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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3416 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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So, what are you reading?

I'm picking up With and Without Galton, an open access book on Vasilii Florinskii and Russian eugenics, or as the author calls it, 'eugamics' (ie. well-married), as distinguished from Galton's eugenics.

I've been reading The Library Trilogy, a fantasy series by Mark Lawrence. I enjoyed most of the first book, which felt like a bit of a cross between Garth Nix's Lirael and His Dark Materials, but it started to fall apart by the end and the second book, while readable, couldn't really rejuvenate my interest.

Something in particular that irritated me slightly were the somewhat clumsy allusions to real-world politics scattered throughout the books; most of the time I don't want to think about political issues and that's especially the case when I'm reading for fun. I also don't like the feeling that the author on some level presumes his readers will be smugly nodding in agreement with his fairly evident views on current affairs.

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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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