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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3205 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 8, 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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You have the oppprtunity to give each person on earth the same advice and rules. You wish to improve the world as much as possible. What would be your universal set of advice and/or rules which ensure the most Good? Presume that each person will listen intently, not magically assent and obey immediately.

While I was nowhere near as big a fan of Hlynka as many of you were, he once wrote "Never write anything down which you wouldn't want to have read out at your funeral" which strikes me as remarkably good and universal advice.

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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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