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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2470 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 13, 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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anyone else notice that quality of online discussion has nosedived over the past year, or just me? controlling for topic and community, it seems like just the quality of debate has gone downhill so much. whether reddit, hacker news, or elsewhere, I have observed many attempts at discussion met with curt dismissals, failures to understand, misconstructions, etc. this is why I have been spending less time on forums and reddit. Is it just me? Things could not have changed that much over past year. Maybe elon and twitter has something to do with it. or worse political climate.

I noticed a recent trend where someone will start an invite only Discord or subreddit and start siphoning the smart/desirable members from public subreddits/spaces. The private subs look for people that contribute value to the public spaces and that fit with the private sub's desired culture. Then they just private message them to join the more exclusive space.

The private sub benefits by getting quality contributions and the new member benefits by not having to deal with all the garbage comments in the public sub. This trend reduces the quality of the public spaces because many of the good posters have moved to a private gated community.

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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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