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 -
Thanks!
I don't get it, though. What every writer should learn from Pondsmith is...to make great literature? Maybe I missed an entire paragraph, but I don't at all see your answer to the question of the HOW you repeatedly raised.
That character should have real ties to their world and their actions should have real consequences.
The lifepath and FNFF systems ensure that their is no way for your character to be a generic orphan without grief, while the FNFF system ensures your character can't be superhero effortless evading the consequences of combat or conflict, but instead must take everything smart and always be in real meaningful risk even if they are smart.
Alright, I apologize - I did indeed miss several entire paragraphs. I was reading on my phone and the article was cut off before it even got to Lifepaths. See? A submission statement giving a tl;dr of what you were going to lay out would have prevented this misunderstanding! Going to re-read. Thanks for patiently answering me.
A picture! Mike Pondsmith is black? Never knew. I expect something like this to be screamed from the rooftops for woke points, not slid on my desk in this matter-of-fact, race-blind manner.
I generally agree with your perspective on the genre and on what I know of the Cyberpunk Franchise. I disagree on the Edgerunners series - I thought it was unexpectedly good for animé, which surprised me when I watched it with a buddy as a sequel to our hate-watching the recent Witcher series - but overall still a clichéd mess with a horribly rushed plot. Consumable, enjoyable, certainly one of the better animé series, but hardly something for the ages. But still, overall I think you've made a good case for the qualities of the franchise, setting and ruleset. Not enough to get me into playing a TTRPG, but I still appreciate the thought that went into it.
You also mentioned MGRR. Did you by any chance write about the Steven Armstrong speech before?
I never wrote about it no.
If someone here did though I'd be very interested to read it. Always found that character inspiring
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link