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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3914 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 4, 2022

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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Remember, optimizing for independence means you're optimizing for the ability of your kid to not only tell you "no, I know better", but expecting to have the ability to actually follow through (even if the decision is, indeed, objectively bad). "I'm going to get a summer job" necessarily implies "because I want stuff you won't buy me, and I expect to use my property the way I want, which is also the reason all my friends have them".

I 100% understand where you're coming from. A job is a great example - I'll make the tradeoff of them learning to work in exchange for them being able to afford shitty fast food and a couple grams of weed.

Trying to limit access to porn until they're old enough to at least hear my speeches about what's good and bad isn't killing my ability to foster self-sufficiency. At the end of the day, parenting really is constantly testing risk/reward for asserting control over kids. I was allowed to make some pretty massive mistakes that I learned from, and that's still going to be the play overall.

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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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