site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4067 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 17, 2023

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.

4
Bottom New Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Do you know what I-talk is believed to indicate?

Not disagreeing too strongly, but I typically use I-talk to better convey my own bias and uncertainty. "I think", "it seems to me", "IMO", etc. are all meant to convey something like "I'm no objective arbiter of truth, so feel free to call me out on these points and you might change my mind."

This is maybe a bad habit, since I notice reading your comment that such statements seem unnecessary. When you say "you fail to write for your audience" I intuitively understand that as an opinion, rather than a hard assertion that this statement is definitely the objective truth.

I intuitively understand that as an opinion, rather than a hard assertion that this statement is definitely the objective truth.

Exactly!

I go to some lengths to reduce I-talk. This has several uses. First, it allows me to see more clearly how much is being said on the object level, versus vague attentionwhoring and showerthought-posting (which I've been accused of in the past), or in any case reduce the appearance of the latter. But also, on the side of prefacing claims with disclaimers of subjectivity – it's something of a political act. I oppose the expectation that obviously subjective opinions are to be coached in caveats, which only inflate the perceived lack of confidence and help the message be dismissed as waffling or idle musing. If I have an opinion, that's because I believe to possess sufficient knowledge to have one, for the purposes of speaking on the matter at all, and welcome others to prove me wrong. Excessive «I think» and «It seems» and such are probably (probably/possibly/maybe are a better way to communicate uncertainty, unless you see good reasons to doubt your knowledge, judgement or faculties) a product of that ghastly «nonviolent communication» theory that was invented to protect oversensitive people from... object-level criticism and causes to improve themselves. And on the other hand: this practice allows one to unduly increase the weight of one's words by contrast, when caveats are suddenly dropped. «But the truth is that my writing style works: it attacks the right people, and repels the wrong people» – implying both to know the truth of it working and an objective judgement of people's worth.

More radically: people always express subjective opinions, we have no way of knowing objective truths. Of course some things are said with more conviction – claims about relations of mathematical objects or commonly knowable physical facts carry the implication that they are settled matters and should be incontrovertible for everyone, while «Shin Sekai Yori is more interesting than western animation» or «that theory is ghastly» are mere admissions of personal judgement with the tacit recognition of non-universality; but even this difference is not clear-cut, we can still be mistaken or disagree about STEM stuff (as Pascal Descartes argued, the Devil can befuddle him even about arithmetic).

In the Universe described from my perspective with my priorities, good taste is essentially objective and good writers can be established just about as solidly as large prime numbers, barring some strong cause to update. But that's the Universe inside my head, I cannot know its precise relation to the real one, nor authoritatively claim to know it – only share my own perspective.

Those caveats are redundant and support a bad communicative practice.

In my opinion.

I believe (oops I did it again) your attitude toward communicative caveats to be broadly correct but unfortunately on this particular site not including them is a good way to get modded more easily. Hopefully one day you can also convince the mods here that they are mostly worthless.

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