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 -
Yeah, it was evidence for that, obviously. Sometimes evidence is misleading. How would you have evaluated the chances of Germany attacking the USSR instead, prior to 1941? What would you have done better? Stalin himself was so shocked at Hitler’s invasion that he could hardly function for a week! And if you think such evidence is misleading in the case of Russia, please explain why instead of just endlessly re-asserting that it is without argument. What evidence should we be using to evaluate the question instead? (Or if you don’t think it’s evidence at all, then give an argument for that. It seems blatantly obvious that it’s evidence in the Bayesian sense.)
The chances of Germany attacking the USSR prior to 1941 was very high. The evidence was that Germans thought of themselves as higher race and it was only a question of time when they would attack all other countries, including the USSR.
The strength of the evidence can vary – from very weak to very strong. I wouldn't be able to predict anything without strong evidence. You try to confuse absence of evidence with evidence of absence.
My Bayesian sense says that you are a Russian troll.
The following evidence is present:
new account, not much engagement
you write very confusing things, do not stay on topic and then demand (yes, you demand) – “please explain this or that”.
you support extreme point of view
your answers are being regularly downvoted
Any evidence against?
motteposting has been around for a while. You may not find his arguments convincing, and I suppose it's possible Russia actually pays people to shitpost on small obscure message boards as well as reddit, but I find your "Bayesian reasoning" extremely weak and I'm going to ask you not call people Russian trolls without stronger evidence than "you have extreme views and get downvoted a lot" (which would apply to many posters here). Even if, hypothetically, you are right, what do you think calling someone out as a Russian troll does? He'll unmask and say "Curses! I'd have gotten away with it if not for you!" like a Scooby Doo villain? All it does is increase the antagonism. If you genuinely think someone is a troll, downvote them, report their posts (if you can point to rulebreaking conduct), and do not engage.
I am sorry for what I said. Will stop engaging and will try to avoid from this behaviour in the future. Thanks for the advice.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Never thought I’d see the day on this site when someone would say, “you’re wrong because you’re being downvoted.” I doubt that any further engagement here would be productive.
(And I’d been posting for years under this same name on the original subreddit, thank you very much.)
Wrong? No, it was that you are likely a troll. That's the downvoting is for, it's intended purpose to show which comments are worse than others.
Neither follows from my being downvoted, so that seems like a distinction without a difference.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link