I don't follow a lot of popular media in the way of movies music tv, so rather about fashion sports or cars.
Percentage that is human in the sense that real human fingers typed words that the human brain attached to them would tell you he genuinely believed? 85-90%+
Percentage that is organically human, in the sense that at no point has a paid marketing campaign influenced that human opinion being typed? <10%.
Humans are basic and easily manipulated into parroting a narrative. Parroting the narrative is enjoyable; look how many people will go out of their way to call into a sports radio show just to say the same nonsense they heard another caller say about "Dak Prescott just can't win the big games" or "Defense wins championships" or "the trouble with arsenal is they always try to walk it in." It makes the reddit commenter feel like a big boy to give the big narrative. Other posters with brains the size of navel oranges upvote the narrative, reprocess the meme, and turn it into homoerotic copypasta.
So I'd say it's less about real grassroots versus fake grass AstroTurf; it's more about organic native grasses versus GMO seeded chemical fertilized drought resistant MegaGrass. Once upon a time one could be sure a plant in your garden was native if it was ugly and thorny, but we're so far down the process of hipster recursion that most of those ugly thorny opinions are just dollars flowing to some substack or some podcast advertising Athletic Greens.
Percentage that is organically human, in the sense that at no point has a paid marketing campaign influenced that human opinion being typed? <10%.
Another aspect of this to keep in mind is that a vanishingly small amount of opinions are original. And the seed comments on a matter are much more likely to become consensus.
I'm not a big football watcher, but I watched all the World Cup games for the fuck of it. An interesting dynamic I noticed in online discussions is that the earliest or most common opinions of a specific play or decision became the consensus, and this was seemingly random and often totally wrong.
The average "fan" is probably just parrotting an opinion someone else said earlier somewhere else.
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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What percentage do you think of conversation about newly released media is organic/astroturfed/fans trying to drum up interest?
Let's say a relevant thread for a new episode of a tvshow on Reddit.
What about foreign language media?
I don't follow a lot of popular media in the way of movies music tv, so rather about fashion sports or cars.
Percentage that is human in the sense that real human fingers typed words that the human brain attached to them would tell you he genuinely believed? 85-90%+
Percentage that is organically human, in the sense that at no point has a paid marketing campaign influenced that human opinion being typed? <10%.
Humans are basic and easily manipulated into parroting a narrative. Parroting the narrative is enjoyable; look how many people will go out of their way to call into a sports radio show just to say the same nonsense they heard another caller say about "Dak Prescott just can't win the big games" or "Defense wins championships" or "the trouble with arsenal is they always try to walk it in." It makes the reddit commenter feel like a big boy to give the big narrative. Other posters with brains the size of navel oranges upvote the narrative, reprocess the meme, and turn it into homoerotic copypasta.
So I'd say it's less about real grassroots versus fake grass AstroTurf; it's more about organic native grasses versus GMO seeded chemical fertilized drought resistant MegaGrass. Once upon a time one could be sure a plant in your garden was native if it was ugly and thorny, but we're so far down the process of hipster recursion that most of those ugly thorny opinions are just dollars flowing to some substack or some podcast advertising Athletic Greens.
Another aspect of this to keep in mind is that a vanishingly small amount of opinions are original. And the seed comments on a matter are much more likely to become consensus.
I'm not a big football watcher, but I watched all the World Cup games for the fuck of it. An interesting dynamic I noticed in online discussions is that the earliest or most common opinions of a specific play or decision became the consensus, and this was seemingly random and often totally wrong.
The average "fan" is probably just parrotting an opinion someone else said earlier somewhere else.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link