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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2300 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 25, 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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I don’t know what this means, can you speak plainly?

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Bait is a an internet slang term used to describe comments or opinions which are considered to be made purposefully to troll other posters or to start a flame war.

Thank you for the explanation. My comment wasn't intended to troll anyone or start a flame war, I was describing my sincerely held beliefs. To the extent that they are annoying beliefs, they annoy me too. I'd prefer to believe something else. I imagine other people feel this way too. The downstream effects of other people preferring to believe something else are people getting their bikes kicked out from under them by slightly more aggressive and violent groups of people. The least I can do is point at what I see as the objective ugliness of the situation.

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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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