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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2958 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 8, 2026

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.

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I think it varies person to person, not just culturally or on a biological clock. People mature at different rates, hit important milestones at different times, have particular peak experiences at different times. For some people it's high school, for some it's college, for some it's serving in the military, for one of my second cousins he talks the same way about the time he spent working as a milkman.

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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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