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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3377 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 22, 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?

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There was a motte post that was memorable to me, and I keep trying to find it so I can quote it exactly and reference it. I can’t remember if it was on this site or the subreddit. But it was a discussion of dating or bullying of some kind, and ended with the commenter saying, “most of the women I’ve been friends with or dated were outcasts from the ruthless social competition of high school girls, and they bore the scars of that experience.” I thought it was an interesting point.

Does anyone have any clue who posted this or what the original comment was?

That sounds super familiar and it's driving me crazy that I can't remember who posted it, or whether it was here, reddit, or even someone from TPOT. Maybe one of the serious archivists like gattsuru or erwgv3g34 remembers.

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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."

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