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.
- 74
- 1
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
- Courtesy
- Content
- Engagement
- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
- Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
- Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.
- Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.
- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
- The Metarule
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The whole unforgivable curses thing suffers from increasing rust as the series progresses. First introduced as absolute trump cards, then slowly becoming more and more routine.
I mean, the Wizarding World went from a period of relative peace to warring against the resurgent Death Eaters, so I find that hardly surprising, and I can't recall many of the "good" guys ever resorting to them, if at all.
I mean, in the last book there was the protagonist casually using the torture spell on someone for the crime of spitting on an old lady he liked.
As far as I recall it wasn't much harsher than kicking him in the balls in context. Certainly wasn't a prolonged torture session like a typical Cricuatus use case.
That's the point, the creep from 'one of three unforgivable curses we will never tolerate' to 'oh it was only a little bit, kinda like kicking someone in the balls.'
He also mind-controlled a guy in the Gringotts earlier.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I also had a point about how Azkhaban seems significantly worse than the killing curse, but I deleted that part of my comment, because I realized real life prisons are often much worse than the crimes they punish too.
The "good" guys stupefying their enemies just to send them to a torture camp for the rest of their lives doesn't seem all that good though.
Yeah. Especially if the penalty for getting caught is life in Azkaban...if that's the case, I would expect a lot more big-league criminals in this world to fight to the death to avoid being captured by law enforcement. A big league drug lord or something can do OK in prison; a big league Death Eater is just going to spend the rest of his life being tortured by Dementors.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link