site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   3167 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 25, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, what are you reading?

I'm still on McGilchrist. Picking up The Count of Monte Cristo again, from Dantes' escape.

Finally finished Moby-Dick, which I've been meaning to read since I was 15 or 16, and started reading mid-December. The ending was actually pretty cool, but my God did it take a long time to get there. The actual plot is a pretty engaging slice of proto-Lovecraft cosmic horror, but I must confess that I would love to see a condensed version of the novel which cuts out the pages and pages of cetological rambling. I sincerely think it would lose nothing in the process (especially given that many of the factual assertions made in these chapters are now known to be false).

After finally defeating my white whale, I cleansed my palate by reading another story from my Ted Chiang collection. This one was called "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" (great title) and envisions a future in which you can communicate with "paraselves" - versions of yourself in a parallel universe in which a quantum coin flip landed heads rather than tails. Cracking story - not just thought-provoking in a speculative sense, but also engaging at the level of plot and character. The concept of multiple slightly different versions of the same person interacting with one another echoed some of the points in Age of Em.

My girlfriend and I play this game where we go into a bookshop together and each buys the other a book that they think the other would enjoy. Sort of as a joke, she bought me this Japanese YA novella called Idol, Burning. I'm about fifty pages in and I'm not exactly sure where it's going yet, it's about this teenage girl who's an obsessive stan of a J-pop idol (her "oshi"). UPDATE: didn't like it, didn't do anything for me.

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


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats