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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3685 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026

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.

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Even Disney World has MBA'd itself into a place I would no longer remotely describe as the "happiest place on earth".

The kids for whom Disney World is supposed to be the happiest place on earth didn't see the schedule optimisation that old-school Disney adults used to do, and they don't see the bills for Genie+ or whatever the latest incarnation is. They either get the promised happiness if the parents get it right, or spend the day underwhelmed waiting in queues and wandering around theme areas if they get it wrong.

The Motte preferentially attracts the sort of person for whom autistically optimising a day at a theme park is fun, rather than a chore which normies who can afford to will pay money not to have to do. But I don't think poring over planners is obviously happier than working overtime to pay for Genie+, and neither is supposed to be part of the happiness in the first place.

I agree that the US Disney parks are more crowded in general than they used to be, even given the continuously rising prices, and that this makes them less happy. It would be good for humanity (though not necessarily for their monopolistic bottom line) if Disney opened a third US park in the Midwest.

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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."

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