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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2345 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 30, 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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Why, when I open Substack during the day, does the algorithm generally show me notes that I agree with – but when I open it late at night or in the wee hours of the morning, I'm presented with a cavalcade of libtards?

The algorithm knows that if it gives you peaceful content at night you’ll fall asleep and stop scrolling. So it gives you rage bait to jolt you awake.

The substack algorithm seems very swingy, if you click on the note of a reasonable lib once, you get flooded with median HCR enjoyers. Maybe that has to do with it?

Americans waking up?

That was my first thought. But during the day, Substack shows me notes I agree with, many of them posted by Americans. In the wee hours of the morning, it shows me notes I disagree with, exclusively by Americans. I don't get it.

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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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