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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2523 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 24, 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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My experiment to determine the value of poets:

  • Bring in undergraduates for a series of tests designed to measure reaction time according to time of day and season of year

  • While they wait in the barren experimental room, they sit at a desk in which parts of a poem are clearly etched in by a “student”

  • the student is made to wait in without a phone or any distraction for 25 minutes, essentially forcing them to eventually read the poem

  • They are brought in 3 months later and asked if they remember anything of the poem

If the poet has value, his lines will be remembered, and if he has a lot of value, his lines will be remembered fondly in full.

By remembered do you mean the exact lines in full; or do you mean the themes, concepts, or feelings of the piece?

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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."

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