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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   2337 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 6, 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.

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In a world where masking tape is some kind of powerful neodymium supermagnet for cat hair, you use it to make a fake mustache to disguise yourself as a man who doesn't have a mustache.

This is my favorite sentence of the week.

It is a summary of Old Man Murray's article, who absolutely deserves the credit here.

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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."

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