site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2835 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 21, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm hoping this is more fun than culture war: Ireland's far-right National Party has been robbed of a considerable amount of gold (for use in the case of a collapse in fiat currency) by one of its ex-leading members.

Somewhere around the start of the year Finland's tiny fringe pro-Russian/Putinist scene was beset by a series of ludicrous scams that weren't connected by other means than mostly targetting Janus Putkonen, probably the loose scene's central figure, by all indications a true believer to Putin and Russia and the SMO and the whole "Z" thing (to such a degree that he actually lives in Donetsk and at least at some point run some sort of a local media operation there, however still also running a Finnish-language media targetted at his former countrymen, and keeping in contact with Finnish operators).

I mean things like an openly flamboyantly homosexual while still apparently fervently Putinist guy running vodka-fuelled tourist trips to Russia and then suddenly just organizing a bunch of trips that ended up not happening while the guy took the money and ran, still mocking his former compatriots for their stupidity. This wasn't the only scam but the one that I remember following the most clearly.

All while this happened, none of this seemed to shake Putkonen's faith to anything beyond the individual actors running the scams being "snakes" and "traitors" and whatsoever. I even asked him on Twitter (without receiving an answer); if you happen to be in a political/social scene where seemingly everyone seems to constantly be trying to rip everyone else (well, him, mainly) off, doesn't that tell that there's something fundamentally wrong with that scene? Might that not indicate an inbuilt flaw within the whole ideology underlying the scene itself? Ye shall know the tree by its fruits, and all that.

Too soon to make jokes about finding him at the end of the rainbow?

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


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats