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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3412 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 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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Does anyone have any good links to blogs or posts about how to use dating apps optimally? I figure someone has this stuff figured out

Gwern has done the public service of archiving the old OKCupid data blog. Still the best resource online for how people actually use online dating, deleted for its honesty. You'll have to adapt that to swipe apps, of course, but a lot of food for thought.

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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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