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.
- 23
- 1
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've become very strict on the Pence Rule lately. A friend of mine had a business trip, big conference kind of deal, and a bunch of people on the trip made plans to go to a local bar. Well my friend shows up and everyone bailed except him and a girl who was a friend/plus-one of one of the other women on the trip. Well, they disappear, no one can get a hold of them all night, or the next morning, and everyone figures they have hooked up. Which rather upsets his wife, who is also on the trip.
My friend woke up the next morning on a bare mattress on the floor of a flophouse apartment two hours from his hotel, with no memory of anything after the first beer, and no wallet or phone, having to find his way back to the hotel on the kindness of strangers in a bad part of a town he's not from. He thinks he was drugged, while I love him I'm always skeptical of Mickey Finn Cocktail stories as there's almost no confirmed cases and it's typically just too much alcohol. Regardless of how it happened, I don't think it was intentional to get that fucked up. But the circumstances made it all so damaging: he disappeared last seen in the company of a young woman.
I always avoided situations where I was alone with a woman. But I think the utility of the rule stretches way past just what you might do, but to all the strange unlikely occurrences that might happen to you and leave you with a lot of 'splainin to do.
Couldn't you just avoid that by, you know, not drinking? I'm a pretty big fan of that. Alcohol just makes people act like idiots, and being a teetotaler seems to me like a much smaller imposition than never being alone with a woman who is not your girlfriend/wife/family.
-- The vast majority of men throughout European history would disagree with you that drinking is less important than avoiding loose women.
-- Drinking was the problem in this case, but it is far from the only unlikely occurrence that can put you in a bad situation.
-- You say alcohol causes people to act like idiots. I say there are many people who need to act like idiots a little more often.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link