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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3664 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 14, 2024

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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This isn’t as impressive to me as electrical stimulation- electricity alone - that can bring you to tears.

Would I find that technically impressive? Absolutely. I would also refuse to touch it with a twenty foot pole.

Doctors Sweet, Mark, and Ervin quietly shed a single tear in each of their graves, disappointed you'd stab them in the back like this, after putting up such a sterling defense of them.

Professional solidarity only goes so far, and I've already decried the onerous obligation of rolling The World's Worst Doctor (wheelchair bound with motor neurone disease) up a spiral staircase.

By all means, if someone wants to wirehead themselves or shoot up heroin, be my guest. Just don't ask me to join in, like a very tolerant vegan watching someone barbeque in his backyard.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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