site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3340 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Anyone have a video game or a movie or a book or anything else like that that you want to get into, but you just can't every time you try?

For me it's Red Dead Redemption 2. I just can't get through the winter prologue. It has idiosyncratic controls that I can't remember and the fucking lasso just doesn't work after I rebind 200 different buttons to adjust the controls to ESDF. And there's no quicksave, so every time I watch people enjoy the open stage of RDR2 it wants me to replay a long enough segment before I even can try and fail to lasso a dude again. I guess I should just mod the game to skip it and try again.

Opening games with a boring tutorial and giant infodump is unfortunately very common. I think it is so common because reviewers and people who paid full price will give it at least five hours before they decide they don't like it. Crippling you character for the intro is also weirdly common. RDR2 had you wading through snow slowly, MGSV had you limping around a hospital.

I don't really understand where it comes from. I think the art directors are trying to be "cinematic" while not grasping that movies don't make you hold up for ten minutes while the intro credits play.

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