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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1263 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 21, 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?

I'm going through Al-Ghazali's The Principles of the Creed. Still trudging through The Dawn of Everything.

Looks like there's a book thread below, but no-one bit.

Almost exactly two-thirds of the way through Cryptonomicon. It might well be the funniest book I've read all year, aside from Rejection. If I can read 35 pages a day I'll be finished before the new year.

Edit: said "one-third". Meant two-thirds.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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