site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3375 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 14, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

it might be unseemly to ask people to rate their social interactions with me on a scale of 1-10?

Haha.

I remember enjoying how CS Lewis talked about philia in The Four Loves.

My parents keep joining book clubs; currently they're looking forwards to a TS Eliot meetup. But we were all educated lower middle class, and didn't have any idea how to get complex, satisfying jobs with quantized and measurable feedback. We've mostly had the kinds of jobs where feedback came in the form of getting yelled at, or sometimes unexpectedly fired. I can see how it would be very appealing to put time and effort into an actually good job that you're good at.

We've mostly had the kinds of jobs where feedback came in the form of getting yelled at, or sometimes unexpectedly fired

That sounds terrible and that is my fear that if you devote yourself even to a satisfying job at some point you may lose your humanity and see people as numbers (or worse human resources, or worse liabilities on a balance sheet)

I'm curious to see what, if anything, comes of the LLM driven automation of the next decade. It seems primed, especially, to take over low level management work. I wonder if it would be better or worse for the average worker to have high level decisions made by an AI program vs a human manager. Thinking of some of the human decisions, it might be mixed. Reports out of Amazon warehouses aren't great.

We've been learning about the mining labor struggles of 19th Century Colorado. This isn't from Colorado, but is a good song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MjFcllICjUc

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