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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5635 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 12, 2023

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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So, what are you reading?

I'm picking up Gibson's Count Zero, the second in the Sprawl Trilogy. I haven't heard much about this one, but Neuromancer was great.

Currently reading The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason. "Set during the British Army's Gordon Relief Expedition in Sudan, well after the formation of Mahdiyya, it tells the story of a young man accused of cowardice."

Dramatic themes and interesting characters but the writing is rather dead. This book was made into multiple movies, and it does seem like a story that would come across better on film.

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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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