site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  5mo ago (text post)   Edited 5mo ago   5397 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for October 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 to the Main Motte

Plausibly Concerning Something Other Than Trump v. Clinton Biden Harris

@RenOS:

@georgioz:

@Rov_Scam:

Contributions for the week of September 30, 2024

Plausibly Concerning Something Other Than Trump v. Clinton Biden Harris

@Rov_Scam:

@100ProofTollBooth:

@P-Necromancer:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@ThisIsSin:

@gattsuru:

Contributions for the week of October 7, 2024

@marinuso:

@Dean:

@naraburns:

@Amadan:

@GaBeRockKing:

Plausibly Concerning Something Other Than Trump v. Clinton Biden Harris

[null]

Contributions for the week of October 14, 2024

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@Amadan:

Plausibly Concerning Something Other Than Trump v. Clinton Biden Harris

@OliveTapenade:

@Folamh3:

@Dean:

@WhiningCoil:

Contributions for the week of October 21, 2024

@FiveHourMarathon:

@Amadan:

@faceh:

@Dean:

Plausibly Concerning Something Other Than Trump v. Clinton Biden Harris

@TheFooder:

@Amadan

@fauji:

@Throwaway05:

@Dean:

Contributions for the week of October 28, 2024

@hooser:

@Rov_Scam:

@cjet79:

@naraburns:

@Walterodim:

@FCfromSSC:

Plausibly Concerning Something Other Than Trump v. Clinton Biden Harris

@Primaprimaprima:

@4bpp:

@wemptronics:

Gattsuru Specifically Wrote This Because It Wasn't About the Presidential Election or National Politics, But Could See It Being Read Through That Lens

@gattsuru:

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Re Dean’s highlighted comment for

”but nothing in it really addresses child soldiers, which have a sordid history in islamic extremism even without touching on Hamas' deathcult tendencies."

Just for the record, @Dean was never able to provide any evidence that Hamas uses pre-teen child soldiers. In fact he refused to even supply a link. You can read the follow up exchange here where he writes —

If someone is actually interested in whether Hamas uses child soldiers, they can very trivially google "Hamas Child Soldiers" and find multiple reports on the history by organizations including Amnesty International, Child Soldiers International, and the United Nations, among others. This doesn't even include self-publicized material such as from the Hamas Youth Wing. These aren't even 'new' reporting- there are easily observable reports from the early 2000s during the tail end of the Intifada years to late last decade, well before the current conflict. Any observer of the conflict with any significant experience has read any one of these over the last few decades- they are old news, not particularly controversial, and numerous.

— after someone noted that he refused to post a source. He actually made me go looking for his own unevidenced allegation, yet I could find zero evidence from any organization that Hamas utilized pre-teen child soldiers in the past decade. The closest was:

that Hamas once used a 17yo but that they made commitments to not recruit below 18. That was back in 2004. Something similar was published by Amnesty in 2005.

So I’m still waiting on Hamas’ “sordid history of child soldiers”. I’m surprised you can get a quality contribution for an empirical claim that you flatly refuse to supply evidence for.

yet I could find zero evidence from any organization that Hamas utilized pre-teen child soldiers in the past decade

which steps you have taken in this?

I looked for UN / amnesty / HRW reports and whether there were reputable new reports on it. If Hamas were employing non-teenage children in a military capacity, it would be publicized widely and talked about regularly. It would be a huge deal and an important propaganda coup for Israel/America. It would also be Israel’s #1 talking point whenever the subject of casualties come up. Not even crazed academics would be able to defend Hamas at that point.

Are you aware that people defended what Hamas did on 7th October?

And that their main tactic is randomly firing rockets into general area and suicide bombings?

Why you think that pre-teen child soldiers would phase them of all things?

Why using children as soldiers would be treated as worse than murdering children and celebrating it?

and that their main tactic is randomly firing rockets into general area and suicide bombings

You think Hamas’ main tactic is suicide bombings? Not sure if I should even request a source at this point.

Why you think that pre-teen child soldiers would phase them of all things?

First, there is zero evidence that they are employing them (lol), and no one can find evidence of it stretching back one to two decades. Second, because of a mix of norms and international pressure. Employing your own children as child soldiers is much different than a bomb exploding which impacts a child.

Why using children as soldiers would be treated as worse than murdering children and celebrating it?

You have to look at the number of children killed on Oct 7 and then determine whether they died because of a conscious decision of a Hamas soldier or because Israel enacted a military protocol of blowing up every car and building if it contained a Hamas soldier and hostage.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/israels-leading-paper-says-its-own-army-deliberately-killed-israelis-on-october-7-but-in-the-u-s-media-silence/

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/a-growing-number-of-reports-indicate-israeli-forces-responsible-for-israeli-civilian-and-military-deaths-following-october-7-attack/

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