site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   661 thread views

Transnational Thursday for August 27, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've once booked a house at a resort with classmates (4 guys 4 girls) before and just found random rooms and couches to sleep on when others took "my spot" for the night. She also decided to go to a resort with these people so there must have be some level of trust there. They stayed up late and one could easily think "oh they must have absentmindedly locked it, let's not disturb people sleeping/hooking up/etc., there are other places to sleep anyway".

Is it normal to lock the room in these circumstances though? If this was the case here I'm sure they locked the house, but the bedroom as well? I'm not well-versed in Vietnamese customs so I don't know. Either way, something's fishy about this story. I presume they made some verbal arrangements beforehand and she was planning to share a bedroom with other women. Is it normal for women to lock one of their own out of a bedroom for the night when there's some level of mutual trust there?

Unfortunately not enough details to infer, I can see different reasons why the door was locked from the nefarious/conspiratorial to the innocent/accidental. For whatever reason, the Vietnamese-American woman didn't raise a fuss at the time and just found a different spot to sleep. She also isn't suing for any kind of conspiracy but just the rapist. Personally, I'm inclined to believe if she's willing to bring justice to the rapist but not anyone else (though she still could) then the chances of a conspiracy goes down. But who knows.

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