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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4023 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 30, 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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"But it was never the streets that were evil."

“Already we have turned all of our critical industries, all of our material resources, over to these . . . things . . . these inscrutable matrices we call language models. And now we propose to teach them true intelligence? What, pray tell, will we do when these little homunculi awaken one day and announce that they have no further need of us?”

— Sister Miriam Godwinson, “We Must Dissent”

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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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