site banner
Goodguy  1d ago (text post)   Edited 1d ago   8702 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

12
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

G.2. "Pick another protein? I'd rather pick another senator" is the best political ad of the year.

It's insane that this is the broad consensus, because to me what she said was obviously good advice and they're punishing her for telling them the truth.

I meant she was 100% correct, but that ad is also a banger, I'd vote for him based off of the ad alone. This is the problem with human based democracy, you either need to get rid of democracy, or get rid of the humans and have it done via AI agents as the voters instead with the AI agents tasked with choosing for the best interests of all of humanity.

"Hot dogs are five cents cheaper"

"Make your own $20 burrito"

Good advice and true statements, unfortunately, do not win votes. As attack ad soundbites go, this one was probably the least obvious in the moment, though.

It's both. Yes, it's good advice, and personally higher beef prices helped me discover that I actually might prefer pork anyway. And I doubt there's much a senator can do about it. But elected officials or candidates for elected office are pretty much not allowed to tell the public any variation on "deal with it", because they will lose to someone who will say "Unlike my opponent, I will deal with it for you".

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