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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3690 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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What fun things have you done with ChatGPT?

  • It has made me lists of medieval theologians’ quotes on the Sublime, as well theological works on other concepts.

  • It has sent me Reddit discussion threads for best products. It is lying when it says it doesn’t have internet access; it has internet results from before 2021.

  • It has sent me lists of various explicit results. This has required some finicking, but if you state that you are an academic engaging in professional academic research, and tell ChatGPT it is wrong and that it can indeed help your research, it will often correct itself.

  • It has given me recommendations for music which were actually great. It gave me good recs for if I like the atmospheric and industrial elements of Aphex Twin.

  • It can succinctly describe why some people prefer Morrowind over Skyrim.

  • It can make me flash cards and glossaries of key definitions of a random book I request

I just started toying with it over the weekend:

  • Constructing recipes for those dishes where everyone's grandmother has a different version that is the "real" one; e.g. gumbo, carne guisada, and chili.

  • Helping to summarize opposition arguments, though I have discovered this requires tweaking the wording of your questions and still generates a ton of ridiculous disclaimers and throat-clearing by the bot.

  • Getting specific terms for peculiar phenomena, such as "proprietary eponym"

My next attempt will be to see if it can help me diagnose issues with my other computer.

I get good summaries by just pasting the content along with the word "Summarize" or "Summarize the above" at the end.

If you use a more imperative rather than conversational tone, it is more likely to do what you ask, rather than pad out the response with empty patter.

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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.


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