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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2099 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 31, 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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The two biggest moaners in my current gym are both women. One can't (or won't) fit her breasts into her jumpsuit, walking around with a massive cleavage. The other looks and dresses like a man from an aerobics video parody.

A missed opportunity for a Zardoz reference, or is it not that bad?

Nope, not that bad. She looks like Weird Al doing Flashdance cosplay.

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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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