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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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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.

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Imaginary_Knowledge

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joined 2022 September 19 02:59:12 UTC

User ID: 1255

Imaginary_Knowledge

0 followers follows 0 users joined 2022 September 19 02:59:12 UTC

No bio...

User ID: 1255

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

I prefer to view Trump's reinstatement as evidence that he's a spent force and no longer a threat. The cathedral wouldn't be letting him back on respectable platforms if he still had serious disruption potential.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

He's right though.

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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 15, 2023

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

Why do generative diffusion models have so much trouble with fingers in particular?

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Where are the people smarter than us hanging out?

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

What was her motive?

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Where are the people smarter than us hanging out?

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

What about DSL?

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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

Roko's Basilisk, yes?

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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

I don't think it's possible to stop this work. The cat is out of the bag. Biotech gear isn't like Uranium centrifuges: it's cheap, stealthy, and easy to get up and running. Were never going to be secure as a species by relying on research suppression. Only effective defenses against these things will save us.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

Imaginary_Knowledge 1yr ago

Suppose you are a billionaire and want to decrease the amount of racism in the world; what decent options do you have?

Eugenics? The best way to stop people noticing group differences in IQ is to eradicate those differences. There's no reason that in principle we couldn't uplift all races to the same level.

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