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Quality Contributions Report for December 2022

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.

A few comments from the editor: first, sorry this is a little late, but you know--holidays and all. Furthermore, the number of quality contribution nominations seems to have grown a fair bit since moving to the new site. In fact, as I write this on January 5, there are already 37 distinct nominations in the hopper for January 2023. While we do occasionally get obviously insincere or "super upvote" nominations, the clear majority of these are all plausible AAQCs, and often quite a lot of text to sift through.

Second, this month we have special AAQC recognition for @drmanhattan16. This readthrough of Paul Gottfried’s Fascism: Career of a Concept began in the Old Country, and has continued to garner AAQC nominations here. It is a great example of the kind of effort and thoughtfulness we like to see. Also judging by reports and upvotes, a great many of us are junkies for good book reviews. The final analysis was actually posted in January, but it contains links to all the previous entries as well, so that's what I'll put here:

Now: on with the show!


Quality Contributions Outside the CW Thread

@Tollund_Man4:

@naraburns:

@Bernd:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@RandomRanger:

@Iconochasm:

Contributions for the week of December 5, 2022

@zeke5123:

@ymeskhout:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@gattsuru:

@Southkraut:

@Bernd:

@problem_redditor:

@FCfromSSC:

@urquan:

@gemmaem:

Sexulation

@RococoBasilica:

@problem_redditor:

Holocaustianity

@johnfabian:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@SecureSignals:

Coloniazism

@gaygroyper100pct:

@screye:

@urquan:

@georgioz:

Contributions for the week of December 12, 2022

@SecureSignals:

@Titus_1_16:

@Dean:

@cjet79:

@JarJarJedi:

@gattsuru:

@YE_GUILTY:

@aqouta:

@HlynkaCG:

Contributions for the week of December 19, 2022

@MathiasTRex:

@To_Mandalay:

Robophobia

@gattsuru:

@IGI-111:

@NexusGlow:

Contributions for the week of December 26, 2022

@FCfromSSC:

@gattsuru:

@LacklustreFriend:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

20
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The voting on the Holocaust threads has me substantially downgrade my opinion of the voting habits of the average mottizen, I have to say. The bizarre nitpicking arguments followed by the complete failure to answer the simple question of 'well, where did all the Jews go?' makes me suspect our 'simply upvote long tracts of text' culture would see us upvote creationism in fairly short order if faced down by Duane Gish.

It's pathetic, isn't it? More proof for the habitual contrarian theory of Mottizenship.

I see it as more that "Mottizens" have a tendency to approve of someone attempting to argue an unpopular or controversial topic, from an unpopular position, and find it laudable when someone (who has otherwise shown a tendency for quality contribution) fights for a belief that they sincerely hold or at least can sincerely defend against an onslaught of skeptics.

I'd say Mottizens want to read the unpopular or controversial topics, and hear the unpopular arguments in their strongest form.

Since that is almost definitionally what "The Motte" is supposed to represent. Mottizens are then expected to be able to judge the arguments and update (or not) beliefs responsibly rather than based on the social consensus revealed by the upvotes on a post.

Which could indeed read a LOT like kneejerk contrarianism, but you're missing the part where the contrarianism has some effort behind it and is hopefully based on good faith belief which is being defended with the strongest available evidence.

Surely, surely you trust the users on this site to assess arguments on their merits and not just adopt the position with the most upvotes?

If Mottizens would only accept and upvote the most innocuous takes and ignore/punish stuff that seemed screwball, esoteric, or facially incorrect then what the hell would be the point of this forum at all?


And my general take is that Holocaust denialism/revisionism isn't so much a problem in and of itself as long as the person arguing it isn't trying to extend the argument to say "and therefore the Nazis weren't so bad" or, worse "and therefore we shouldn't worry about/take efforts to prevent future genocide attempts."

I notice that there's a correlation between holocaust denialism and Nazi apologism, so it is forgivable to conflate the two.

