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 -
So the analogy I used elsewhere was to just adjust it for purchasing power.
A skilled worker made 6-8d a day according to a redditor... which I analogized to 60-75k a year. A linen shirt required 3 els of linen at 12d each, and 2d worth of labour from a tailor... so it'd take a week or week and a half's labour from the skilled worker to buy a linen shirt... if he deadicated 100% of his income to it.
So it comes out to 1000-2000 dollars for a linen shirt, which admittedly is high end, kings would wear linen.
But you multiply that out and a full outfit pants, boots, socks, sweater, jacket, hat ( and you need all these you're walking everywhere in all weather) comes to 10-30 thousand dollars depending on quality.... and user you can buy used or skip and get it down to 5k or maybe even 2k at the bare minimum... maybe cloth a child for 1k with used babyclothes...
But a full outfit for an adult to actually go out and do things in the world is looking like the investment we make for a car or vehicle.
I bought a motorcycle for 5k a few years back, believe me I wanted it to last 5-10 years. I consider its loss a personal tragedy.
And you example likewise points to this: A team of mother and daughters working year round in a more leisurely cottage industry, with other responsibilities, we'd expect to kick out 15-30k a year... maybe 40-60 if they were in the top 5-10% ... so divide that out and those low end homemade outfits destined for women and children are 2k to 5k each.
.
Then you get into MILITARY outfits that have to survive a ton, do all the work you might possibly do on campaign, have armour, maybe have heraldry...
that's like a 40-60k investment for a low end footsoldier, and getting up into the hundreds of thousands for knights and a king's custom armour and everything might be into the millions ppp.
You just really aren't going to have multiples or if you do you aren't going to take your spare set on campaign with you and leave it with some squire-boy who could easily be beaten up and have it stolen from him
More options
Context Copy link