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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3506 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 16, 2025

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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... what are you working on?

I find it kind of hard to work on software projects for fun knowing AGI will make it significantly easier to work on if I wait a year before starting. In fact this might always be true.

Labor done in 2025 will be so much less leveraged than labor done in 2026, and so on.

Still chipping away at my novel which I started as part of last year's NaNoWriMo competition, as documented here. Knocked out a thousand words in the last hour.

An album I finished last year was released three weeks ago.

Released how? On what platform? How do we find it?

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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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