site banner
bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   3340 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas, everyone!

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Why anti-HBD people don't promote e.g. usage of artificial languages like Lojban? (the only example I know is early Soviets promoting Esperanto). Wouldn't be type of language affecting individual's development a lot? Also, Chinese and Japanese have problem that word lookup is difficult. This is a less problem is smartphone era, but earlier finding a word was pretty difficult whereas in alphabetic languages any child can find word in dictionary fairly quickly. I read someone hypothesing that this must have negative effect on social mobility.

I'd imagine most people aren't Sapir–Whorfists, and don't consider language to be particularly important for individual development compared to things like culture and family.

Still, even if they did, one would have to actually learn Lojban to not seem like a hypocrite when advocating for it – and if there's one thing people don't like to do, it's putting effort into things.

Under which standard of evidence Sapir _Whorf was debunked but, say, systemic racism wasn't?

There is active attempts to push pronouns/latinx/v Ukraine and other changes to language.

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


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats