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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3303 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 3, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It should be obvious. Anyone who follows Aella and is willing to complete (an average of) 100 questions is highly atypical relative to the average person. They'll generally be far more sex-focused, techy, liberal, young, urban, intelligent, white, unmarried, open to new experiences, etc. than the average person. This will have an enormous effect on survey results, especially since most of them are so focused on sex. It's like taking a survey on religious beliefs, but only including active scientologists. Sure, there is probably something to learn from the survey, but if you're trying to generalize to any larger population, the noise will far, far outweigh the signal.

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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."

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