I'm not fundamentally against advertising in some form. What I'm against is the form it naturally takes where rather than informing me their purpose is transparently to try and use every trick in the book to subvert my interest to push the maximum number of units at the highest price for the lowest cost. Advertising I'd actually like needs an adversarial component where some agent on my side aggressively curates the recommendations that I receive in a way that I can trust their objectivity. There are certain product reviewers in spaces like board and video games that I think achieve this but it's vitally important to their credibility, and they know this, that their revenue stream is never even suspected of crossing paths with the marketing departments of the products. What ads reddit pushes to me has nothing to do with whether purchasing the product advertised is a good idea for me and everything to do with how much the ad company paid to have the product pushed and thus it has no useful signal to me.
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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm not fundamentally against advertising in some form. What I'm against is the form it naturally takes where rather than informing me their purpose is transparently to try and use every trick in the book to subvert my interest to push the maximum number of units at the highest price for the lowest cost. Advertising I'd actually like needs an adversarial component where some agent on my side aggressively curates the recommendations that I receive in a way that I can trust their objectivity. There are certain product reviewers in spaces like board and video games that I think achieve this but it's vitally important to their credibility, and they know this, that their revenue stream is never even suspected of crossing paths with the marketing departments of the products. What ads reddit pushes to me has nothing to do with whether purchasing the product advertised is a good idea for me and everything to do with how much the ad company paid to have the product pushed and thus it has no useful signal to me.
More options
Context Copy link