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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3123 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 23, 2022

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.

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Audrey Hepburn. Beloved by all who would care but noticeably given a kind of feminine archetype status by women.

What is interesting with those brows is that it is not in fact a feminine feature but a masculine one. Few people understand that the modern artificially enhanced woman has in fact an androgynous face to such remarkable extent that some of their features become more masculine than men themselves.

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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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