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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1162 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 4, 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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Is anyone monitoring the biological attack in Russia?

Nope. I have Indian wholesale antibiotics and recently got a second cat, I think the plague is irrelevant to me.

It’s a gain-of-function enhanced bioweapon version of pneumatic plague. The stock version naturally has a 90% fatality rate. 77% if you can get them on antibiotics less than a day after infection. This one has probably been bred or engineered to be resistant to most major antibiotics. There’s also some indications it’s been modified to have a longer-non-symptomatic carrying period to compensate for the high fatality rate.

Pneumatic plague? I hope my car doesn't catch it.

Ah, this is why your refrigerator is running.

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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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