site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   2440 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 15, 2024

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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

More evidence for the dead internet theory. I saw this tweet which has a picture of two users discussing bluesky (https://x.com/crystalandqueue/status/1857526125401878582).

Blondie6312: Are you on Bluesky yet?

Michell33650674: Nobody seems to be seeing my posts stating Bluesky PERMANENTLY BANNED ME for stating that the election was rigged

Based on the account names I would suspect those accounts are bots, but maybe boomers when picking account names try and pick what they want and then either the site auto-fills these number for them or they just mash the keyboard. But with the advent of LLMs presumably there are a lot of people just running bots even just for the lolz.

Are boomers actually moving sites? I figured they were still on Facebook.

I also observe that Twitter partisans have the same shitty incentives as, say, Libs of TikTok. Whether or not Bluesky is a bot-ridden 1984 hellscape, they’ll benefit from portraying it as such.

Are boomers actually moving sites? I figured they were still on Facebook.

Absolutely. My Trump-booster boomer aunt and her Xer daughter were on facebook, quickly realized Gab was just a bunch of loons, were on Parler for a while, I'm sure they have Truth Social now. These are red tribers from the red tribe, from a small town in the middle of flyover country.

The internet is real life now. Even the boomers have realized that.

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