Friday Fun Thread for February 14, 2024
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
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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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Notes -
Definitely not "government" or any of it's licensing bodies, because it does more than chaseout frauds, and their tokens do more than authenticate, they prevent anyone from hiring a person, even if they are aware he was not given the token.
Maybe just 'licensing body', and I agree that restricting certain activities only to licensed people is in many cases a big problem. Still, how does an 'open-border' territory work in practice?
Is Lampedusa a model for such a community? Or perhaps Mayotte? Or just the plot of the Camp of the Saints?
One can hypothesize some kind of human osmosis law.
Where if two containers of humans are placed in contact, the humans of a darker shade (low civilization potential) will spontaneously move toward the container of lighter humans (high civilization potential) in the direction that tends to equalize the shade on the two sides.
In other words, if you want to live in Mexico, why not just move there?
You're preaching to the choir. I'm pretty anti-immigration regardless of the quality of the Guatemalan plumber's craftsmanship.
I'd be cautious of arguments that rely on your superiority to push a policy of your preference. At the very least don't be surprised if a bigger fish decides to do the same to you.
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