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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1695 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

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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Twitter is advertising Scottish HIV testing, shortly after I visited a gay bar. Does it know something I don't?

Your phone probably feeds geolocation data to ad networks. The rest is obvious.

In the US it's a current event: T-Mobile claimed selling location data without consent is legal—judges disagree. One might be able to opt out.

The naive part of me wants to believe they stopped it after 2019, but the realistic part of me thinks they just added more legalese and layers into the process so that when they get caught next time, the blame won't be on them but on some throw-away company which would promptly fold and be replaced by another one. And T-Mobile (and every other provider) would be like "we're shocked! shocked! to find that data selling is going on here!"

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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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