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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   1896 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 1, 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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Could you provide additional context? Is this about drones?

Literally any kind of weapon. Small arms, artillery systems, cruise missiles, ships, heavy bombers. Every time there’s a new weapons system delivered to Ukraine it’s “Ukraine has some fun new toys to play with” or “Operation Spiderweb destroyed a lot of Russia’s toys”. Once you notice it, you notice that they do it constantly and it’s really started grinding my gears.

Reddit is to my gears as a big bag of unshelled peanuts and gravel would be if thrown, bag and all, into a fine clockwork. There is only grinding. Short extremely niche subs, I can't stand visiting the site.

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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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