I endorse that message, something that I identified with to a skin-crawling extent, and would add: it's fascinating listening to NFTU read from my magic box I carry everywhere through my wireless earbuds, and hearing the narrator decry how the people of his age were so artificial because they were just copying what they read in books in the same way that his modern equivalents love to accuse people of being sheeple just listening to twitter/tiktok/youtube whatever.
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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 -
I endorse that message, something that I identified with to a skin-crawling extent, and would add: it's fascinating listening to NFTU read from my magic box I carry everywhere through my wireless earbuds, and hearing the narrator decry how the people of his age were so artificial because they were just copying what they read in books in the same way that his modern equivalents love to accuse people of being sheeple just listening to twitter/tiktok/youtube whatever.
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