This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
- 456
- 9
What is this place?
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are
appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy;
if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
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."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
If in doubt, please post it!
Rules
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Gonna drop a note here for transparency. This is not an official warning to @jewdefender, since you aren't really breaking any rules here (yet), but I want you (and your friends) to understand something:
I see you.
What do I mean by that? You got reported as follows: "hey fellow kids those white nationalists (which I'm totally not) are so wrong, aren't they?"
Which I found amusing and insightful because it is exactly what I thought the moment this new "jewdefender" alt started posting.
Dude. I am not fooled. I was never fooled. We let you do this because, well, Zorba doesn't want us witch-hunting and considers false positives worse than false negatives, and I mostly agree, and even a transparent alt can post interesting content. So fine, we'll let you keep wearing the mask until it slips. And probably even then, because as we keep pointing out, it's not being "outside the Overton Window" that gets people in trouble, it's being obnoxious, disingenuous, or belligerent about it. (Right now you're only one of those.)
But for all the people who report and DM me asking why we let an obvious troll troll, well, because. But just because we don't play whack-a-mole doesn't mean we're stupid. Just wanted you to know this.
I think I'm also against being trigger happy with bans, but how about an unremovable "suspected alt" flair?
Better yet would be change their displayed username to Sockpuppet[alfa-numeric code] where the code that points to their real account/IP address. The code wouldn't necessarily have to be legible to anyone but the mods, but it would allow regular users to be like "ah yes, this guy again" and reply accordingly.
Or not reply at all, as it were. I'd keep it in the flair on the off chance that the mods are wrong, but yeah, this is like the second or third time I'm falling for some white-nat's 5D chess, so a warning would be nice.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link