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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2122 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 28, 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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Finished The Human Stain (Roth) recently. I thought it was extraordinary. Brilliantly executed social commentary of late 1990s America.

Now reading:

  1. Cleanness (Garth Greenwell), which has some sordid master-slave gay sex. Sticking with it for some of the writing. For now.
  2. Irreversible Damage (Abigail Shrier), investigation of possible trans social contagion among teenage girls
  3. Lots of poems.

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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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