site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2973 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 14, 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm currently at 20 books and I doubt I'll finish Le Morte d'Arthur in the next three weeks.

There’s almost no one I talk about it with who doesn’t reply with some variation of: A) Insecure Excuses along the lines of I WISH I had TIME to read so much, and I wasn’t so BUSY all the time [with things presumably far more important than FHM’s leisurely reading]; B) Books are Dumb along the lines of I only read blog posts summarizing non-fiction self help books; C) Braggadocio, Actually I read THREE HUNDRED SIXTY FIVE BOOKS this year, how did you ONLY read 26.

Aren't those the three most obvious responses?

  1. It's cool you did this and I wish I did

  2. It's dumb you did this and I'm glad I didn't

  3. It's cool you did this and I did it too

My top books this year:

  1. Two Years Before the Mast: an absolutely incredible story of seamanship, camaraderie, and the old west. Reading this book in the California summer was an unforgettable experience. It is on the very knife's edge of exponential growth taking root in California that has lasted through today. Be sure to read the author's postscript on his return visit 24 years after and his son's postscript 72 years after. An unspeakable sense of nostalgia and yet also a sense of what stays the same.

  2. A Confederacy of Dunces: Absolutely the funniest thing I've ever read, period (and yes I've read all the Britbong funnymen). Even better if you've met a couple guys who reflect facets of the substantial and well-formed soul of Ignatius J. Reilly.

  3. Anna Karenina: A book like this is hard to even review, but it's certainly worth your while. One small aspect: it's deeply amusing that Tolstoy seems to think that subsistence farming is basically the right and proper mode of agricultural activity for the Russian landowning class. Disregard mechanization. Leave behind optimization. RETVRN to mowing hay from dawn to dusk with a sickle, shoulder to shoulder with the illiterate peasants. If you're making any money, you're doing it wrong.

If you're making any money, you're doing it wrong.

Tolstoy was born into a very aristocratic old money family. I am not sure what'd be the US equivalent of this, maybe like Kennedy? And he didn't like how things were going, so obviously the opposite of what he saw is correct - if my family has tons of money and relies on other's work to provide for us, the right thing is to have no surplus and dig the dirt with your hands and mow with the sickle.

It was a scythe actually, but directionally correct.

Doing the work yourself does not logically exclude the possibility of mechanization though.

A Confederacy of Dunces: Absolutely the funniest thing I've ever read

I'm going to have to beg to differ on this one, I really did not understand the hype. Most of the book I just felt sorry for this fucking loser's poor mother.

I hated Dunces so very much. I didn't even make it halfway before I started hoping for Ignatius' death.

It's probably because you're almost a Britbong.

Did you like The Ginger Man? I hated that one, by the end I was hoping he and his buddies would get the lethal injection but apparently Irish people love it.

Huh, I've never even heard of The Ginger Man. Might have to check it out.

Anna Karenina: A book like this is hard to even review, but it's certainly worth your while.

I read it for the first time in high school, and barely understood it. I read it again a couple years back, and enjoyed it greatly and got a lot out of it, but felt like I got bored of it near the end. Then that same week I was reading some interview in the NYT Sunday Book Review, and the author said he didn't really get Anna Karenina until he turned 40, and I sat there like fuuuuuck I gotta wait another seven years?

Two Years Before the Mast: an absolutely incredible story of seamanship, camaraderie, and the old west. Reading this book in the California summer was an unforgettable experience. It is on the very knife's edge of exponential growth taking root in California that has lasted through today. Be sure to read the author's postscript on his return visit 24 years after and his son's postscript 72 years after. An unspeakable sense of nostalgia and yet also a sense of what stays the same.

Somehow I'm both not sure what this book is about, and sure I want to read it, from this little review.

I wasn't getting Anna Karenina for a long time, probably until about 40s too. Though I was a bit hampered by the fact that it had been taught in Soviet school, and that can give a bad taste to anything. Tolstoy himself was in his 40s when writing it, so that also may be a factor.

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