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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44937 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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Could we have the Bare Links Repository back? Pretty please? :)

I was wholeheartedly against the BLR on reddit, but think it might be needed here to get the ball rolling. I still think moving before admins outright banned us was a mistake, and that this site/community will surely die from lack of new users.

If the source of new users is primarily from reddit, how does moving after they ban us reduce the risk of dying from a lack of new users?

If you waited until everyone was already conditioned not to speak their mind then it wouldn't matter if they did ban theMotte, it would effectively be dead anyway.

If you're going to wait to move until after admins ban the subreddit, do you have a plan for how to tell people where to go?

I suppose it would be possible to have an announcement in advance "we expect to be banned at some point, go here when that happens". That feels less likely to succeed to me than an announcement "we're moving now, go here now".

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.


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