site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2511 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What search engine and browser are you currently using for your default?

I've been using Google and Chrome due to decades of inertia, but the deterioration in result quality and ever escalating frequency of intrusive pop-ups for new nonsense functions I don't want have finally hit activation energy for a switch.

Brave + Kagi

There's no point in going on the internet now without an ad block - that's like going naked for a run over a landfill full of medical waste. Thus Brave + Privacy Badger.

Google as the search engine has been going down in quality lately. I've used duckduckgo and brave search, but Kagi seems to be cleaner and results for me are better, and I like the search engine when I'm the customer, not the raw material to be processed and sold.

Does Kagi do the same political filtering on search like google and duckduck? (sorry, I mean, "helpful weeding out of misinformation")

They actually took a stance against doing that. Vlad is CEO and responding to arguments in that thread.

Most relevant:

The very basic question of what do you police (or don't) next is not answerable. For example 'how to kill an animal?', 'how to rob a bank?', 'how to hack a computer?' - although objectively less impactful than the original example, would eventually draw attention from sufficently large groups of people who will passionately call us out on not doing something about these queries on the same moral grounds. And again this never ends, you end up being in the business of pleasing everyone. Good luck with that.

Thus the best option for us is to simply refuse to make the first precedent no matter what the pressure is and stick to search being search. Perhaps one day Kagi may become your 'assistent' with personalised biases, but for now it is just a search engine.

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