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naraburns  nihil supernum  5d ago (text post)   4486 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for April 2025

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

@Throwaway05:

@ArjinFerman:

@Closedshop:

Contributions for the week of March 31, 2025

@Dean:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@cjet79:

@coffee_enjoyer:

@ThenElection:

Contributions for the week of April 7, 2025

@100ProofTollBooth:

@LacklustreFriend:

@Dean:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@TitaniumButterfly:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@Gooofuckyourself:

@MadMonzer:

Contributions for the week of April 14, 2025

@FtttG:

@phosphorus2:

@RandomRanger:

@Dean:

@urquan:

Contributions for the week of April 21, 2025

@hydroacetylene:

@OracleOutlook:

@Rov_Scam:

@Dean:

@BreakerofHorsesandMen:

@naraburns:

Contributions for the week of April 28, 2025

@OracleOutlook:

@aiislove:

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Violent crime is an issue at a 45 degree angle to public transit

Four of the last seven times I tried to ride a city bus, a fight broke out.

Are you going to try and tell me that my distaste for riding a bus is unrelated to that violent crime?

It depends on the city. I agree that some transit authorities have problems with lawlessness and crime. But just because some transit systems have crime doesn't mean that all do. I've been riding Pittsburgh's transit system off and on all my life, and I never once experienced anything remotely untoward, even in bad areas. I've never heard anyone, including the most insulated suburbanites, express any apprehension whatsoever about using transit. And this is a system where anyone boarding an outbound bus or train pays upon egress, and that has a free zone, meaning bums can board pretty much without restriction, and we still don't have problems. I've used transit systems in New York, DC, and Chicago various times in the last 25 years, and my experience was no different, though it's been a while so this may have changed. I know that complaints about transit in New York are a relatively recent problem, and circa 2010 the idea that subways were dangerous was seen as a relic of the '80s.

I've used transit systems in New York, DC, and Chicago various times in the last 25 years, and my experience was no different, though it's been a while so this may have change

Pittsburgh is one of the better ones I've ridden. The worst I've dealt with there is a serial urinator on the north shore, but that's the north shore. I think inappropriate pissing is some kind of regional pastime up there.

DC, Philly, Richmond, Baltimore, and Knoxville are all pretty ugly these days.

I took the DC subway ~5 times a few months ago and it seemed fine around the center.

The train system is usually OK in my experience.

I watched a woman stand up and beat the ever-loving shit out of an old man on the bus near Columbia heights, though.

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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!

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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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