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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   18716 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

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The point of the motte is to promote interesting conversation. If a troll post manages to be interesting enough to lead to a good conversation, I would say it made a contribution, even if unintentionally.

Thinking someone got the best of us by creating conversation in a place designed to create conversation is odd, a thought that could only occur to someone who thinks in-depth intellectual conversations is unfun. But in fact they are fun, and a troll running with glee about how he "really got us" by giving us a chance to do what we love is like a guy who hands out Harris/Walz fliers and thinks he's campaigning for Trump.

The motte isn't a springboard for political action, just a discussion space. If trolls think they're distracting us from "real politics" by making us talk to each other, I'm just reminded of -- and I rarely use this term -- losers like KulakRevolt, who think they're going to start a race war from their basement. We're not trying to change the world, just trying to change our minds through exposure to new ideas.

I don't like trolls because of their insincerity, but they certainly do serve a purpose sometimes. If they're pathogens, maybe we can think of them as part of the site microbiome.

Are you in favor of the Bare Links Repository?

The point of the motte is to promote interesting conversation. If a troll post manages to be interesting enough to lead to a good conversation, I would say it made a contribution, even if unintentionally.

This is vacuous. I could believe that trolls never lead to good conversation and I'd still have to assent to this statement!

Trolls lead to bad conversations, except quokkas here tend not to understand that. A conversation can be free of obscenities and obvious insults and still not be "good". I could go onto many forums and post "Star Wars is better than Star Trek" and get 100 responses. That would not be making a contribution.

We probably should gather a couple of responses to "what is woke", put them in a FAQ, and require that all posts about this must specifically acknowledge where they disagree with the FAQ. Otherwise, ban them.

We probably should gather a couple of responses to "what is woke", put them in a FAQ, and require that all posts about this must specvifically acknowledge where they disagree with the FAQ. Otherwise, ban them.

Hard pass. That's how you get 'do the homework, scum' style dickwaving on reddit. Nobody has to engage with OP unless they want to, and sometimes it's enlightening to rediscuss settled subjects. Individual posters may not have thought about it before.

If we were getting hundreds of trolls a day and they were obviously killing the site, it would be different. Thankfully we're not there yet and can still (mostly) afford to keep this place a quokka reservation.

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.


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