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PaperclipPerfector  13hr ago (text post)   601 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.

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Emil Kirkegaard has a new test, a "Multifactor General Knowledge Test". Link here: https://taketest.xyz/mfgkt

It's short and takes maybe 5 minutes. The percentile rankings are fun. Surely The Motte can drag the distribution rightward.

My results. (Foiled again by my working class upbringing.)

75th percentile in US, 79th in Anglo, 50th percentile among test takers on that site (?).

Greater than 70th percentile in everything except cultural info where I'm 8th percentile. I'm not sure what kind of upbringing I had but I think the test is saying 'sheltered'.

Rip. I know you IRL so I find this surprising.

Thank you! Much appreciated.

I think this was the category with different names for weed, different brands of cosmetics, etc. so that’s how I’m preserving my dignity.

I lurk /r/Redscarepod for fun (and field anthropology), so that gives me an unfair advantage when it comes to feminine insight.

Hell, even I'm a bit miffed at "only" 77th percentile for the site, I want to believe I'm special :(

Another RSP patrician.

I'm sad Reddit broke all the fun APIs, because that "users of X sub also like Y" tool was really fun, and I'm pretty sure slatestarcodex and RSP had a decent overlap and I've always found that very amusing.

I've never once listened to RSP, but I love their sub.

You couldn't pay me money to listen to the actual podcast, but it's an interesting crowd. I used to see @2rafa active there on occasion, and it was weird. Akin to running into your pediatrician at a rave.

I loved the podcast but Anna got xanax’d out and the subreddit degenerated into a sad hybrid of ChapoTrapHouse and MDE that I didn’t enjoy.

I'm not surprised. Disliking the podcast but appreciating the community is... very common. Almost universal on the sub, in my experience.

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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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