site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2610 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 24, 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.

So when Musk took over Twitter (using the old name since it was the name back then) he famously fired about 3/4 of Twitter employees. Pretty much everybody who knew anything about anything predicted Twitter will fail catastrophically very soon after. Of course, now we know it didn't happen. My question is - does anybody have any evidence of Twitter service becoming worse at all in any way since then? I don't mean worse like "people can now post things I don't like" but objectively worse like site is not loading, or search not working or any of the stuff like that.

It's better than ever and people who say otherwise are showing sure signs of um.. EDS, or is it MDS?

Let's remind ourselves that there is no amount of real world success that can dissuade the true believers. There are still people in 2024 who think that Venezuela is either 1) thriving or 2) only failing because of US sanctions.

The Communists have still not admitted defeat, and think that the communism would work just great if it were only tried, man. On a similar note, the anti-Muskites still think that everything Musk has achieved is just luck and, furthermore, that they personally could have done better. It's all the worst sort of cope.

Twitter never needed those grifters and it's better without them. Almost all companies which employ laptop workers are in a similar state.

Some hot takes you've got there.

"True believers" are, by definition, awfully hard to convince. But why should "anti-Muskites" act anything like Communists? People hate him because he flatters their outgroup, not because of some abstract reasoning. He personally did something that annoyed them, so they started showing symptoms of Elon Derangement. This is pretty normal.

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