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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2553 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 20, 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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  • I also keep an internal picture of everyone in my head.
  • It's cheating since your picture is on your substack, but my internal vision was fairly accurate
  • If you're not exhausted, I'll echo the clamor for "do me!"

Tall, taller than I am. Cropped hair, clean shaven, I don't think you're Canadian but I imagine you posting from Canada anyway. Enjoyer of spectator sports, smoke an occasional cigar, sometimes drinking beer when posting. This is all probably stupidly innacurate to realty.

You're more right than not! I'm most digitally loquacious after 2 beers.

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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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