site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3385 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 10, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think they should just be honest. Record the records, slap an * on it and explain in the notes. Assuming strong evidence; I've no idea what a sufficient level of suspicion would be to noteworthy though.

I’ve been thinking about a very similar topic to this one recently; the actual % of frauds in cheaters in every field, not just sports.

A man near me made a career in a certain field, climbing the ranks until he got to the top of the local version of this institution. It’s a public profession, and he was briefly in the news, so I want to stay vague to not compound his problems. His profession requires a 4 year degree and some professional certs, and advancing up the ranks generally demanded a masters, then a doctorate at the top. Not always, some get away with a master’s, but most of the people in the role around the nation have one. Turns out he didn’t actually have a phd, or a masters. He just self-studied the material while pretending to be in a program for the amount of time it would have normally taken. He’d worked in the doctorate level roll for over a decade before someone hired a PI to investigate the guy for some reason, and it all fell apart.

It seems like it was a lot easier to fake it in the past, before the internet. There were also fewer examples to make people suspicious. I wonder just how many people have to one extent or another “faked it”: PEDs in sports, fake degrees, fake job histories/references etc. Fake martial arts history or military claims were one of the first ones to really get exposed by the internet. I know more than one person who financed the launch of their successful, life-defining business with the profits of criminal enterprise, usually selling drugs. Is this even the same category? There’s also the currently hot trend of getting real advanced degrees and positions using fake (or plagiarized) scholarship.

Who knows how many skeletons are out there in how many closets. I think we are alive in a particularly fruitful time for discovering these stories.

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