site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1700 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 26, 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In 2015, the person sues the resort and the municipality to force them to keep the intersecting portion of the road open during the ski season.

I'm perpetually amazed at people who show up (or buy in) to a clearly established dynamic and then, much like a toddler, start stamping their feet and demanding the situation be reshaped to their specific wants and desires.

People who buy houses near military jet bases or farms and then complain about the noise/smell is... far, far too high.

To be (maybe excessively) fair, people often don't know what they're getting into, even if they think they do. My wife is a city girl who used to go on "farms" with her family for vacation and thought that's what the countryside is like. Then when she visited my parent's place (not even a farm itself, just close to several), she was completely flabbergasted about how bad real pig farms smell, about manure being brought to the field right next to our house ( you can even smell it through certain drains in our house), etc.

There's a train yard in a city near me. There's a plan to build a bunch of housing beside it. The train company is viciously fighting against the development because they KNOW (and they're right) that the people who buy those houses, with the full knowledge the house is beside a train yard, will get mad about the train yard operations and cause a headache.

Well, in this case it's clearly not genuine - the guy just used the lawsuit as a pressure tactics to get freebees from the resort. What is astonishing here he actually admitted it on record - and still went for jury trial instead of settling (and then spent money on appealing it). Looks like a person with much more money than sense.

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