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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   7052 thread views

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This may sound ridiculous but I got stuck on the developer site for a few minutes looking around for the culture war thread. Maybe we should put a sticky thread on the developer site to direct people to the new website?

I have no idea how you did that :V but sure, easy enough!

(but it'll take me a few to get to it, I need to eat breakfast)

Heh I'm not the brightest crayon in the box apparently.

I made that mistake too - it's because my browser helpfully autofilled the dev site when I typed themotte...

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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!

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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."

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