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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   25669 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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I think "someone says something with is laughably wrong and also outrageous on the motte" does not warrant a top-level post.

We have our share of trolls and Nazis. Every once in a while we get an holocaust denier. I am sure that I could make a civil argument about why we should kill and eat all the people with the letter x in their legal names as a matter of national policy without getting banned for it.

I think it is important to establish that a lack of refutation is not the same as silent approval. Trolls can make outrageous statements a lot quicker than anyone can refute them. See xkcd.

I mean, mods could use the "Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be." rule to shut down such comments, by ruling "denying humanity to a significant portion of extant h. sapiens is a claim which is so inflammatory that you should require ten recent articles in top-notch scientific journals making that claim as evidence" (and then relying on the fact that this level of evidence can not be met).

But this would also put us on a slippery slope to tone policing. As the late Niemoeller observed (paraphrased): "First they came for the holocaust deniers, and I said nothing because fuck Nazis. Then they came for the blacks-arent-humans people and I said nothing, because fuck racists. Then they came for the genetic-IQ-difference crowd, and I said nothing because it was not a topic which interested me. Then they came for me for using a generic masculine form and nobody was left to speak out for me." So I am kind of fine with the odd Nazi comment as a price to pay for having a forum where any opinion can be expressed, because some other controversial opinions are at least interesting.

a slippery slope to tone policing

You mean "content policing", right?

But this would also put us on a slippery slope to tone policing.

Er, we do tone police. Explicitly.

And @TitaniumButterfly was in fact modded for asserting that "blacks are animals." Not because you can't say inflammatory things here (yes, we allow Holocaust deniers and segregationists and fascists and even that one "Abolish the age of consent and make females sex slaves, yes, including your six-year-old daughter" guy), but because you have to do it, well, civilly. Which admittedly can be a hard needle to thread when the argument you want to civilly make is that Group X should be eradicated/enslaved, but that's intentional.

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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