There are definitely low-effort sneers and very silly comments full of uncharitable takes and extreme nonsense. I try to ignore those, but sometimes they do suck me in and I end up arguing for 3 hours over whether 6,000,000 +- 1,500,000 people dying in gas chambers and hard labor camps is still a genocide. It is.
This is what lends the critique of The Motte it's validity, I don't really enter the culture war roundup thread here, just check what the self posts have to say, because whenever I enter the culture war thread I get bogged down by someone who ardently holds a very controversial opinion, and lacks the eloquence or intelligence to properly defend that argument.
The smartest red tribe enclave on the internet still has a reason to exist, as someone on reddit said: "I would still go there just to see what the intelligent right-wing position on this issue is." The current Motte fails to live up to that standard.
The smartest red tribe enclave on the internet still has a reason to exist, as someone on reddit said: "I would still go there just to see what the intelligent right-wing position on this issue is." The current Motte fails to live up to that standard.
You might be right that it doesn't live up to that standard, but the example you quoted does not provide an argument for that. Just because a place allows some people to dabble in revisionism or denialism, doesn't mean you don't otherwise get good arguments from a particular side there.
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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.
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This is what lends the critique of The Motte it's validity, I don't really enter the culture war roundup thread here, just check what the self posts have to say, because whenever I enter the culture war thread I get bogged down by someone who ardently holds a very controversial opinion, and lacks the eloquence or intelligence to properly defend that argument.
The smartest red tribe enclave on the internet still has a reason to exist, as someone on reddit said: "I would still go there just to see what the intelligent right-wing position on this issue is." The current Motte fails to live up to that standard.
You might be right that it doesn't live up to that standard, but the example you quoted does not provide an argument for that. Just because a place allows some people to dabble in revisionism or denialism, doesn't mean you don't otherwise get good arguments from a particular side there.
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