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.
- 110
- 2
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 -
Novo Nordisk's glory days are behind them
It's true more people are waking up to GLP-1s, but there's more competition in the pipeline than ever, In my view, Novo and Eli seem awfully close to getting into a price war.
Also, the rest of the planet is nowhere near as lucrative as the US and the US might be close to tapped out. There's also attacks on the patent regime (might be lost in Canada which might be a backdoor into the US) and also the borders seem quite porous to gray market sources entering the country. Why not? The same Asian labs that produce it for Novo/Eli can just do additional shadow runs and ship directly to US dealers. It's the same money for them but 10% of the cost for US consumers.
The future looks bright if you're a fatty. Not so great if you're pharma. It's actually a bit alarming, since even with GLP-1 boom the pharma industry has plummeting ROI https://www.cremieux.xyz/i/163939433/preclinical-prioritization
All the pharma companies’ chart look like that though. I’m not sure these drugs and their implication have really arrived on the street. Cremieux makes a good case for regeneron, I’ll add it to my scattershot leaps package.
I’m going to go with the nothing will ever happen heuristic. I’m not really concerned about risks like that since these are deep oom calls, the stock(s) either blows up or not, I’m not trying to conserve its value.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link