site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1109 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 4, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Watching Ken White/Popehat's descent into TDS has been sad, but his complete derangement on this topic is really extremely disappointing to me, as someone who once admired him for his free speech stance. White used to be a very strong and principled First Amendment warrior and frequently mocked the UK's much weaker free speech protections. Now he's saying this is "within shouting distance of prosecution" (another way to say "not prosecutable") and heavily implying that even though he's well aware this would not fly in US courts, he thinks it should.

The X link is dead, and the Wayback Machine doesn't have it.

The slippery slope is real and slippery. You start with light TDS - which is only understandable, I mean look at him, he's a baboon! - and then you go on justifying worse and worse things in service of the "right side" because if you don't, the baboon wins! And you end up defending things that some time ago would horrify you. And each step had been so small you hardly noticed it. I stopped reading Popehat when it started because I knew how it's going to end up, and it did. Happened to many other people too (and organizations, look at ACLU for example).

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