Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 235
- 1
What is this place?
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.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
If in doubt, please post it!
Rules
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I finally got around to using ChatGPT Agent and it is actually, finally, tingling my "this thing has reasoning and problem-solving capacity and might actually be sentient" senses.
Used it for creating a delivery/pickup order from the Sam's Club website. It hunted down the items, navigated challenges that I intentionally threw up for it, and successfully completed the task I gave it, with very minimal prompting to get it there.
Yet another "Future Shock" moment for me, which is happening every two months nowadays. My benchmark is very, very close to being met.
Anyhow: Anyone have any ideas for some non-mundane, but also non-illegal and non-dangerous ways to make use of a slow but reliable personal assistant that can navigate the internet?"
I want to make a todo list that automatically makes each item concrete:
You type in ‘buy flowers for anniversary’ and it whirrs for a bit, does some research and turns it into ‘buy roses from Mr. Weds’ Flower Emporium ten minutes away’.
Likewise for ‘find language Meetup’. ‘Make lamb curry’ automatically retrieves a recipe and list of ingredients.
Basically just reducing the cognitive load and bar for taking action to be as low as possible.
Have you tried goblin.tools?
More options
Context Copy link
Funny enough, this was my second impulse after I tested its capabilities.
I have an account with the list/organization app "Remember the Milk," and it has a web interface, it is very handy.
I should be able to get GPT Agent to enter list items, and sublist items, and relevant notes, as part of relatively simple prompts.
"Book me a haircut this Sunday" should lead to reserving the appointment at my preferred barbershop, adding the haircut to my to-do list with the start time set for the appointment time, and adding a reminder enough time in advance for me to drive over, and setting aside the approximate amount of time it should take to get the hair cut.
And more generalized stuff, as you say. "Add a reminder to cook [specialized dish] tomorrow evening, find a highly rated recipe, and make a list of all relevant ingredients, and prepare a pickup order for those groceries from the nearest Aldi." Then I can just remove the items I already have, submit and pick up the order.
And if I can get this thing to take over the more arduous steps of planning events with friends, I'd be ecstatic.
If Full Self-driving cars are actually solved now, we're getting very close to a point where I can do this entire operation without once seeing or interacting with a real person. Terrifying, but also very appealing.
Oh, and if ChatGPT adds on digital avatars like Grok (plz no), we can ask our digital waifus to do this stuff for us. Very Trad.
Great minds ;) Would you be interested in collaborating?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link