You came to a website full of belligerent nerds who read and write thousands of words every day about everything and asked if reading is worth it. The trolling suspicion is nothing to do with the rules and everything to do with that. Would you be perplexed if you were called a troll after asking a football forum about the economic value of kicking a ball?
Please don't tell the troll why he's a troll. He already knows. Telling him only makes sense from a mistake theory point of view. Trolls are not mistake theory.
For every troll there's also someone who would do the same thing but be completely genuine. I don't think it's obvious that this is a troll, in fact I'd lean hevily towards it not being at the moment.
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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.
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Notes -
You came to a website full of belligerent nerds who read and write thousands of words every day about everything and asked if reading is worth it. The trolling suspicion is nothing to do with the rules and everything to do with that. Would you be perplexed if you were called a troll after asking a football forum about the economic value of kicking a ball?
Please don't tell the troll why he's a troll. He already knows. Telling him only makes sense from a mistake theory point of view. Trolls are not mistake theory.
For every troll there's also someone who would do the same thing but be completely genuine. I don't think it's obvious that this is a troll, in fact I'd lean hevily towards it not being at the moment.
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