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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5412 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

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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So, what are you reading? (Also, see another good book thread here in the Fun Thread)

I'm picking up Alan Watts' The Way of Zen. Watts has often been in the back of my mind, but I never read him deeply. Extremely vague links to Korzybski has stirred my interest.

I just finished Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner.

I was randomly downloading books that I thought were from the golden age of sci-fi off the gutenburg project, and accidentally downloaded a Treasure Island contemporary.

It was pretty good. Young adult caught up with smugglers, pirate treasure, the law, jail, and final return to his home after completing his Hero's Journey. Not bad. I like this sort of escapism when I'm dealing with the stress of the modern world.

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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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