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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2397 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 3, 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 got got recommendations for podcasts/Youtube channels focused on history or philosophy? I listen at work where my hands are kept busy so anything longform or a good playlist of shorter stuff would be good to minimise having to pull my phone out.

MartyrMade. The Israel/Palestine series is particularly topically relevant presently, but I think the Jim Jones series is his best work. Darryl Cooper comes off as a very different guy on his podcast than the bombastic Twitter personality, so if you're put off by having encountered him in social media format, don't be - he's even-handed and tries to treat everyone in each conflict as agentic human beings worth your empathy.

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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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