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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1082 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 15, 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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So what are you reading?

Working on my annual re-read of Battle Cry of Freedom and staring the Stormlight Archive.

Finished my reading sample of Ninti's Gate, and ended up not buying the book. Pierce seems to have attempted a show-don't-tell approach to worldbuilding and characterization, but ended up moving the plot along too fast. The characters' motivations were completely opaque and the action made no sense.

So I'm still re-reading The Worm Ourobouros. I dunno why. Maybe the pretentious language gets me. Maybe I'm just a sucker of chivalric romance. I don't regret it.

Also picked up the Cyropaedia, but taking it slow.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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