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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2655 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 7, 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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E.W. Kirkegaard is nobody's main anything. He's a guy on the internet with a BA in linguistics, who changed his name and moved countries to try to dodge a piddling amount in a libel judgment.

If you're surveying a scientific argument and both parties are addressing internet randos as major players, you're probably in the wrong part of the argument.

((I'll acknowledge here that @DaseindustriesLtd has persuasively argued that credentialism is a form of censorship used to hold HBD down. It's a good argument, but one I find kind of funny coming from HBDers))

If you're surveying a scientific argument and both parties are addressing internet randos as major players, you're probably in the wrong part of the argument.

Where's a better place to look?

Murray The Bell Curve and Coming Apart. Then on the other side The mismeasure of a man 1996 edition by Gould.

Thank you! What are the main arguments fielded in the mismeasure of man?

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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