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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3036 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 24, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I thought it would be fun/interesting to run a sort of pattern recognition test on users of The Motte, sorta related to IQ.

take a look at the comments of a recent Elon Musk tweet (or any tweet since he became CEO)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1639200036578885632 (you have to be logged in to twitter)

What pattern do you observe about the comments? there is a pattern. I wonder how many will observe it

I saw comments without being logged in, and my only strong impression is that there's extreme "sort by controversial" in play. Every featured comment is dunking on Elon; every featured response under those comments is dunking on the respective comment.

I see an even mix of cryptards and people pattern-matching at the most base level in order to find an excuse to yell at Musk.

In about 50 comments, I only found one that took the matter seriously and called for practical solutions such as an eventful UBI.

you have to be logged into twitter

I've spotted the real test. Will you need a mailing address to deliver my MENSA card?

Seems like there's lots of crypto shillers? not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing.

Scrolling for 5 seconds all blue checks.. wait a second I didnt use twatter in a minute, tweets are rank ordered now.

Id say the relative lack of woke Elon haters is surprising, there used to be more of those.

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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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