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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2833 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 21, 2024

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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It's not clear to me that tight pants are a female article of clothing. Men just used to walk around in leggings all the time.

This is just what peak male performance looks like. Those high heels are actually cavalry combat shoes.

Don't get me started on those garters.

True, but then one arguably runs into the same thing with most items of ‘female’ clothing that could be ‘masculinized’.

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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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