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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2381 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Another test for the Motte:

The Moral Foundations test

I'm listed as being closest to libertarian, which I will admit isn't entirely incorrect, even if I'd prefer to term myself a classical liberal with libertarian tendencies. Ideally I'd prefer a test that broke things down in a more granular manner, but I suppose of the options available here, I can't complain too much it lumped me in with the libertarians.

My results below

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Care 31% Loyalty 31% Fairness 50% Authority 22% Purity 56% Liberty 83% Your strongest moral foundation is Liberty.

Your morality is closest to that of a Libertarian.

I definitely have libertarian sympathies, but I would still consider myself more conservative than libertarian, especially among popular social issues. What I find surprising is that I personally find loyalty very important in friendships and relationships, so that loyalty is so low is something surprising to me.

I've already shared a political compass poll, so I won't repeat it, but this one just condenses everyone down into 3 buckets of left liberal, conservative and libertarian. I certainly am closer to a libertarian than the other alternatives, at least I think that's the directional improvement, but on the full compass I was dead center.

As an Enlightened Centrist, I suppose I need to get a grill sooner rather than later!

I probably poll more libertarian at the moment because I don't highly respect authority (probably because authority seems to keep getting it wrong in the worst ways possible). I've taken a few political compass map polls and I tend to lean conservative in those, though less so than I would expected for myself.

Grilling is definitely a hobby I'm interest. And breadmaking. A personal goal is to smoke a brisket but I'll probably never have the time/disposable income/space to do it.

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.


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