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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   28012 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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Do they?

Yes. I mean girls usually don't, but adolescent males have a deep instinct to buck taboos. In the US that's anti-black racist rhetoric, in Germany that's flirting with national socialism.

Ever been to 4chan?

(And yes, I know a few people in that demographic that do this constantly for that reason.)

Do your older siblings tell you you were adopted because they hate orphans, or do they do it because it gets to you in a way that other insults and teasing don't?

I know how trolling works. I just have a hard time imagining teenagers using n-word today is all.

In the heydays of reddit, usernames like /u/niggerkiller etc were not uncommon, and were almost always seemingly just meant to be inflammatory for its own sake. Some people never grow out of this, of course. You could check the post history of such people and not find anything remotely murderous or seriously racist.

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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!

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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."

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