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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1592 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 9, 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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What is the meaning of life in at most 3 sentences?

My (provisional) answer: Do right by your family and friends. Enjoy your life. Leave the world better as a result of your existence.

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world

Nobody's going to do it? Nobody? Alright, I'll jump on that grenade for the good of all.

To crush your enemies.

To see them driven before you.

To hear the lamentations of their women.

I was about to say the open steppe, a fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair, but I knew about how well that would have been received.

I should buy a boat falcon and a horse.

He has shown you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

What is the meaning of life in at most 3 sentences?

what you decide the meaning of life to be. it doesn't really matter. But it will really matter to you.

I think the more interesting question for mottizens would be: What is your meaning of life?

Heidegger, I think, clarifies this: "Meaning is that wherein the intelligibility of something maintains itself. That which can be articulated in disclosure that understands we call meaning. The concept of meaning includes the formal framework of what necessarily belongs to what interpretation that understands articulates. Meaning, structured by fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception, is the upon which of the project in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something. Insofar as understanding and interpretation constitute the existential condition of the being of the there, meaning must be conceived as the formal, existential framework of the disclosedness belonging to understanding. Meaning is an existential to Dasein, not a property which is attached to beings, which lies 'behind' them or floats somewhere as a 'realm between'. Only Dasein 'has' meaning in that the disclosedness of being-in-the-world can be 'fulfilled' through the beings discoverable in it. Thus only Dasein can be meaningful or meaningless."

To put it into three sentences: Meaning is something we always have and create as we live in the world. The concept of meaning is the reflexive self-understanding of our primal and direct relationship to the world around us, and, as such, can neither be absent from, created artificially by, or inhabited directly by Dasein (us). Meaning is fundamentally a secondary concept which we use to understand who and what we are and, while it's an important one, is not itself what we actually care about, and so a fixation on the meaning of life is at best only a way to get to life itself.

(apologies for any typoes in the quote, I typed from the book rather than looking for a pdf)

Pursue wellbeing for your collective according to how humans are designed, which is as a social species with mandatory requirements for felicity. This is what “love your neighbor as yourself” means, but neighbor should absolutely not refer to those merely around you or those in your economic zone blob, unless you want to destroy love itself and all morality. The greatest commandment — to love God with your All — is a requirement to truly love neighbor under a sufficiently intelligent understanding of human evolutionary design.

Discern and cultivate processes that lead to long-term welfare and happiness for youself and others. Discern and reduce processes that lead to long-term suffering for yourself or others.

Mu. Alternatively, invalid type.

It doesn't matter.

One could do worse than Ecclesiates 9:9-10 and 12:13:

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.

I suppose that's cheating because it's 5 clauses packed into those three sentences.

A wise man once said “the purpose of a system is what it does”. The meaning of life is to do what you’re physically going to anyways, and consciously experience it. Not baseless pleasures; this includes introspection to determine what you truly want.

Work.

Pay taxes.

Die (this may result in further taxes being paid).

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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.


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