site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   549 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 1, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There are some very large protests/rioting in Tehran. Potentially veering towards an attempted revolution. As I said in my post in the last TT thread, I’m pretty sure these are organized and coordinated by Burgerland/Israeli intelligence. Probably not much will come out of it, but something to keep an eye on.

Edit: Starting to see some armed anti-government paramilitaries popping up on the street in videos. Not necessarily a huge deal, these groups have been conducting attacks for years. But perhaps a sign of an escalation.

An Iranian expat has told me recently (with regards to the Women's rights and other major protests), that suggesting these (albeit sometimes large) protests will lead to regime change is the same as if Chinese or Cuban state media portrayed the BLM or Occupy Wall Street protests as possibly toppling the US government. The state there is powerful and entrenched, aside he has no love for the regime and is an anti-Islamist.

I also think Westerners tend to overestimate the seriousness of these things because they apply a western metric towards the number of deaths. The military opening fire on a crowd of demonstrators and killing a couple hundred people would be a big fucking deal if it happened in Paris or Portland. In Iran that’s fairly standard.

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