Your cell-phone, the name being coined by the TV/streaming series of the same name. Modern phones are literally black mirrors, which makes the metaphor all the more piquant.
What do you mean by digital vampires?
My interpretation: vampires avoid mirrors; people who avoid the black mirror, who don't participate in phone culture, might be argued to be less real than those subsumed by it, given how central phone culture and the net generally are to current existence. Think of the Amish. Are they "real"? Are they significant, do their concerns matter? Do you care about them at all? Do they have even the slightest impact on your life?
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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.
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Notes -
Your cell-phone, the name being coined by the TV/streaming series of the same name. Modern phones are literally black mirrors, which makes the metaphor all the more piquant.
My interpretation: vampires avoid mirrors; people who avoid the black mirror, who don't participate in phone culture, might be argued to be less real than those subsumed by it, given how central phone culture and the net generally are to current existence. Think of the Amish. Are they "real"? Are they significant, do their concerns matter? Do you care about them at all? Do they have even the slightest impact on your life?
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