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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   17293 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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You have to think of The Motte as a zoo. There are dangerous animals here, but they're in cages and can't do anything unless you jump in the cage.

It's not like the people you think are awful cease to exist based on the existence of the Motte. And yes, I certainly think some people whom I won't name are awful human beings. But sometimes I want to know how they tick. I want to know how they react to evidence which contradicts them. And often not responding is the best course, because there's nothing to be gained.

My question to you is what does "fighting" entail? There's never going to be a magical utopia where everyone gets along. There's always going to be some percentage of assholes. "Progress" is just a reduction in the number of assholes and the degree of their assholishness. But it can never reach zero.

There has to be a balance between advancing your beliefs and realizing that caring too much about the mere existence of distasteful things just makes you unhappy. There's no "killing" in debates, so the end result of debates is 1% of the time someone changed their mind and 99% of the time nothing changed.

The people here are extremely used to being told by other people they're bad people. They don't care. What are you hoping to accomplish?

My question to you is what does "fighting" entail?

I'm saying that if /u/RandomRanger got his way and there was some "reawakening" in society where they agreed to "block" black people using state violence I would fight

And you would be right to do so, if indeed that happened. But it's not happening, and the chances of that happening, however much any random ranging racist wants it, are pretty low nowdays. And that's a good thing.

There are dangerous animals here, but they're in cages and can't do anything unless you jump in the cage.

Cue the classic tweet.

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.


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