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.
- 82
- 4
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Might have been a better fit for the WW thread but here goes.
I am bamboozled by this interaction with a girl. Help me make sense of this.
Context:
My mom is a photographer so she photographs people sometimes. I drive her to places if I am free and got nothing better to do.
So she wanted to hang out with one of her friends and photograph her daughter a bit as well.
I am a 24 year old guy. The daughter was 21 years old.
The weird part:
She literally wouldn't talk at all. Or even make eye contact. Like I would ask her a random normie question, she would answer it and then go silent again, often texting on her phone.
No I wasn't being weird. Since I had to kill time, I just wanted to talk to her and pass time. No I wasn't bothering her, the photography was done quickly and both us were captive there with our moms.
No I am not especially retarded. I literally talked as "normally" as any normal person ever normaled. No my breath didn't stink. No I am not horrendously ugly; In a generous day, I might even argue that I am more attractive than her.
This is the first time I had any interaction like this where the other person just refuses to talk to this extent. Like I can understand not talking if you are trapped there with someone for 5-20 minutes. Not if you are trapped somewhere with someone for hours on end!!
I wasn't being pushy, just tried to make conversation every 15-20 minutes. Every single time if I didn't follow up with a question she would just stop replying.
Is it just genZ being genZ or is this just how some people are? Or my fault? Or no ones fault?
She's a 21 year old girl. If she's even remotely attractive, she's got 1,000 simps and and at least 20 Chads on her phone in her pocket, any of whom she can likely summon IRL quickly (except maybe the peak Chads, but even they'll come around eventually most likely) if that is her preference (as opposed to simply narcissistically basking in the endless dopamine cascade).
If you can't compete on quantity (impossible as one person) or quality (and due to feminine hypergamy in an environment of behavioral freedom for them, you'll have to be within a reasonable distance of the attractiveness of the most attractive guy who would be willing to pump and dump her for a night, not just more attractive to any degree, to be considered competitive in that realm by her), and if she is not in any way rightfully subjugated to your natural authority as a masculine entity over her as was historically enforced by men due to (among other things) the true nature of unregulated feminine behavior as you've experienced, then why would you expect her to give you the time of day ever?
What's in it for her? Nothing's forcing her, and no gain is on offer. Where's the incentive structure favorable to your mutual socialization? It doesn't exist. The only way to create it would be for you to become vastly elevated in sexual status (enriching yourself), which may or may not be possible for you, or for the natural edifice of absolute male authority and feminine reverence and submission to be reinstated (enriching all of your fellow men and all of humanity as well).
You're putting on a pretty high pedestal a girl who's stuck sitting around for hours on her phone.
Humanize her a bit and it's probably less likely she's made a rational calculation with ho logic to ignore the LVM than it is that she's neurotic and antisocial.
I'm not putting her on a high pedestal at all. (But I will say that if you've ever known/dated/been related to any hot girls recently you would realize how foolish it is to discount a girl's sexual status for "sitting around for hours on her phone"; they all do that nowadays. Let us hope that no playful AI ever gives a first world woman the choice between genociding men and losing access to Instagram Reels/TikTok because I assure you in that case we are gone fellas.)
The infinitely high simp (and to be clear those simps aren't necessarily loyal; most of them probably have more interchangeable girls on their phones than the reverse) factor and the possibility of being served in multiple Chad digitally-solicited all-you-can-fuck-buffets are both purely artificial phenomena that do not in any way reflect her value (and the exact numbers are just fun hyperbole) even if she is the hottest girl on the planet. (And since her attractiveness wasn't mentioned thus far we can't really run the probabilities anyway.) They are the product of modern dysfunctional sex dynamics held aloft only by the weakness of contemporary men. Were they to reverse course in reasonable unison with resolve, she could do absolutely nothing to stop them. Her pedestal, if she is on any, is made of toothpicks and playing cards and scarcely above the ground.
Oh and at no point did I say she made any sort of a "rational calculation with ho logic". Responding to incentives requires neither calculation nor logic as basically all of human behavior and society proves. If anything, seeing her behavior as a mere product of incentives is humanizing her.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link