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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2699 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 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?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm trying to finish Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. This time around it is resonating, perhaps because the abstract desire for freedom is on my mind.

I’m curious to know if I’m truly the only person on TM who finds reading fiction to be extremely difficult…

I've been on a huge fiction candy binge. I don't know how many books a year I was reading per year for the last 10 years but it's been pretty intermittent. Start with the birth of my second kid I gave up all mobile gaming, and have read what I feel is an unhealthy amount. 7 Dungeon Crawler Carl books and on book 12 of He Who Fights with monsters in 5 months. Wife even says I've been doing more than my fair share around the house and taking care of the kids. Still feels like wasting a lot of time.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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