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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1910 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 11, 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?

I'm still on the Iliad and Dialectic of Enlightenment, which has turned out to be much more interesting than I expected.

I started Retail Gangster: The Insane Real-life Story of Crazy Eddie by Gary Weiss just a couple of days ago. It's been a highly interesting read thus far, the glimpse into the New York City of the 70s has already made the read worthwhile for me, much less the story of Eddie himself.

I’ve read this. I love non-fiction tales of financial crimes, and this is a favorite. I found how the fraud inverted over time particularly interesting.

I'm finding it gripping as well and in fact I'm right at the point where they're pushing for their IPO!

You get the feeling that, as a public company, if they could have moderated their greed, tempered it a bit, they might have gotten away with everything, albeit at a lesser scale in the second phase. But that tragic flaw brought them to that point and they couldn’t change.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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