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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3931 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 12, 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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The best way is to overcome your FOMO and treat Discord as ephemeral. Back when we used IRC we had no chat history. So repeat after me: anything that happens when you're not actively participating doesn't count. Just mark everything as read.

Back then when I've been using IRC I've been running a log server with back history and notifications for my name. And people I conversed with (admittedly, as geeky and more geeky than myself) did so too.

IRC had /log and there were bots who recorded channels. Some are public, for Freenode before it died. I still have logs from decades ago.

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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."

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