The dominant strategy is to come up with a couple of well-rehearsed answers and pattern match questions to them. Even someone really sharp and articulate can at best match that performance. When there's around 5 minutes per topic (all of which are obvious beforehand), there's no reason not to.
Best case is to put some traps in the mini speeches to goad your opponent into going off script; a disciplined opponent knows to ignore them.
You can do better than that in a live debate - obviously competitive debaters do. "Ignore the question and just say your piece" is Media Interviews 101 though, and politicians do a lot more interviews than debates so it is the approach they are most comfortable with.
When I was a student politician, I did the Party training course on media interviews 101, and the line was that (unless you are important enough to insist on a live interview) broadcast media will record 3-4x as much material as needed and only broadcast the gaffes, so ignoring the questions and repeating your soundbite is a necessary defensive technique against deceptive editing. "When is it safe to answer the question?" is 201-level stuff.
Looking at the incentives facing the journo, broadcast media interviews are all about inducing the gaffe (except for the hard-to-get big ticket interview like a US President or an A-lister where it is all about giving a softball interview so other big interviewees will agree to be interviewed by you). My mother has a horror story about how a BBC interviewer started interviewing her in French (which she speaks, but not well enough to do an unprepared media interview), stopped after about 1 minute and said it was actually a sound check, and then started the real interview while she was still in "desperately trying to code-switch" mode.
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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The dominant strategy is to come up with a couple of well-rehearsed answers and pattern match questions to them. Even someone really sharp and articulate can at best match that performance. When there's around 5 minutes per topic (all of which are obvious beforehand), there's no reason not to.
Best case is to put some traps in the mini speeches to goad your opponent into going off script; a disciplined opponent knows to ignore them.
You can do better than that in a live debate - obviously competitive debaters do. "Ignore the question and just say your piece" is Media Interviews 101 though, and politicians do a lot more interviews than debates so it is the approach they are most comfortable with.
When I was a student politician, I did the Party training course on media interviews 101, and the line was that (unless you are important enough to insist on a live interview) broadcast media will record 3-4x as much material as needed and only broadcast the gaffes, so ignoring the questions and repeating your soundbite is a necessary defensive technique against deceptive editing. "When is it safe to answer the question?" is 201-level stuff.
Looking at the incentives facing the journo, broadcast media interviews are all about inducing the gaffe (except for the hard-to-get big ticket interview like a US President or an A-lister where it is all about giving a softball interview so other big interviewees will agree to be interviewed by you). My mother has a horror story about how a BBC interviewer started interviewing her in French (which she speaks, but not well enough to do an unprepared media interview), stopped after about 1 minute and said it was actually a sound check, and then started the real interview while she was still in "desperately trying to code-switch" mode.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link