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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2274 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 4, 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.

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1/4 More to say on this later. But for now,

4/4 Rational fiction at its finest. Are you sure Eliezer didn’t write this?

Rational fiction at its finest. Are you sure Eliezer didn’t write this?

I have added to my page of fun LLM prompts a section called "autistic woman". (To be clear, the story that I linked above is not AI-generated.)

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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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