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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2876 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 2, 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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Hammer’s Slammers by David Drake

Anything sci-fi by John Ringo

The Compleate Bolo by Keith Laumer, plus any Bolo anthologies.

And while it’s not sci-fi, it is a pulp short story collection that is all set in vaguely sci-fi situations:

The Eye of Sounnu by Schuyler Hernstrom

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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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