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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2751 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 1, 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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So, what are you reading?

Still on The Conquest of Bread. Picking up Toffler’s Future Shock.

Finally finished The Goldfinch this evening. 6/10. Ending dragged on interminably which probably knocked a whole point off the score.

Not sure I ever got to the end of The Goldfinch but wow I love how Donna Tartt constructs a sentence.

So I've heard. It's pretty funny that Tartt hated it so much that she fired her agent.

The Goldfinch came out in 2013, she's already overdue!

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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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