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
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Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
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If in doubt, please post it!
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- When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
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- Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
- The Wildcard Rule
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Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
Those are two very different arguments, though. One is about how people are. The other is about what we should do about it. (A similar problem is often seen with climate change debates--agreement on facts about climate is not the same as agreement about political responses, and rejecting proposals regarding the latter should not be assumed to constitute substantive disagreement on the former.)
My own take on HBD has long been very straightforward: we need to stop trying to "uplift" people. It is my view that the correct conclusion from HBD is not "X should rule Y," it's "government actors should stop giving special treatment to any X or Y by virtue of their X- or Y-ness: it doesn't do what you seem to think it will do."
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