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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2860 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 23, 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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This isn't really a question, but I'd like to announce that I'm effectively retiring from the Motte. I'm not doing this because I don't like arguing or haven't enjoyed my time here, but simply because I've started working on a personal creative project that's going to be taking up the time that I would have spent reading and responding to posts on here. As I'm still working a day job, I don't think I can maintain my presence here as well as pursuing what is effectively a second career. That said, if it proves to be a big success and I can retire from my day job, I'll likely come back - or alternatively if it turns out to be a massive failure and I become a bitter, jaded recluse I'll also come back.

I'll miss your commentary but I support this choice. Good luck with your project, and please succeed or fail quickly so you can get back here sooner.

I ended up coming back.

Not because my work succeeded, but because I couldn't use the time I normally spent on the motte in a terribly productive way anyway (my employer owning the copyright to my offensive motte posts written on the clock is totally fine, my employer owning the copyright to my serious attempt at fiction is not).

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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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