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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2970 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 7, 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.

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Nostalgic recommendations from days gone by - Time Team videos up on Youtube.

It's so good to see these again, and I miss the old team. Educational, interesting, and fun pop archaeology broadcasting from the prime days of the 2010s (the show ran from 1994-2014). You can watch the cast members getting older over the years and it reminds me of happy days back in the 90s-00s watching the show with my late father.

Also, we talk about climate change today and hotter summers, but there were some blistering hot summers back in the 90s as well, and watching some episodes brings all that back!

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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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