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.
- 200
- 1
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What are your predictions for the odyssey ? Will it bomb, will it flourish, will it be meh? What it has going on for it are Nolan, star studded cast, one of the greatest adventure tales ever told. On the other hand for every Dark Knight in his career, Nolan has produced a Dark Knight Rises and all of his movies are one hour longer than needed. The casting has definitely some strange and odd choices. And whether there is appetite for mythical destruction in the public after massive woke coded fantasy and other flops in the last few years remains to be seen.
Personally I will probably skip it, unless invited by some extremely hot chick. After so much culture warring - I just can't get excited for the big Hollywood productions anymore.
I don’t know if it will bomb or not. But I watched a CAM bootleg on my computer this evening. It was literally the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Now, given that it was a pirate copy and most people don’t n ow what that means, imagine someone with a camera on a tripod in the projection booth filming the screen. As such, I can’t really say if the visual impact of the movie makes up for everything else. But since the fidelity was so low, I have to judge the film by its characters, theme, acting, dialogue and plot. I give it a 2, 1, 0, 0, 1 in each category. Overall score 1 out of 10.
I just watched The Return last night. As such the final scene with Odysseus, the bow, and the suiters was particularly horribly executed. I beg everyone who’s watching the Nolan movie to go find and watch The Return. That movie is also flawed, but the final scene is absolutely epic. Watching Matt Damon swing and axe around in a circle like a retard is laughably bad. And watching him play a famous archer and basically hip firing a bow and arrow is so silly.
I saw one good review say it was “Bracingly modern”. With that, I agree.
Are all Nolan movies this bad? I know he’s got some detractors out there, but I recall telling people I liked Oppenheimer. I need to rewatch it to see I was just caught up in the hype of that too.
It’s hard to emphasize how bad I thought a lot of it is. And then to see the critical reviews give it a 10/10. And I’m sure all of the normies will rave about it too. Am I just crazy?
It’s the worst movie Ive seen in quite some time.
This movie kinda was Oppenheimer. Matt Damon single-handedly caused theBronze Age Collapse ,that event with a famously singular cause, and the movie is wrestling with that.
I heard about that bit, and I can only think it is supposed to refer to "I solved the problem of how to conquer Troy and have Greece win the war, which meant the Greek fleet all heading home at the same time, and then they (like myself and my ships) had to invade islands for food and supplies, and killed the inhabitants, woe is me, the Bronze Age Collapse is all my fault".
Funnily enough, reviewers whose tastes often align with mine (we all agree Rings of Power is terrible) saw the movie and really liked it, so it must come across way better on the big screen when you watch the entire movie, because the trailers were dogshit.
The movie does posit that the Sea Peoples are returning Greeks for that reason.
But that isn't even the main problem. The movie outright states that the thing that caused the collapse of the entire civilization was the breaking of xenia/Zeus's law because of the Trojan horse gambit and the attendant sack (no mention is made of the much more unambiguous violation of hospitality that kicked off the war).
The movie makes an outcome whose cause so uncertain we debate the causes today into a pretty straightforward monocausal event.
It's much better than I thought from the trailers. Trailers were awful and bland and I suspect that's part of why the antiwoke stuff was able to dominate. The PR just didn't give you much.
TBF they didn't have to. The story is the story and Nolan is at the peak of his powers in terms of box office draw.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link