site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2805 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 18, 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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Can you explain more of what you mean in this section? [We always fight against its cold cruelty and every victory of ours leaves us weaker and worse off. Few seem to understand this at the meta level, so in modernity we go from blunder to blunder and become ever more cringe with each generation.]

Are you talking about a 'fight' against evolution? Can you explain what you mean by 'cringe'? I understand this word to mean social awkwardness but it is always viewed relatively.

We are animals whose sense of drive fulfillment evolved to be derived from sustaining our material needs, war, tribal belonging and pursuing power. Yet now we perform abstruse specialist tasks which are usually far less satisfying, we are exposed to too little violence, commercial services allow us to eschew community and the judgement of others, to our own detriment.

Pursuit of agency and power typically involves people selling their soul and time to some corporate shoggoth. The traditional way of having a war band and stabbing more or less distant neighbors or maybe even tearing off some territory to claim your own is now a distant memory echoing only in certain computer games.

Pretty much every historically basically inevitable societal advance has removed us further away from direct fulfilment of most of those goals and having to resort to replacement activities.

E.g. So I'm exposed to the spectacle of my highly paid (for the region, $5k a month is chump change in the US) specialist ancestor spending a lot of her scant free time at desultory attempts at growing some salad and beans. People cheer and care for absurd sports, it forms their identities. And so on.

Eliminative materialism is a false path my friend. It’s not too late to turn back.

I'm not an eliminative materialist. I believe mental phenomena are, however, arising from the processes in the underlying physical matter. Maybe the thought processes themselves matter, and aren't purely an 'experience', maybe not, but they of course exist.

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