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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   32547 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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The statement implies that most posters here on TheMotte.org are mentally retarded (in the sense that their IQ is less than 70, which I presume is room temperature). That is a personal attack on people reading this and would normally be the subject of a ban.

I don't think you are being ingenuous. If you read his entire post, he's very clearly not saying he thinks most posters on the Motte have sub-70s IQs. His entire point is that IQ is not a reliable measure of "intelligence." Agree with him or don't, but engage with what he's actually saying.

I did read his whole point and I know that was what he was arguing. That does not make the quoted piece not offensive if taken out of context.

Then don't take it out of context.

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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."

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