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PaperclipPerfector  30d ago (text post)   2563 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 30, 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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So, what are you reading?

Still on my backlog. Trying to go through some Lovecraft.

Took a few months off reading, but I’m back! Going between Grant by Ron Chernow and Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. I’m also listening to the audiobook Incidents Around The House.

So far the most interesting thing about Grant is how absolutely mediocre his life was up until the breakout of the Civil War. He was essentially a 38 year borderline alcoholic (with long strings of sobriety) shopkeeper who went from being a nobody to running the military within 3 years. Wild stuff.

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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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