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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2443 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 6, 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.

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Football season kicked off last night. I missed the game, at work all night, but I'm excited for my Philadelphia Eagles to kick off in Brazil tonight.

How're my fellow sports fans on the motte feeling about their teams this season? Any degens placing longshot parlays this week?

I'm thinking that by week 8, most predictions in this Eagles team are going to look pretty stupid. Last season they were the best team in the sport for half a season and the worst team in the sport for half a season. The spine of the team is pretty much the same. They swapped out OC and DC but kept the same head coach. They've added several young defensive backs and a few veteran linebackers, lost their most dangerous edge rusher and a team legend; they swapped out a Hall of Fame center but they had an in house heir so they just needed a new right guard, and signed a star running back they're hoping isn't old. At the end of the day the most important question is at quarterback, has the league figured out Jalen Hurts? If he collapses under blitzing every time, the rest is academic. Their outcomes seem likely to again be binary, but a lot of power rankings hedge by placing them in the middle. I wouldn't bet the o/u of 10.5 wins either way comfortably, but one could probably make money betting tail odds of over 12.5 wins and under 6.5 wins. This is either a team with a ridiculous unguardable number of offensive weapons or a team with no answer to extra pressure.

Things are looking up for the Texans, which is always when shit goes South and we completely capsize.

I mean the good news is that the AFC South blows, so the Texans have a clear shot to win the division with only mediocre play, and then, who knows.

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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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