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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   2313 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 5, 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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I got Learn Japanese To Survive! Trilogy and Cursed Treasure 2 Evil Evolution Bundle. The first because I am going to learn that fucking language if it's the last thing I do, the second because I like tower defense games. They are also very cheap; $5.18 combined.

What happened to learning multiple languages being infeasible?

It's infeasible at the population level, not the individual level. Individual people can obviously learn more than one language; I myself already speak both English and Spanish.

But most people do not have that capability, nor the motivation to learn, nor the use case to make it worthwhile. Me? I have been a weeb since I was watching Saint Seiya and Dragon Ball as a five year old, I have been interested in learning Japanese since I was in middle school, and I will never want for practice, since I am constantly consuming Japanese media, from anime to video games to hentai manga.

This is unlike, say, French, which I took two years of in high school, and which I barely remember; what the hell am I supposed to read in French, Jules Verne? I took French for the Bright Future scholarship, not out of any love for the language, or need to use it. So as soon as I graduated, I let my studies collapse.

Similarly, I am against trying to teach everyone algebra, despite the fact that I know algebra, and indeed calculus. Most people do not have the capability to learn algebra, hate the subject, and get no use out of it; I myself can count on one hand the number of times I have used algebra outside a classroom. But that does not mean engineers should not learn calculus.

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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."

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