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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I wonder if you, Hlynka, will ever get to reveal something new and surprising about yourself to your own mind.
Such as the fact that your credentials of a no-nonsense Southerner tough guy who's calling out literal Nazis and Monarchists on their "blue tribe leftism" are making an increasingly funny combination with your support of censorship and propaganda by big government agencies, committed in service of an extreme Marxist egalitarian theory.
I see a stark difference between being angry about being silenced, and being angry about someone else's silence. The HBDists might feel that the NIH has a obligation to support them, but do they? This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I talk about inferential distance. What some might call "valuing objective truth" others might call "compelled speech", where do you draw the line?
Edit: and for what it's worth I actually make a conscious effort to avoid being clever, ironic, or anything else which granted has gotten me in trouble on occasion but also means that my mind is essentially an open book.
More options
Context Copy link
Patronizing and unnecessarily personal. You can call out what you see as a discrepancy in someone's stated beliefs without making it about them personally.
There's been a lot of this lately, and it's not good. We didn't move here just so people can rehash their petty personal grudges from times of yore.
Why does Hlynka get a lifetime pass for bad faith, low effort, uncharitable takes, namecalling, “hbdtards”, you name it? I guess he is just treated as a fixture at this point, but if he were a new user he’d have caught a ban already
He's caught his share of bans in the past. But everyone is essentially starting with a clean slate with the move.
No one's going to get banned because you don't like them, though.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Granted, but I protest Hlynka's confrontational attitude on this issue. You could have modded him for darkly hinting and not speaking clearly in this case.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link