site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (astralcodexten.com)   2157 thread views

ACT: Hardball Questions For The Next Debate

astralcodexten.com

I'd guess the vast majority of you read Astral Codex Ten regardless of whether it gets posted here, but Scott's latest culture war (adjacent) post is not to be missed.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Spending huge amounts of money for one year is very different from spending huge amounts of money every year, indefinitely. Imagine you went on a lavish vacation, staying at fancy hotels and eating at expensive restaurants for a week, and then your kid asked you "why can't we always live like this? After all, we just did so with relatively little difficulty for a week."

Not to mention, we've been paying the price for our massive money printing that year ever since with major inflation.

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