site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   2357 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 20, 2025

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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I’m inclined to think that “jobs” is just, in democracies, the politically optimal phrasing to accomplish what nations really want, which is adversary-proof production of food and materiel.

My question is about the physical goods manufacturing, and is to do with, for example, how many steps of the process of car manufacturing can you, hypothetical power of a country, get within your borders and how should you go about it if tariffs are in your tool chest? Lights-out factories are totally fine.

how many steps of the process of car manufacturing can you, hypothetical power of a country, get within your borders

As many as you want? Forget tariffs; you can just ban stuff from foreign. The biggest constraint would be if you're not a large enough country to be able to develop all of the specialization required (while also accomplishing all the other things a country needs to accomplish).

how should you go about it

One needs a metric for "should". Sure, North Korea now "produces" its own airplanes. Which I guess is cool if you want to make sure that you have whatever metric of "adversary-proof" (I'm not convinced it actually is, but it depends highly on the metric you use) and if you're okay with only being able to produce what are essentially copies of extremely old Cessnas. Maybe in 50 years, they'll be able to produce their own WWII-era fighter jets, which I guess is "adversary-proof" to one metric, but probably not all that "adversary-proof" according to other metrics.

I kind of joke, but only kind of. Market size is a significant factor in the diversity of goods that are going to be available and how 'advanced' they can be, because diversity and 'advancedness' requires significant specialization. Thus, if we're shutting off large chunks of the market because we don't trust them, we're necessarily going to take hits elsewhere. Where you "should" be on this tradeoff curve is extremely dependent on how you've defined "should" in the first place.

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


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats