site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3086 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 15, 2025

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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

And more importantly there is no way a world on the verge of extinction with massive attrition due to a constant multi-generational war against monsters is going to end up progressive, especially with regard to gender roles. They are going to want women pumping out as many kids as possible so they don't go extinct. Or rather, any subculture which chooses to be progressive in any way that reduces birthrates (as opposed to some free-love variant that encourages promiscuity but discourages birth control) will quickly die out and be replaced under such strong selection pressures.

This sounds like you're gesturing to a plausible culturally-prescribed use of such a spell that would be quite anathema to both our trads and our progs: fix your society's undesirable sex ratio with magical sex change as opposed to (or in addition to) war.

See, that would have made sense. Assuming the magic sex change spell carries fertility with it (not sure how that interfaces with chromosomes, but maybe you can handwave magic that), I can easily imagine oppressive social norms that forces everyone to do like a clownfish thing. They have to be female in their late teens and early twenties to have a bunch of kids and then when they get older they turn male and go off to war to protect the society, with the most successful (and surviving) war heroes getting rewarded with breeding the younger females. Oppressive and constricting to be forced into as a citizen, but super beneficial for the society and the people ruling it since you get the advantages of both sexes, and maximizes chances of survival against an enemy force that outclasses you. (It especially makes sense in a LitRPG context where you can do easy fights and level up while young and will be multiple times stronger when you're older)

I'm not saying the author needed to make it be a rationalfic and actually do that. I can suspend disbelief enough for them to have a relative normal medieval culture or something close. But it makes no sense to make everything about the world gritty and harsh except for their gender norms.

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