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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3035 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 1, 2023

Happy New Year!

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Happy New Year! So, what are you reading?

I'm on Korzybski's Science and Sanity. E-Prime has had a surprising effectiveness for me, and I have been interested in any links between Korzybski's system and Zen. I can already see that I'll find a lot that I won't agree with, but maybe I'll find some useful clues. General Semantics attempts a "non-aristotelean" way of thinking which is supposedly more harmonious with new sciences like quantum mechanics. It is one of those systems which didn't really take over the world, but did have influence, and seems to have generated some interesting people.

I'm reading The Goodness Paradox. It divides violence into two categories: Reactive and proactive, and says that humans, compared to every other species, have vastly lower amounts of intraspecies reactive violence(violence because of emotional triggers, like someone insulting you or to display dominance) but also have vastly higher amounts of intraspecies proactive violence(plotting murder, going to war).

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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