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naraburns  nihil supernum  3mo ago (text post)   5021 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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When put like that, it gives the sense that one Mark Zuckerberg is seriously overpaying some recent hires.

Pretty sure he is overpaying, but in general, the distance between a toy model and a production-quality system is gigantic, and crossing that distance is about 95% of what software developer (and managers, and project/product managers) does. The devil is always in details, and "pretty much" is not "exactly". So generally having an extremely well paid people to spend a lot of time on improving the product based on a widely known and relatively simple ideas is something that a lot of software companies do, and make a lot of money on it, and it's not stupid at all. Zuck maybe going a bit overboard with exactly how much well paid, but otherwise it's not weird at all.

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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!

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.

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