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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1449 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 30, 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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So, what are you reading?

Still on The Dawn of Everything. Picking up Tom Brown's School Days.

Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was an interesting ride (pun intended) but the end was kinda disappointing. After all that buildup, suddenly they just cried together and that was all? I mean I get it that real life has no "endings", but that's what I expect from fiction, however old-fashioned it is. Maybe it's too much to expect. But, I think I get what Pirsig was going for, and likely will read the sequel at some point next year.

Lila is much better, IMO, if you want full description of his MoQ (Metaphysics of Quality). But ZAMM has much better metaphors (like Gumptionology, Newton's gravity, and so many others).

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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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