site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1202 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 7, 2026

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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Video Game Thread

What are you playing?

Only a couple hours of Deus Ex this week:

Paul is alive and Jaime has joined us too. Maggie Chow was electro-shocked and chopped to bits with the Dragon's Tooth inside the Universal Constructor area. :) Soon after I ran into a bug back in NYC where the Illuminati contact, Stanton Dowd, wouldn't talk to me. Later discovered I had to shoot him in the head with a firearm. That actually worked. Next up, the Naval base.

Then I started a new Civ V game, intending to go wide. I finished the Liberty tree and ended up having only 3 cities by midgame. Whoops.

XCOM 2, Commander Ironman mode, of course.

My strongest memory: Missing 95% chances at point blank range is a bunch of bs.

I wonder how much frustration could be mitigated by listing the odds as 1/20 chance of failure rather than 95% success. I notice I subconsciously round anything 90% or higher to 100% and get mad when RNG fails me. The fraction reminds me that I will fail the "almost guaranteed hits" from time to time.

The issue isn't that a 95% success chance will have you fail 5% of the attempts, I understand and accept that. The annoyance comes from how a shotgun aimed at point blank range directly at the enemy could somehow not hit. There's just no explanation for it.

I think the turn-based visuals really make it look goofy, as opposed to (say) the Ayys knocking your barrel aside right as you pull the trigger, or your character looking a bit more panicked at being right next to a berserker.

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