site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1042 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 3, 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is there somewhere where we can view AAQCs by user?

Is there somewhere where we can view AAQCs by user?

Here.

Mine is missing "Introductory Texts to Rationalism".

Also also, so many of these links are dead. People delete comments. Smart people. Cool people. These will not be marked, and you will be depressed about it.

Now that all the links are in one place, any chance you can have Claude submit them to the Wayback Machine and archive.today? Or just download them to a local archive and upload it somewhere for preservation?

Mine is missing "Introductory Texts to Rationalism".

It... looks like maybe that entire roundup did not get included in /r/thethread, actually! So none of those entries would show up here.

Now that all the links are in one place, any chance you can have Claude submit them to the Wayback Machine and archive.today?

I certainly can't. Someone else probably could.

But actually there was a point at which @ZorbaTHut scraped a bunch of them, and for several years now the full text of all AAQCs has been automatically archived. That is what led in part to the Vault, which project unfortunately hasn't had any forward motion in years. But Zorba does already have a database with much of the content archived. It's just a question of being able to actually do something with it.

Ok so I could abuse my privileges as a moderator of /r/anime to reobtain the stuff from pushshift https://old.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/14ei799/pushshift_live_again_and_how_moderators_can/ but it will take a bit for me to regain pushshift access since they switched to a new system

I have two in June 2023 but it only picked up the second one.

I wouldn't be too bothered but of the meagre 3 QCs I have that is the only one I consider as actually insightful.

Sorry about that!

One thing I have discovered is that the parser Claude made me did not pick up any AAQC awards if there were in-text [brackets] used when linking to the AAQC in the roundup. Sometimes these were used (as with yours) to edit the text a bit, but sometimes they showed up in the formatting for other reasons (like stripped links that left the brackets behind). I think that is the main category of missed AAQCs as there are probably a few dozen that ended up getting reported like this. I tried to catch as many as I could but by the time I finished this up, I had decided that I probably could have done the whole thing faster by hand, and it would have been substantially more precise. Alas, I squandered my time vibe coding, instead.

But, I have edited yours in now.

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 Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats