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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3212 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 17, 2025

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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I'll admit right away that I'm late to the party - the Motte, SSC and the subculture around all of it seems to have pretty much died down and I'm not sure where to find everyone other than Twitter, which I refuse to use. But I think I want to catch up with all of the stuff that happened and was important to you all at the time. I'm aware of multiple SSC best-of compilations, but what about the others? Don't we have some legacy other than Scott?

So, to the survivors, I have two questions:

  • What do you think are the best articles/arguments/comments/posts of the past decade?
  • What's the book/article/comment that attracted you to the community in the first place?

I think the general Rationalist subculture still plenty sizeable. Maybe not at its peak size, but certainly not a dead online community. Commenting on astral codex ten and participating on the SSC are still fun uses of time imo.

My personal favourite non-Scott blog is putanumonit.com, I recommend looking through his archive/best of page. I got into the community through the fiction, Unsong was how I found Scott, and HPMOR was what really cemented my membership in rationality.

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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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