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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.

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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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naraburns nihil supernum 2yr ago (text post) Edited 2yr ago 3433 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for September 2022

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful. Here we go:

Contributions for the week of August 29, 2022

/u/zZInfoTeddyZz:

"It is extremely concerning to me that they chose to go after Cloudflare, a service that primarily provides DDoS protection. . . . It calls into question their entire ethics, and their ethical reasoning (or lack thereof) is arguably troubling."

Identity Politics:

"You are confusing the online edgy alt-right types for MAGA republicans."

"The war for the soul of the Grand old Party is over and we (the populists) have won."

/u/Navalgazer420XX:

"Once the victim responds everything turns to picking apart their defense and hounding them for it."

Contributions for the week of September 5, 2022

@FiveHourMarathon:

"Let’s at least consider the possibility that the problem wasn’t drug use as such, but using illegal drugs dosed by an amateur, with the obvious preventative being legal drugs dosed by medical professionals under regular observation for results."

"But it was a surprisingly successful year in the Legislature for the YIMBYs, maybe even more so than last year."

@DaseindustriesLtd:

"Simply put it's that we are entitled to be represented in the future – personally, or by proxy of our values and heirs; and EA-Utilitarian-longtermism does not serve this purpose well."

Identity Politics:

@FiveHourMarathon:

"Slate might not openly dream of herding cishetero white men into camps, but it doesn't hugbox them either."

Contributions for the week of September 12, 2022

"The discussion of defensive gun usage in a major survey in the CW thread got me thinking about an experience I had some years back."

@DinoInNameOnly:

"Cyberchase was amazing and now it’s just okay, and I’m sad."

In the Land of Mordor Where the Shadows Lie:

@LacklustreFriend:

"What I found most frustrating about Amazon's 'girlbossifaction' of Galadriel is the undermining of what I believe to be one of the best mythological portrayals of femininity in modern literature (and cinema), something that is increasingly lacking in modern storytelling."

@FarNearEverywhere:

"But Tolkien was very clear that Middle-earth was not an invented world, it was meant to be our own world as we have it right now, just that the tales were set in a very distant, mythological past. So the English parts are meant to be English, and that does mean white."

@PossibleAstronaut:

"Nobody watches Middle-Earth to think about New York."

Identity Politics:

"For example the Gamergate surveys showed GG to have strongly left-wing demographics - but who would you trust to not fire you if a media campaign was screaming about how you were a racist, a group of Republican activists or a group of Gamergators?"

"The Supreme Court has responded to a stay request in Yeshiva University v. YU Pride Alliance."

"Anyhow, I strongly feel that martials arts might be the sole remaining bastion of pure, healthy masculinity left in Western Society, and it is almost certainly the only one that hasn't come under direct attack from the Cathedral, like team sports, military service, and fatherhood have."

"Since most campaigns are technically about a bunch of murderhobos slaughtering their way to the BBG the DM needs a way to give mass murder an acceptable coating."

Contributions for the week of September 19, 2022

"Ever since the Ukrainian successes in the northeastern campaign, I've been trying to get inside the mindset of the Kremlin to figure out what their likely response is."

@thomasThePaineEngine:

"It's a vibes-based world out there. So lay down your arguments, your charts and numbers, your ideas on cause and effect, and start vibing."

Identity Politics:

@incognitomaorach:

"TL;DR: Sectarian violence imported from the Indian subcontinent bubbles over into a UK city that has previously been deemed an example of "good" diversity, with the potential for much scarier and wider violence in larger cities if the police/community don't get it under control."

@EfficientSyllabus:

@Hoffmeister25:

Contributions for the week of September 26, 2022

"Over the summer, Arizona lawmakers passed a universal educational voucher program, to my understanding the first in the nation."

@EverythingIsFine:

"Here is a simple model of a pension fund."

Identity Politics:

@hustlegrinder:

"Free market capitalism and identity"

"If the recent trans thing has shown anything, it's that turning identities into mere markers for self-expression that can be donned and doffed at will can functionally destroy them and the goods they provided."

Quality Contributions in the Main Subreddit

/u/Phosphorous_Rex:

"Reflection on Becaming a German Citizen"

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naraburns nihil supernum 2yr ago · Edited 2yr ago

Yeah, sorry. The links were auto-generated by Paperclip Perfector, and this was our first run on the new site. I will see what I can do about this post maybe later this week, but hopefully in the future the links will be better.

EDIT: Okay, I think I have fixed them all, but if you spot any I've missed, let me know!

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Context

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

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