site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1331 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 27, 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.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, what are you reading?

Still on Lovecraft and the Iliad. Trying Postman and Weingartner's Teaching as a Subversive Activity.

I finished Alastair Reynold’s Absolution Gap. There was a lot to like, but it was extremely confused as a novel. More thoughts to follow.

Currently reading The Fool Lieutenant, Bob Edlin’s autobiography of his time with the Army Rangers. Writing is a bit more amateurish than some of the memoirs I’ve read. This doesn’t detract from the charm and/or awe. We’re talking about a guy who was shot in both legs on Omaha Beach because he wouldn’t stay down after the first one. Then he spent two or three months in the hospital before shipping himself back to his unit and participating in the rest of the liberation of France. Tremendous badass.

I bought my girlfriend Mina's Matchbox by Yōko Ogawa for Christmas, which she loved and urged me to read. About a third of the way through and I don't know where the story is going yet. Pretty cool that one of the main characters has her own pet Moo Deng which she rides to school every day.

The Neon Court (Matthew Swift #3) by Kate Griffin. Fun series, I'd probably love it even more if I were a Brit and I might absolutely adore it if I were a Londoner. Or perhaps in that case, I'd think it was shite.

Pictures at a Revolution about movies in the 60s.

Casino Royale. No corny gadgets so far, just plot, characters and setting.

The film is the only one of the Daniel Craig Bond movies I've seen. I rewatched it in January and found it held up quite well (Mads Mikkelsen, in particular, is magnificent). Curious how it compares to the source material.

That's pretty much why I chose it, I like reading the seminal pieces of genre fiction to see how they compare to their popular depictions.

Unfortunately the subsequent Bond films slowly regressed closer to the mean and I gave up on them entirely after watching Skyfall.

I thought the last Daniel Craig film, No Time to Die, was surprisingly quite good. Not amazing or anything but very solid, some memorable chase scenes and action, good actors, good enough plot. Some people hated it because Bond dies at the end but I thought it was a good send-off for the Craig series of movies.

It stays pretty close to the plot of the source material. The only major changes are geopolitics updates (LeChiffre is a terrorist financier rather then a KGB agent), and making up excuses to actually have action scenes. This makes it pretty rare among other Bond movies, which usually range between loose adaptations (Goldfinger), very loose adaptations (Moonraker) and “we just grabbed the title and made up our own plot” (most of the rest of them).

It's been years since I've read Casino Royale but FWIW, ISTR coming away from it thinking that the movie was a good overall adaptation of the book.

Decent book. Primal spy novel with Fleming's distinctive, somewhat cheesy cold war sentiments. Different feel from the films which made it worth the time, but I can't say that I craved a sequel.

Some lines in that book are interesting to read in 2025. In particular how Bond describes his desire for Vesper.

To be fair, a lot of Fleming’s writing was considered unusually puerile and trashy even contemporaneously.

While this seems true, arguably this was from literary circles, who would also have panned amy number of popular novels for the masses.

I'm thinking specifically about the "sweet tang of rape" line. Don't get me wrong, I've read all the Bond books except The Spy Who Loved Me ( I couldn't handle the jarring perspective change). But that line sort of sticks in the head.

Books on investing with dubious looking covers. They're good though. The old idiom applies.

Edit: idiom is the wrong word. :/ Should have said proverb or adage.

Weingartner's

Is this the same one who’s the head of the American federation of teachers?

Nope, this one's Charles. It's an old book (1969) on the inquiry method.

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