site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  7mo ago (text post)   6737 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for September 2024

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful.

Quality Contributions in the Main Subreddit

@naraburns:

@Highpopalorum:

@2D3D:

Contributions for the week of September 2, 2024

@Dean:

@faceh:

@KolmogorovComplicity:

@ControlsFreak:

@RenOS:

Special Issue: Babies Everywhere!

@Hoffmeister25:

@ProfQuirrell:

@Tractatus:

@doglatine:

@urquan:

@satirizedoor:

Contributions for the week of September 9, 2024

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@ControlsFreak:

@gorge:

@Rov_Scam:

Contributions for the week of September 16, 2024

@Dean:

@naraburns:

@100ProofTollBooth:

@Walterodim:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@MaiqTheTrue:

On An Ideology With No Name

@MadMonzer:

@Hoffmeister25:

@FCfromSSC:

@Supah_Schmendrick:

Contributions for the week of September 23, 2024

@teleoplexy:

@wemptronics:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@Hoffmeister25:

@LotsRegret:

You're a Villain All Right

@Baila:

@DirtyWaterHotDog:

@faceh:

Contributions for the week of September 30, 2024

@self_made_human:

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

@gorge:

"Legalizing gay marriage was not just 'allow different people to do their own thing' it was, 'change the basic way every child is taught about the basic institutions and building blocks of life.'"

I keep thinking about the rot here, and I think it goes back to in a certain sense that modern WEIRD people have a really hard time — for whatever reason— settling serious boundaries around things that should be obvious. Gay marriage is the last in a very long line of those kinds of decisions, but far from the only one. We can’t really say “no” on deconstruction of our heritage, the denigrating of our heroes, or the insistence that other people’s history or culture be taught alongside our own. Even among ourselves, for whatever reason, it’s rude in most circles to criticize others for casual sex, excessive drinking, or drug use. It’s really a strange thing that doesn’t happen in other places.

I wonder what @gorge would make of the conservative argument for gay marriage. @gorge writes:

There is furthermore the argument that homoerotic behavior is a vice, a sin. And if we love our neighbor, we want to save them from sin. Sin ultimately makes us less happy. Vices give momentary pleasure but leave us empty and wanting more, no more happier than before. The glutton eats a lot of junk food, but ultimately that makes the glutton less happy. If society does things to make the glutton less likely to engage in gluttony (eg, banning advertising of junk food) or I do something to make my loved one not engage in gluttony (eg not keeping junk food in the house) then I am doing good for them. If I teach them "fat acceptance" I am actually harming them.

Now I am straight and [can't] speak from personal experience about whether for a person who experiences same-sex attraction forgoing homoerotic activities makes that person more happy. I do think though, that forgoing sexual promiscuity and other sexual vices that a straight person has tempted by has made me more happy. So I can see how that argument is plausible. Given the very high rates of promiscuity and sexual experimentation reported among gay populations, seems like gay sex is leaving something empty, like eating a cookie or potato chip, not like eating a steak.

So promiscuous, meaningless, bohemian gay sex is to be discouraged. Therefore why not promote gay marriage as an alternative? After all, gay people will continue to exist either way, so we might as well attempt to include them as best we can into proper, respectable society, by providing an avenue for them to approach as closely as they can the traditional conception of a household, encouraging adoption, etc. I think Andrew Sullivan made this argument decades ago, and faced opposition from other gay activists at the time who held that gay people should not try to force themselves into heteronormative strictures or whatever.

Gay marriage, or something like it, almost seems like the only workable solution to the problem of homosexuality from the conservative point of view, unless you have some other proposal to make gay people vanish or turn straight or be castrated. If a gay person asks you, "how should I live my life", and the only answer is "sorry, you have no place in my conception of society, unless you commit to lifelong celibacy and loneliness, in which case you may quietly sit in the corner" then can you blame them for turning elsewhere?

Therefore why not promote gay marriage as an alternative?

Marriage being monogamous is not legally enforceable. It's not even an officially taught value at this point. It's basically surviving as a folk tradition. There is no reason to think that gays getting marriage would actually be monogamous, and from what I have read they are not. So gay marriage is more likely to further erode the convention that marriage is monogamous.

I think Andrew Sullivan made this argument decades ago, and faced opposition from other gay activists at the time who held that gay people should not try to force themselves into heteronormative strictures or whatever.

And we got gay marriage and instead of monogamous gay men we got NY Times and NPR normalizing polyamory and CDC approving DoxyPep.

If a gay person asks you, "how should I live my life", and the only answer is "sorry, you have no place in my conception of society, unless you commit to lifelong celibacy and loneliness, in which case you may quietly sit in the corner" then can you blame them for turning elsewhere?

I don't think lifelong celibacy == loneliness. If a gay man asked me this question, I'd point him to a testimony of a gay man who went celibate and found himself a lot better off, and I'd recommended the gay man read it and try it out.

But also, in no world would I ban two men from being roommates, nor should the government be busting down doors or installing hidden cameras to see what is going on in the bedroom. "Gay marriage" does not be legalized in order for two men to form a permanent loving relationship -- amore or caritas.

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