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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!

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PaperclipPerfector 9hr ago (text post) 329 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 27, 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.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

ToaKraka Dislikes you 9hr ago · Edited 6hr ago

Premise: The point of posting on an online forum is to accumulate prestige—upvotes on Reddit-based websites, reaction points on XenForo-based websites, etc.

Problem: This website does not list your upvote total on your profile. How are people supposed to determine who the most prestigious users are?

Solution: This website does list your follower count on your profile. In theory, following a user gives you an alert whenever that user makes a standalone post (not a comment). However, in practice, nobody actually makes standalone posts on this website, so following a user has no effect other than increasing that user's prestige. Therefore, follower count can be used as a yardstick to measure a user's prestige.

Making a fancy program to scrape everybody's profile and make a list of all users sortable by follower count is left as an exercise to the reader.

(This is approximately half a joke.)

I am once again asking for your cool house designs. If you think my designs are stupid, why haven't you drawn any better ones? 🫵🫵🫵*

I use QCAD for my drawings, but you don't need to be a CAD aficionado in order to draw a floor plan that consists of nothing but rectangles. GIMP (at 6 inches per pixel if you're feeling lazy or 1.5 inches per pixel if you're feeling exact), or a pencil on a Post-It Note, works nearly as well.

You don't need to be a lawyer in order to understand the relevant building codes (1 2 3), either. Walls are 4.5 inches thick, floors are something like 9 feet apart, doors are 32 (normal) or 36 (accessible) inches wide, stairways have 10-inch treads and 7.75-inch risers, one window in each bedroom has a 20″×24″, 5-ft² opening 44 inches from the floor so that you can clamber out of it in an emergency, blah blah blah. Once you've drawn a few floor plans you'll memorize the most relevant stuff.

*These three characters are "index pointing at the viewer" emojis. However, they unfortunately show up only as "this character is missing from your browser's font" boxes on my screen.

Speaking of building codes, here are some interesting definitions from the IPMC (International Property Maintenance Code).

Dwelling unit: Must include provisions for sleeping, living, eating, cooking, and sanitation. (Total: 5)
Housekeeping unit: Must include provisions for sleeping, living, eating, and cooking. Must not include provisions for sanitation. (Total: 4)
Sleeping unit: Must include provisions for sleeping. Must not include provisions for both cooking and sanitation (but may include provisions for only one of them, or for living or eating). (Total: 1–4)
Rooming unit: Must include provisions for sleeping and/or living. Must not include provisions for cooking. (Total: 1–4)

Obviously, in addition to the five uses enumerated above, many dwelling units also include provisions for circulation, laundry, utilities/mechanical/water heating, and storage.

Sleeping: Bedroom
Living: Living room
Eating: Dining room
Cooking: Kitchen
Sanitation: Bathroom
Circulation: Corridor
Laundry: Laundry room
Utilities/mechanical/water heating: Utility room
Storage: Closet

Context

cjet79 ToaKraka 4hr ago

Top followers exists, at least for mods. I can't tell if other people have access to the users page.

Top by followers

Name Followers

1 DaseindustriesLtd 77 2 FCfromSSC 35 3 2rafa 24 4 doglatine 20 5 KulakRevolt 20 6 SecureSignals 19 7 TracingWoodgrains 18 8 FiveHourMarathon 17 9 ZorbaTHut 16 10 Dean 15 11 self_made_human 15 12 ymeskhout 14 13 ScottA 14 14 gattsuru 13 15 naraburns 11 16 cjet79 11 17 HlynkaCG 11 18 JTarrou 11 19 Sloot 10 20 Hoffmeister25 10 21 coffee_enjoyer 10 22 Amadan 10 23 Chrisprattalpharaptor 9 24 netstack 9 25 Stefferi 9

Context

ToaKraka Dislikes you cjet79 4hr ago

Properly formatted:

Position	Name	Followers
1	DaseindustriesLtd	77
2	FCfromSSC	35
3	2rafa	24
4	doglatine	20
5	KulakRevolt	20
6	SecureSignals	19
7	TracingWoodgrains	18
8	FiveHourMarathon	17
9	ZorbaTHut	16
10	Dean	15
11	self_made_human	15
12	ymeskhout	14
13	ScottA	14
14	gattsuru	13
15	naraburns	11
16	cjet79	11
17	HlynkaCG	11
18	JTarrou	11
19	Sloot	10
20	Hoffmeister25	10
21	coffee_enjoyer	10
22	Amadan	10
23	Chrisprattalpharaptor	9
24	netstack	9
25	Stefferi	9

Context

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 Realtime Chats

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