Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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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.
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Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
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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 -
I used to laugh at schizophrenic /pol/tards (who to be fair are pretty easy to laugh at) but the board does have its use cases, although it definitely requires mental filters to avoid brain-melting schizo exposure. Personal highlight is probably the happy little Chabad hobby tunneling accident, when every single American media outlet went totally radio silent
while waiting for ordersand literally the only place on the internet where I could find actual videos and happenings in the immediate wake were the scattered /pol/ threads popping on and off the catalog. It's decently documented now but it felt quite surreal at the moment, I don't laugh as much anymore and think such a place is definitely handy to have on the rare occasion that the fabric of reality tears so obviously.Similarly with the Capitol riot -- it's pretty good live newsfeed aggregator on... things that are interesting to poltards I guess. You do need to figure out how to disregard the things that are completely made up, but it's usually easier to tell what that is than other media outlets.
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