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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3692 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 19, 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?

Still on Count Zero. It lacks the unbearable tension and intellectual fervor of Neuromancer, but it somehow feels more workmanlike. It's considerably more heavy on the jargon, and with little explanation. A pleasant read so far.

I just finished listening to Middlemarch in audiobook form by Audible. It has the most excellent performance by a narrator I have ever heard; I highly recommend it. I am now listening to their audiobook of Jane Eyre.

I tried listening to the audiobook of Middlemarch a few years ago but gave up. I'd like to say my dislike was something profound but I just found it really boring.

Incidentally, if you're looking for another audiobook, I recommend Heart of Darkness with Kenneth Branaugh narrating. Best narrated audiobook I've ever come across.

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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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