site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2271 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for October 9, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's just a natural urge for some people; it's also not really trolling in the traditional sense imo, since all you do is point out some particularly egregious ways in which their thinking is wrong, even if it may be in a socially aggressive way. Here in germany, we call the kind of person who can't help but point out wrong statements no matter the relevance nor the unwiseness of antagonizing the talker "Besserwisser" (literally "betterknower"). Both me and my wife are like that, which can make family life sometimes difficult.

Also, in most regions, the alleged "natives" had displaced, up to and including full genocide, a different group that lived there before. The entire concept is just ridiculous.

Also, in most regions, the alleged "natives" had displaced, up to and including full genocide, a different group that lived there before. The entire concept is just ridiculous.

Likely true but impossible to prove to a motivated reasoner. No witnesses, no written record - the perfect crime.

You can see that new populations have replaced existing populations in archeological DNA.

The manner or method of replacement is likely lost.

There are examples of it happening near the time of Western contact and the historical record: the Moriori in Polynesia, or the Lakota pushing the Cheyenne out of the Black Hills circa 1776. I'm sure there are other examples I'm not thinking of, but they tend to get swept under the rug because they don't fit nearly in, I suppose, the narrative.

Don't you know that those tribes were displaced by other tribes who had contact with Westerners and used Guns?

Hello paleskins, you have fire sticks? we want some. oh you will let us have them? we have no food or tools you can use. how about these shitheads we have hated for eternity? with an advance payment of some guns we will give you triple our normal number of slaves!

Wait, shit, are we talking about first nations or congo?

atrocities only started once the Europeans dropped by, with their fancy systems of written language, and wrote things down

kind of did the native peoples a favor, enshrining them forever as the "first" nations rather than the "second to most recent nation"

Here in germany, we call the kind of person who can't help but point out wrong statements no matter the relevance nor the unwiseness of antagonizing the talker "Besserwisser" (literally "betterknower"). Both me and my wife are like that, which can make family life sometimes difficult.

In France this is a Monsieur Je-Sais-Tout, here in Quebec we call a Ti-Joe Connaissant.

Also, in most regions, the alleged "natives" had displaced, up to and including full genocide, a different group that lived there before. The entire concept is just ridiculous.

To begin with, is there specific date at which we should start feeling bad about history happening the way history always has? I can buy arguments for "within living memory" but that's not what's being applied here.

In France this is a Monsieur Je-Sais-Tout, here in Quebec we call a Ti-Joe Connaissant.

I chuckled audibly, thank you.

I burned a whole rack of GPUs for about a minute having it explain to me why this was funny and it failed

enjoy your inside joke, chums!

Literally translated, they just mean mister know-it-all or Little Joe...savant? Knower-of-things? Not sure there's a good translation in English.

French in France is typically viewed as more precise, uptight and grammatically correct, whereas Quebecois is (unfairly) seen almost like a pidgin or 'lower-class' French. Like how someone with a 'cut-glass' British accent might look down on Americans from Alabama or speaking AAVE.

'Monsieur je-sais-tout' sounds very proper, whereas Ti-Joe is a contraction of petit-Joe, maybe the equivalent of saying 'mister know-it-all' versus 'lil Bob smartass.'

The american equivalent would probably be a "Smart Alec" or "Smart Aleck"

Wiseacre or wisenheimer

To begin with, is there specific date at which we should start feeling bad about history happening the way history always has?

Somewhere after 1453, but before 1521, all people achieved their rightful and proper places on this Earth.

What about all these Native Americans that kept displacing each other after 1521? Should we acknowledge them as invaders and colonizers?

The sentiment is that those Native Americans were more like each other than Europeans and Natives were like each other, and the internal affairs of Natives are, quite literally, different than an invasion from beyond the sea.

I don't find that a very compelling argument, I must say. Murdering people to take their stuff is equally bad no matter who is murdering whom.

Don't you understand, they were murdering in good faith!

It's a joke. Columbus and the Spaniards are evil for conquering the Americas, but that was a single lifetime after the Muslims conquered Anatolia, and nobody is calling for a return of Constantinople to the Christians. It's all who-whom.

I'll leave it there because this isn't the culture war thread.

nobody is calling for a return of Constantinople to the Christians

I honestly wouldn't say nobody. There are plenty of people larping as crusaders. Just mostly they aren't taken too seriously.

I knew it was a joke, I am just not fun at parties.

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