site banner
PaperclipPerfector  17hr ago (text post)   514 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 28, 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.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Does anyone here have recommendations for making long drives more tolerable? I've been on the road a lot lately, and by the time I get toy destination, I'm pretty wiped out.

How long are we talking? Strategy for a three hour drive is different than a six hour drive.

I like a big pleasant beverage, I'll stop at Wawa and get an extra large diet coke or Dr pepper. Zyns are pleasant and calorie free. Drinking also forces me to stop and piss, which adds the element of looking for a likely empty spot to tap a kidney.

Line up a variety of podcasts/music/audiobooks beforehand so when you get bored of one thing you just change to the next.

Three to five hours, mostly, with most of that being rural interstate.

Any recommendations on podcasts? I've never really looked into them at all. Tagging @Southkraut too in case he has any input as well.

  • @atelier mentioned Fall of Civilizations, and I also recommend that one. Very well-made. One caveat though: I actually prefer to watch it on youtube because they add lots of nice imagery there.
  • Literature and History: Excellently made, but sadly very woke. Practically every episode is at least 25% the author making casting shade on bronze-age people for not having modern-day morality. Sometimes that's a full 100%. Very unfortunate.
  • History of Ancient Greece: Less skilled speaker, unfortunately nasal, but it's more dry and technical and without the constant woke commentary. Just the way I like it.

I just realize I said "podcasts" earlier, but in actual truth I mostly do audiobooks.

Over the last few years, I listened to

  • Dune. Fair for its day, but not actually as good as people nowadays make it out to be.
  • Brigador. Good.
  • Flashman. Good.
  • The Sienkiewicz Trilogy. Very good.
  • Ciaphas Cain. Tolerable Flashman knockoff, but not actually all that good.
  • Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Decent.
  • Conan the Barbarian. I liked it, but I can see how someone might not.
  • Moby Dick. Excellent as always.
  • Neuromancer, read by William Gibson. Terrible, the man can't speak.
  • History of the Peloponnesian War. Excellent book, but audio is not the right medium for it.
  • All the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Good.
  • The Worm Ourobouros. Absolutely excellent.
  • Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch. Interesting, but not actually very good, even by 17th century standards.
  • Les Trois Mousqetaires. Surprisingly good, but tough going because my French isn't all that good anymore.

Most of those I got from librivox.com. Fair warning: The quality there varies wildly.

Fall of Civilizations is my favorite.

Hardcore History is fun and good production value.

I like Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World but you have to pick out the episodes that interest you.

Joe Rogan and Lex Friedman both do good work on interviews, and it's looooooooong with deep archives. I've never kept up with either podcast, but occasionally I'm in the mood and dig one up.

Welcome to Nightvale is fun and mindless if you like supernatural-lovecraft-comedy

Everyday Driver and Consumer Reports Talking Cars car podcasts are my favorite car podcasts when I'm in the mood, because they review real actual cars a human might actually drive.

The History of Rome is old but amazing, I've listened to it all the way through three times and I'll probably listen to it again this summer. It's so much detail. Hardcore History is a little 2edgy4me sometimes, but it is a classic for a reason.

The Secret History of Western Esotericism is absolutely incredible as a project, the SHWEP goes into so many things that if you're like me and read widely in the classics you have heard of but don't know half as much about as you'd like. I keep meaning to get through the whole thing.

You Must Remember This is a history of old Hollywood podcast, the series on Manson and Hollywood Babylon and Dead Blondes are my favorites, but every one of the series is pretty good, though it's painfully woke at moments. Acquired is a great podcast doing a long form history of famous companies, I find the guys hosting so incredibly cringe and lame that I can only enjoy episodes about companies I actually care about, the number of time these two quarter zip fucks call somebody a "badass" or a "gangsta" or something is too high, but the episodes on Starbucks and Rolex were great.

For stuff that's more to my personal rather than universal interest, The Philly Special podcast with my boys Sheil Kapadia and Shawn Syed is my favorite Eagles podcast I listen to multiple times a week. The BJJ Fanatics podcast does an interview with a great BJJ practitioner every week, and while they don't all hit, when I want that content they do a pretty good job.

I'll also throw in the Shakespeare Network on youtube has audio recordings of every Shakespeare play, and I'm working my way through them. Yale Courses on Youtube has lecture series on a wide range of topic, one of which must interest you at any given time.

Schizo podcasts help pass the time better.

I only listen to audiodrama fiction podcasts, some of my favorites:

The Magnus Archives — horror, monster of the week with an overarching plot format, the framing device are case reports read aloud
Malevolent — an original story in Lovecraft's world, the framing device is the protagonist talking with an entity that possessed parts of his body
SAYER — sci-fi, a sadistic AI in charge of a space station, the framing device are instructions from the titular AI SAYER to personnel
Edict Zero — FIS — sci-fi, cops, criminals, conspiracies, hackers, no framing device, just dialogue

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