- 164
- 16
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
deleted
I grow increasingly confident about my claim that insofar as the color tribes exist, the gray tribe surely doesn't. It's just "blue tribe", expect, basically, super duper blue every which way. Not just urban, but chiefly concentrated in the citiest cities available. Not just secular but - as a rule - atheist/agnostic expect with a surprising interest in Eastern religions. Not just living in a post-Sexual-Revolution culture, but one big polyamorous cuddle pile. And so on.
The thing is, precisely, that the "gray tribe" is so super blue it actually alienates them from "regular" blue tribers, making them the folks that your regular middle class liberals can point to and laugh: "Whoa, look at those weirdoes!" Lots of commentary like that when people have discussed the FTX scandal, for instance. It's this alienation that frees them from the comfy social sphere that underlays the blue tribe attachment to general blue politics, taken as what all smart and moral people obviously believe as a matter of course, and leads them to potentially explore other political ideologies and avenues. (Of course, that's not the only necessary factor, there's plenty of weirdoes who largely stick with some version of more conventional blue politics.)
The grey tribe is definitly more red-accomodating than the wider blue tribe. I am a Christian, and rationalist-adjacent spaces are pretty much the only space where I sometimes feel like fencing against atheists and doing a very mild form of proselytising, in other blue tribe circles that would be pearls before swine. (Matthew 7:6)
take a look at the subredditoverlaps for SSC.
Yes, samharris and redscarepod have strong blue tribe identity at x63.78 and x17.64 respectively. But there is also truechristian (right wing christian sub) at x10.67, jordanpeterson at x8.58 and catholicism at x6.52. For not explicity Christian red tribe associated subs there are lockdownscepticism at x10.42 and goldandblack at x7.20. Also stuff like menslib at x11.54 and moderatepolitics at x8.54. Neoliberal at x10.00. Classical right wing reactionaries are underreprestented, but there seem to be quite a few conservative Christians, classical liberals, neoliberals and centrists around next to the blue tribers in the grey tribe (although neoliberals are probably blue tribe, hard to tell since left wingers hate them so much).
Neoliberal I wouldn’t include with red tribe spaces. That sub is full fledge Democrat establishment now. It’s not your Milton Friedman neoliberalism. It’s basically Hillary Clinton supporters who are online too much,
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link