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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2296 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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Numbers and viciousness are the biggest factors in who wins.

It's been a long-standing trope in internet fight video communities that—not only do blacks have a relative penchant for group-based Zerg rush/swarming approaches—even in 1 on 1 fights between a black person and a white person, black bystanders will "helpfully" intervene and stop or restart the fight if the white person gets the upper-hand, if not seize the opportunity to gang-up on the white person to get some free shots in. Vice versa would generally be untrue for white bystanders when the black person gets the upper-hand.

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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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