I'll grant you the smart addendum, insofar most people here aren't dumb. Point granted. Smarts are no virtue, though, and the contrarianism reminds me of myself at age fifteen enough that I've seen what it's like, lived it, and want no more of it.

Surely, surely you trust the users on this site to assess arguments on their merits and not just adopt the position with the most upvotes?

The short answer is that I kinda don't. The slightly longer answer is that no, I don't think people judge things by their merits all that much. This place is one of proverbial Christians who lost their faith in God, and turned into satanists rather than atheists: that is, take the views of the NYT, the average Reddit moderator, the college professors you hate, and flip those views upside down. Scott's barber pole view of fashion would be the model here.

If Mottizens would only accept and upvote the most innocuous takes and ignore/punish stuff that seemed screwball, esoteric, or facially incorrect then what the hell would be the point of this forum at all?

It could be for any level of discussion that isn't finding a some retarded article written by a rando struggling to get by in NYC and getting wildly upset at its quality. Slavoj Žižek has made a bit of a name for himself arguing the most innocuous takes in thoroughly screwball fashion. We get none of that. We get all the SJW cringe compilations dressed up in more autistic language and robot-like tones, instead.

This place is one of proverbial Christians who lost their faith in God, and turned into satanists rather than atheists: that is, take the views of the NYT, the average Reddit moderator, the college professors you hate, and flip those views upside down.

The main reason that I don't find this position convincing is because the evidence, as I see it, is that the overculture has shifted in ways that ended up alienating anyone who isn't running as fast as they can to keep up with the new [current thing] and update their opinions accordingly.

It's been more like if the Catholic Church were to start openly questioning the infallibility of God, then later his divinity, eventually, over the course of years, reaching the conclusion that God doesn't exist and that people should just worship the Pope directly.

Any Catholics who attempted to hold onto the belief in God and his infallibility would be branded heretics, and yet, they're the ones who have 'kept the faith,' even if that required turning away from the church.

So is it that the people here have abandoned the church and started worshiping Satan, or did the church abandon them?

That is, in my own living memory I've watched the overculture shift heavily to "the left," whilst my own views have remained fundamentally the same and yet the claim is that somehow I am the one who has flipped my views?

Doesn't gel with my recollection.

I've become a contrarian simply by sticking with a set of beliefs that is 80% similar to what I believed about 10 years ago.

I suspect the same is true of a lot of posters here. And this is one of the few places where they can be told that no, they're not crazy, their beliefs were considered mainstream a mere decade or two ago, and there did used to be a time when it was acceptable to voice dissenting thoughts in public.

That is, it's a place where it is safe to say we have NOT always been at war with Eastasia!

It could be for any level of discussion that isn't finding a some retarded article written by a rando struggling to get by in NYC and getting wildly upset at its quality.

I guess I agree that a lot of frivolous issues are raised here alongside the meatier stuff.

But the quality of discussion for even the most frivolous matters is head and shoulders what you'd get discussing the same topic on reddit, facebook, youtube, Et al.

We get none of that. We get all the SJW cringe compilations dressed up in more autistic language and robot-like tones, instead.

I mean, even if I grant this, I don't see the problem with that as long as nobody pretends we're doing anything more meaningful to the world.

I never saw any part of The Motte's mission statement say we were trying to win or resolve culture war battles or achieve policy gains. At best, it's a lifeboat for people who remember the 'old internet' from before culture wars took it over, and from when the culture war wasn't such a one sided affair at the national level.

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As I was typing out the hypothetical situation where the Catholic Church incrementally removes the divinity of God from their Credo I realized how 'frighteningly' plausible that actually sounded to me, under current circumstances.

With that said, I'd expect an institution that has managed to survive ~1600 years (not counting the rough early centuries) to hold out for a couple more centuries.

Maybe I'm just a weirdo but (speaking as a non-Catholic) I would prefer that the church just die out entirely but for some small group of fanatic believers than for it to just turn into something utterly different wearing the trappings of the Church.