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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   2619 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 8, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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if their boss tells them to lie or to ignore a tax the company should pay, they do it without fuss.

Sure, that can happen. However, if the boss had a manual, given to every single employee that joins the company, that instructs, black on white, to not pay taxes and lie to the IRS - wouldn't you expect at least one disgruntled employee over the years to send it to the IRS (or, alternatively, the local anti-corporate crusader) and the boss get in trouble? Unethical orders are often given verbally exactly because it leaves no proof and provides plausible deniability - "I didn't mean that, he just misunderstood me!".

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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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