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.
- 133
- 1
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm powering through an enjoyable book recommendation from friend, and it's reminding me of how much I've recently thought about how much - or if at all - people send messages through art.
I miss mixtapes, dearly. I still have a few scrawled CDs in sleeves that never get played, most of which I did make myself. It's a bit arrogant to say, but I have historically gotten positive feedback from those I distributed to others. Truthfully, I'd put some effort in - parsing through a wide collection to find things I truly believed the other person would like. And yes, sometimes, sending a message. I suspect that thrashing genres thew some people off occasionally, but I think it was worth it to get them hooked on something new.
As time has gone on I've found that people's recommendations of books and music haven't hit the spot as much as they once did. We've spoken endlessly about the degradation in quality of art on this forum, and yeah that's part of it, but I also see it as a consequence of the distance we keep from each other as we become adults.
Books are particularly challenging. I think sharing a great novel with someone has a sort of intimacy that is matched by very few things, perhaps as a result of how long of an investment it requires. But I also think the medium just has more emotional potential than movies/TV (definitely) or music (probably).
I love fiction and tend to stay in the realm of fiction focused on anything other than people, but I do occasionally treat myself to more "realistic" interpersonal fiction. I still think "This is Where I Leave You" was one of the best books I've ever read. It either helped process some trauma or inflamed it, not sure, but the recommendation that set me off on this rant is of the genre. It's kind of nice to be back after what's probably been a 4 year hiatus from it.
In any case I'm not sure how common talking to each other indirectly through this stuff is. It feels like most people view the exchange of entertainment recommendations as somehow related to status - like they're just pushing something to you to get the endorphin hit from you saying you liked it. Given how much content is available, how freely it flows, that's all anyone has time for. But it seems like a waste of time, even if "sending messages through art" is presumptuous or paranoid.
Some book recommendations for you and anyone else:
Classics: I rate Clarke much higher than either Asimov or.. Bradbury. As a writer. Although honestly even if Clarke paid for child sex in Ceylon, that still makes him a vastly more likeable individual than Asimov, the eternal consequences of evolution denying high-modernist tool..
Midrange: SM Stirling is essentially an SF writer even if he writes fantasy, which he seems to like. He's not the best but he's pretty good and the Draka series is unparalleled as a political Turing test. He is a rare type of guy - a die-hard 1776 liberal, but biologically aware, evolution-pilled in regards to organisms of all scales, whether individual or societal. Most of his stuff is weird alt-history like the Dies the Fire series where electricity stops working. Probably a good read, but I like his SF. He has notably contributed imo the best novellas to both the War World anthology (about the codominium prison moon of Haven) and Niven's Kzinti one.
Alastair Reynolds (active from cca 1990) worked as an astronomer, so he's got the hard-sf part down. It is often space opera, but it's a fresh look at how that'd be in a STL universe where you can, at best, hug the lightspeed because a bunch of actually elite human capital- cybernetic researchers taking advantage of freedom on Mars networked their brains with nanomachines, became something way beyond human and moved the tech frontier in a big way to infinite thrust engines that, rumor has it, just tap the ongoing big bangs in parallel universes thus allowing constantly functioning reaction drive.
Setting (for the obvious reason) doesn't have superhuman AIs with a few exceptions.
New:
I have sympathies to anarchists, one can't really feel glad about the necessity of the entire sausage machine required in our finite world on a flat surface. So Iain M.Banks's Culture series isn't really about the utopia or even that political, it's more of a very high effort space opera.
You seemed to have missed Greg Egan. If he's too weird/spergy for you with his math stuff, it's not omnipresent. The short story collections Axiomatic and Luminous are very good, Distress & Zendegi I'd also recommend.
Like I said in a previous FF thread, I very much appreciate Walter Blaire, a new true SF writer. As in, it's not just lasers pasted in for rifles, it's about internally coherent worlds that are different to ours for material reasons. That's why I came to dislike Star Wars - it's just the stale old WW2 myth but in space.
Although he takes more of the 'human/history' angle, as his books are less about shiny tech but more about the ways organisations and biology trap people. Especially raising the salience of the latter is very praiseworthy and I hope to one day make him profoundly cringe about the implications of that. Guy writes as fun book, steps on the sorest thumb there is inadvertently.
This answer from Asimov pleases me immensely. To be a humanist Jew, a top-notch scientist, and world-famous author, and to taunt the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in this way, pretty much guarantees a response.
I’ve been trying on a bit of theology recently, the idea that YHWH is the “God of the lost,” in the way other people call Thor the god of thunder and Hera the goddess of marriage. My dad has always instructed my siblings and me to pray as soon as we notice something is missing, because God knows where it went. It only makes sense to start any search by asking the One who knows literally everything and has a O(0) search time complexity, and can have prearranged everything in the universe since the beginning of causality to decrease my own search time.
It is a great answer, I'll give him that.
See, you say a lot of things that are helpful, which probably explains why religion spreads. None of it seems remotely plausible or truthful to me.
Inferring a benevolent creator from this vast bloody altar is just too darn odd. And various gnostic shades of shit, where you posit an actual great deity behind an evil one. (sigh). Even worse outcomes, even more preposterous.
I didn’t bat an eye at the “bloody altar” or “evil [god]” comments, misunderstandings of my faith I expect from unbelievers, but it’s fascinating how much I bristled at the “gnostic” comment.
I’ll return to this thread later, just wanted to post first thoughts.
"Misunderstanding of your faith" implies they have the wrong understanding of why you believe. Having the view on what your religion is that you don't agree with is not misunderstanding.
More options
Context Copy link
Bombastic language aside, I think what's actually being stated is the problem of evil. And I agree it's a serious objection, though it's not one I personally struggle with.
Additionally, I think the gnostic comment wasn't directed at you, but more generally at the concept of religion grasping for answers to the problem of evil that can seem bizarre or improbable. It can be surprising, but the congenitally irreligious often find it hard to distinguish between the various tenets of faiths: they all glom together as one gurgling mass of irrationality. What's the difference between Nicene Christianity and gnosticism to someone convinced that the supernatural is an invented cope?
Before engaging in protracted apologetics, I would invite you to consider that your interlocutor has gone on record that he prefers a child rapist to a man whose worldview he found insufficiently nihilistic, and judge your likelihood of a productive exchange accordingly.
More options
Context Copy link
The vast bloody altar is only a metaphor on nature and human nature, part of a famous quote.
I have no understanding of your faith, whatever it might be.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Which book?
"Normal People" by Sally Rooney
Have you seen the show?
No - it has a high Rotten Tomatoes rating but that's not as solid a thing to have faith in anymore. Have you?
Yes. It's excellent. I'd even argue one of the very few adaptations that's better than the original material.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
(scratches nose absent-mindedly) So what kind of SF reader are you?
I've read cca 400+ books on last count, most of them SF. Surely I could come up with a few recs.
I'd say I've been diverse in what I've read, and haven't disliked much. Also read a good amount of fantasy though scifi is my first pick.
If I had to pick what I'm into I'd say harder scifi appeals to me far more than the alternative. Once you have that, I tend to like grittier/dystopian stuff I guess.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Last year my girlfriend bought me the book A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov, as I discussed here.
I think being compared to what appears to be a braver and more charismatic character is... pretty positive. Nice.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Increasingly it seems like recommending any kind of media to anyone is a fools errand. People just have very little tolerance to anything outside of their media comfort zone. Even short YouTube videos are usually a dud.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link