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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2698 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 8, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does anybody here subscribe to any print magazines? Which ones?

I started reading The New Criterion recently and I really enjoy it.

I used to subscribe to the Economist print version and I really liked it.

I got my Dad Bloomberg Businessweek and he sends me the old issues. I thinks its good on economic issues, has decent politics and world events; the captions and summaries after articles make it easy to read. But I get overrun with issues and there's many I don't read, I'm not sure I would buy it for myself. One of my favorite things of print magazines is to bring them to places where you know you'll have to wait (picking up food at a restaurant, meeting a chronically late friend at a bar) and you can feel superior to people staring at their phones! Like bringing a book on a plane!

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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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