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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4757 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.

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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.

/r/TheMotte or even the CWR thread in /r/ssc was a very lightning in a bottle thing. People can claim it was THAT attribute or THAT SET of attributes, but I don't think anyone really knows what they were. So by extension, I think it's also going to be pretty hard to dissect why themotte isn't being like it used to be.

I personally don't use the motte as much as I used to because:

  • I don't learn as much as I used to. If I have a burning cultural question in my head, more often than not, I can for the most part come up with an explanation that will be >90% complete of the aggregated motte response. I feel that I have outgrown the level of commentary here. And yes I do take more than I give, that's just how it be sometimes.
  • Overly US centric. CW discussions were for the most part more abstract back then. We discussed issues and ideas. Now we discuss the makeup and actions of the SCOTUS, BORING. Or some niche thing that happened in some irrelevant county in bumfuck flyover state. Like okay buddy, I'm sure you feel REALLY PASSIONATE about this one thing, but the world shut itself down for 3 years and we are still coming out of that, whatever this is, isn't even crossing the baseline level of crazy or unprecendented we are all accustomed to. So probably some information satiation/fatigue going on. I also DONT CARE, I have to either remmember this stupid event that happened in your stupid neighborhood or some stupid edge cases about some cursed yaml file at work, at least the second one makes me money.
  • I've also accepted the CW is a waste of time. I don't live in the US. And I am powerless against the stuff that leaks over anyways. Humans are stupid enough to shut down the world for 3 years straight, NO AMOUNT of modelling them is going to do me any good when the stupid simple model of "people be retarded" has so much explaining power for almost any and all CW issues.

I still find myself going back to hacker news and less wrong because there is new, useful and original content in both those places. I think the motte would benefit (ME) if there were more abstracted discussion on things as opposed to just what's happening.

Now we discuss the makeup and actions of the SCOTUS, BORING

Maybe it's that we've (not just TheMotte - the ratsphere, the 'dissident right', the internet at large) have picked all of the intellectual low-hanging fruit, and only more specific, complicated things are left? I find SCOTUS discussion interesting and read all of it, though I don't have much to contribute.

That might also contribute to the feeling of wasted time - all the discourse happened, and what changed?

That might also contribute to the feeling of wasted time - all the discourse happened, and what changed?

Unsure about the direction of causality, but Elon Musk was two handshakes away, and he bought Twitter.

The people who participated or observed the proceeings have been thinking of different thoughts than they would've if the trousers of time had bifurcated differently and we'd gone down the right leg. Or perhaps this is the right left leg?

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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."

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