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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2058 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 30, 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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When is the last time you truly got sucked into something, and experienced a sense of childlike wonder?

For me it was, predictably, watching the VisionOS demo. I found it magical, and so exciting to think of the future of where that technology could go.

Playing King's Bounty: The Legend. Watching some of the movies by Wes Anderson. Both are quite eager to defy genre conventions.

Oh, and watching Bobby McFerrin live. It's the same feeling of discomfort as Anderson's movies when an old Black guy in front of you starts to babble, but then you get into it.

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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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