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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2578 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 17, 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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Is the poem "Ozymandias" familiar to you? If so, did you first encounter it in one place, but it became more memorable later in a different circumstance?

I think I first heard it in full in a teaser trailer for Breaking Bad, although I probably would have been familiar with it before then.

I also had a brief period where I would try memorising poems. It was the first one I successfully memorised.

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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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