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practical_romantic  3yr ago (text post)   4514 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 23, 2022

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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Jump in the discussion.

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Change your Instagram password to something random you cannot remember. Remove the Instagram app if you have it installed on your phone. If you use Instagram on a laptop, change the zoom to be maximized and use your addblocker (you use an addblocker, right?) to block everything on the site.

Edit: You say you use third-party browser apps to access their accounts. Remove those apps now! Use your addblocker to block everything on their page in the appstore. Set zoom on those pages to 500 %. Basically same as above.

All of this can be reversed/circumvented if you really want to, the goal is to make to make it too many clicks to be worth the effort, and to give you time to reconsider.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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