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naraburns  nihil supernum  3mo ago (text post)   5020 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for July 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

@Rov_Scam:

@gattsuru:

@wemptronics:

@Dean:

Automatic Cognition Engines

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@TequilaMockingbird:

Big Eyes, Small Mouth

@raakaa:

@self_made_human:

Contributions for the week of June 30, 2025

@Rov_Scam:

@FCfromSSC:

@StJohnOfPatmos:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@urquan:

Contributions for the week of July 7, 2025

@grendel-khan:

@4bpp:

@Dean:

Building a History

@naraburns:

@Hieronymus:

@MathWizard:

Critical Self-Reflection

@Clementine:

@Southkraut:

Contributions for the week of July 14, 2025

@netstack:

@OliveTapenade:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@WhiningCoil:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@Sunshine:

Identity (?) Politics

@Primaprimaprima:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@Southkraut:

@Hoffmeister25:

@urquan:

@WhiningCoil:

@cjet79:

@Iconochasm:

Contributions for the week of July 21, 2025

@Dean:

@quiet_NaN:

Contributions for the week of July 28, 2025

@self_made_human:

@P-Necromancer:

@ThisIsSin:

@SSCReader:

@faceh:

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"Is your 'AI Assistant' smarter than an Orangutan? A practical engineering assessment"

I'm disappointed this was selected as a quality contribution due to the litany of easily-verifiable falsehoods from the author and his refusal to correct or acknowledge them. Strangely enough, I am more upset by this than any hot-button culture war issue I've read on here. I suppose if someone's political opinion differs from mine, I can dismiss it as a matter of opinion, but when someone tells complete falsehoods about the area you work in, doubles down, and is highlighted as a quality contributor, it feels worse.

Yeah. There's been a long-standing conflict between AAQCs not needing to be correct so long as they're positive contributions for the community. This at least looks like a serious if flawed attempt to discuss a complicated rather than active trolling, so it's far from the worst version of that issue, but the lack of engagement with even the most overt criticism of the most central claims makes it really frustrating.

The problem that commentary was not even interesting, but dealing with fiction invented there. (fiction propped only by fake or worthless credentials)

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!


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