site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3514 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The USS Lincoln is currently in Thailand after 9 months at sea. My small question on this is whether Thailand just made logistical sense to stop in or is this basically Hegseth deciding to dump 5k sailors in Thailand and its world renowned red-light district and therefore sort of culture war. I don’t think I could see a Dem administration doing the same thing because it’s basically asking for “toxic masculinity” behavior.

I am curious what the total party tab would be. 5k sailors with all their pay saved up for 9 months. $4k average spend sound right? Or $20 million. I guess burning man is going on right now but if I was choosing a party right now I think I’d go with Thailand and 5k soldiers who haven’t been off a boat for 9 months as the more lit party to attend.

5k soldiers who haven’t been off a boat for 9 months

I hate to be that guy, but I see "soldiers" is getting replicated down-thread. Technically, U.S. Navy personnel are sailors. There is a special type of derangement that can only be created by confining 20-something men to a box for months on end. Thus, the Village People:

In the Navy [is] where can you find pleasure.

Some might have an objection to calling an aircraft carrier a boat rather than a ship. But I would guess "I'm on a Boat" has played many thousands of times aboard the Lincoln, so who am I to object?

I did use sailor a few times too. One issue with the use sailor is it does not have specificity that they are fighting men. Soldier is specifically fighting men.

I probably would have considered sailor as a type of soldier but sailor can also refer to people who are not fighting men.

Yeah, I thought your initial usage was fine. I mostly wasn't sure everyone reading the thread below would realize the technical distinction. I guess maybe "serviceman" doesn't give land-army vibes? I thought the nautical aspect of the ship being full of seamen was important to the point you were making.

Do people really say "sailor" in a modern context to refer to a merchant mariner?

Yes when I hear "sailor" I imagine it can mean a sailor in the military or someone who sails on any kind of vessel. I like watching "maritime" videos on youtube and people who aren't in the military use "sailor" all the time generically

Apologies for referring to Navy sailors as soldiers in my comment below, and thanks for the correction. Actually it felt weird as I was typing "soldier" but I thought that was because a close relative was in the Navy and thinking of him as a sailor makes sense in my brain but calling him a soldier in my brain felt weird. Apparently my instinct was correct.

I thought it included people outside of the navy.

When I Google it the definition I get is navy, commercial, and even recreational. So I believe it’s not limited to just military person.

I can't comment on the political philosophy behind this, I just reacted as I think most of everyone who saw this story did: "Boatload of sailors who have been months at sea, port/resort city famous for being, well, a port/resort city - yes indeedy, there's gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight".

Are any of them ginger-headed? Quite possibly! 😁

$4k average spend sound right?

Oh, you don't know how cheap Thailand is and how far 4k will get you. How long will the sailors be in Pattaya? I couldn't spend 4k in Pattaya in under a month unless I was tipping literally everybody 100 USD and staying at stupidly expensive resorts (if those even exist in Pattaya, idk because my ex-bf insisted we stay at the sketchiest $20 a night place when we went) and you don't even have to tip people there and half of them won't know what you're doing if you try. Thai people are so bad culturally with money that I'm not worried about a theoretical 20 million dollar influx either- I've heard people in Thailand tell each other that if they have any extra money that they have to donate it to the poor or a Buddhist temple for example the mindset is just totally foreign to western thinking.

Pattaya probably the craziest party city they could go to, when I heard they were dumping soldiers there on leave the image in my mind was crazy. Would be a hell of a place to distract yourself from a war. Hope the soldiers are respecting the place (lol.)

Hope the soldiers are respecting the place (lol.)

The Captain's tastes were simple but his methods were complex
We found him with five partners each of a different world and sex
the shore police were on the way, we had no second chance
We beamed him out in the nick of time in the remnants of his pants

And we're banned from Argo every one
Banned from Argo just for having a little fun
We spent a jolly shore-leave there for just three days or four
But Argo doesn't want us any more

They’re using the lady-boy geek show to distract you from what’s really going on.

  1. The USS Lincoln is stationed in in the Persian Gulf.
  2. The ceasefire with Iran breaks down.
  3. There are multiple days of fighting with the IRGC.
  4. The IRGC claims they hit an American carrier with multiple ballistic missiles and severely damaged it.
  5. Suddenly the USS Lincoln just has to haul ass out of the gulf, and the toilets are so shitty that we need evacuate the ENTIRE CREW just to perform the “maintenance.”
  6. Uhh…uhhh… LOOK EVERYONE shitty toilets and ladyboy cock yuk yuk! Pay no attention to the actual aircraft carrier!
  • -15

This is hilariously implausible. Do you really think the crew of the Lincoln, a ship which has had soldiers disciplined for talking to journalists without permission (About the conditions you insist are fake), would be able to cover up the ship receiving missile fire? The ship with a crew of over FIVE THOUSAND? Yeah, that's not how things work these days where everyone has phones.

And that they manage to accomplish a good enough repair & paint job while at sea to hide multiple ASBM strikes from anyone who might have seen the ship while transiting and docking at port. And then completed the repairs in what, a week, with zero images or local contractor reports of missile damage?

It is fascinating how various "skeptics" immediately lose all skepticism and start taking everything at face value when the source is IRGC, Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Putin, Xi or some other source with equally excellent record. Yes, US government lies, but other governments lie too, and usually at least as much. Any other source for severe damage to USS Lincoln besides IRGC evidence-free claims?

Plenty of people were paying attention to the Lincoln - it's been covered with rust due to the long deployment, which was a major source of conversation. You appear to be suggesting that the Lincoln was damaged by Iranian fire, and that to cover this up, the US government sent it to a port where it was photographed and filmed at close range from different angles and then turned the entire crew loose to go get booze with prostitutes - which are the last thing and the next to last thing you would do if you were actually trying to cover up a missile strike on an aircraft carrier.

I like good conspiracy theories as much as the next person but this is the second time you've hinted at major damage to an aircraft carrier in as many months without apparently bothering to check and see if such a cover-up passed the Google sniff test. I think you owe yourself and the Motte more due diligence.

I'm not sure how dumping 5,000 soldiers in the ladyboy capital of the world squares with Hegseth's desire to MAMA (Make the Armed forces Macho Again).

On the other hand, going to Thailand and not shagging a ladyboy is like going to Turkey and not eating a fuckin kebab, so fuck off who knows. (Link is extremely NSFW.)

That is possibly the oddest thing I've ever seen on the Internet. I can only imagine the level of regret that dude felt when he sobered up the next day.

He doesn't even seem that drunk to me. He seems like a man who knows exactly what he wants and makes no apologies for it.

You could be right. I figured that he was intoxicated with something, but there are all kinds in this world.

world squares with Hegseth's desire to MAMA (Make the Armed forces Macho Again).

Only the realest of man can fuck other man.

When Chuck Norris has sex with a man, it is not because he is gay, but because he has run out of women

Luckily I think I've seen that link before because I can't stomach visiting efukt anymore.

It always starts with a link to one of the funnier videos, like here, then I click around and watch a few more, and then in not much time at all I end up seeing something that can't be waved away with standard issue detached internet irony. It's too bleak.

There are of course Kathoey in Bangkok, Pattaya, etc., but there are also thousands of actual females from the countryside peddling ass in the tourist areas. There's no contradiction here.

Ya two people mentioned the lady boys. But honestly I thought this was also known for loose women.

I got pagan vibes of soldiers having a lot of sexual conquests/rape posts war. Which is the bit of culture war here. At times it seems like the modern right is moving in a pagan direction and the modern left feels like a posts-Christian but still Christian cult.

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