site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3724 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 14, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A Fire Upon the Deep

I suspect the sequel, featuring a few humans marooned on a primitive planet, would hit similar themes.

I will highly recommend the sequel, A Deepness in the Sky. That primitive planet? It circles a star that dies out then flashes on. The natives? Spider-aliens. The deepness? Their word for where they hibernate during the sun's darkness, and the place that protects them from the explosion of light. Thus, the Deepness in the Sky is their place of safety, off their bipolar world, somewhere outside of the constraints their world has imposed upon them.

And I haven't even mentioned the humans, yet.

Shit's wild.

It's pretty wild, but it suffers from the fact that the aliens are just humans who happen to look like spiders. Their psychology, politics and history are identical to that of western countries in 20th century Earth. Nothing about their strange history or biology makes them any different from humans. They have nuclear families, they have constitutional monarchies, they are just Spider-Alien Britain. Hell, the competing human factions and sub-factions in the book are more alien then the aliens.

I think this is by choice since the author seems to believe in a kind of Whig view of history that liberalism is the only real way to advance and anything else is doomed to slow death or stagnation.

The Three-Body Problem did a better job of showcasing actually bizarre aliens, instead of people who look bizarre.

Their psychology, politics and history are identical to that of western countries in 20th century Earth. Nothing about their strange history or biology makes them any different from humans. They have nuclear families, they have constitutional monarchies, they are just Spider-Alien Britain. Hell, the competing human factions and sub-factions in the book are more alien then the aliens.

Wasn't that how the weaponized autists interpreted them for the masses? When one of the protagonists meets them in real life, he's immediately weirded out.

Wasn't that how the weaponized autists interpreted them for the masses? When one of the protagonists meets them in real life, he's immediately weirded out.

Yes and no. The spider society really does have nuclear families, a class system, constitutional monarchies and a World War and Cold War that mirror that of 20th century Britain. The physical descriptions and names are made to more mirror human culture by the autists, but fundamentally the spiders' history and social structure is like 20th century Britain in reality, that part isn't made up.

Also, although, the humans are weirded out, the spiders find humans extremely cute; because, spider children can only look in one direction like humans and spiders find the way humans stare at them while speaking, adorable.

Yeah I loved their 'house of congress' analog turning out to just be a giant pit full of spiders.

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