this site for news.

The war in Ukraine drags on. The conflict in Gaza drags on. Pride month drags on. A few people were shot at Juneteenth celebrations, but not enough to invite a lot of attention. There are some marginal improvements in LLMs. The Supreme Court has ruled on some things, and some posters have done write ups for them. There were some blog posts put up as top level comments. They probably got more engagement than they would have on people's personal blogs, anyway. I vaguely remember some disgruntled writing about relationships.

Anyway, I'm not sure it's just the message board, so much as the actual world that's in a bit of a slump.

There's a presidential debate on Thursday; there's two effort posts in the back on my head, neither of them particularly time-sensitive. There's a brewing potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. South Africa's coalition government continues to take shape following their general election. Milei in Argentina claims to have officially solved the persistent inflation problem.

There's a brewing potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

I mean, yes, there is, and I post about it often enough (to the point that I sometimes worry I'm being a broken record/single-issue poster, though that's probably just unfounded anxiety), but to a fair extent we're all just reading tea leaves on the biggest question i.e. "will they do it?". Nobody knows for sure except maybe the CPC and the Five Eyes, and not even necessarily them if the CPC's plan is the highly-sensible "have it ready to go, but call GO or NO-GO based on exactly how much of a shitstorm the US election is" (which in turn means the Five Eyes can't know - "you can't know what I'm going to do if I don't know it myself", or as Sun Tzu put it, "the pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.").

I mean, I suppose I could bang on more about my advice regarding this i.e. "the chance is high enough that mild prep vs. nuclear war is extremely, obviously justified; extreme prep may be worth it if you have the means, but moderate prep outside of special cases like 'if you live in an obvious nuke target, you might want to either stop doing that or pre-arrange somewhere else to go' is usually merely an error that doesn't engage a plausible worldline". But, again, I don't like to be a broken record.

have it ready to go, but call GO or NO-GO based on exactly how much of a shitstorm the US election is"

Doesn’t the invasion window end before the election?

Yes, but it's not like there can't be shit flying before the actual vote.

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