site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1822 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 6, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've got to say I find your all-encompassing scepticism towards Reddit a smidgen excessive - they were only saying the same thing that you said here in response to posts that echo what you've heard people say to your face, only at scale.

Practically everyone here is or was a Redditor of relatively long standing. Reddit is not a high quality forum populated exclusively by intelligent and thoughtful people, but it's not completely devoid of them either. Eternal September began a long time ago.

And that's fine. I've been burned a sufficient number of times on reddit to be comfortable with my (excessively) skeptical (or sceptical, if you like) approach to posts and interactions there. Which is why I included the caveat term "personally" as in "I personally." Certainly you and whoever are free to do whatever suits your own temperament. I was on reddit from around 2013 to 2021, and for a large part of that period it was fine, and I even felt somewhat at home. There was a time when I wasn't sure what was wrong, and then it hit me.

As for the issue at hand, it's difficult without an actual controlled test to have any sort of granularity in judging responses. Even the VVIQ test relies on a 5-point Likert scale, and it's not entirely clear how valid/reliable it is. Questions beyond simply "Can you see the apple?" and "Do you notice colors? Can you rotate it in your mind? Can you imagine a bite taken out of it?" and so on and so forth can help, but even then there's a lot of noise. Whether a number or even a great number of redditors chime in saying they have no visual image does not negate that in that moment in that house with those people I was with there may have been a lack of clarity, to say nothing of the fact that about half of the people were Japanese (and thus prone to conformity in a group setting) as well as interacting in a second language, adding another layer.

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.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats