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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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naraburns nihil supernum 1d ago (text post) 1695 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for November 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.

Particular thanks/congratulations this month to @Rov_Scam, who double-tapped two weeks and the Main Motte category this month, carrying nearly 20% of the total report. Some of you may recall that one of the ways I whittle down the list is, if you have multiple QC nominations in a single month, each comment included in the final report weighs against including an additional comment in the report. Nevertheless, the primary driver of the AAQC report is community feedback, and of the dozen or so comments @Rov_Scam had nominated, every comment included here was in the top ten posts of the month.

Quality Contributions to the Main Motte

@problem_redditor:

"Today I read The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History."

@comicsansstein:

"Among Neigbhors, a documentary from last year, where in WWII animated flashback scenes demonic Poles with glowing red eyes hunt down the hiding Jews, and in the ruins of 1944 Warsaw heroic German soldiers aid them."

"Blue Origin, on the other hand, appears to indeed be moving from 'gradatim' mode to 'ferociter' mode!"

Contributions for the week of October 27, 2025

@FiveHourMarathon:

"When Israel makes the antisemites correct about one thing, they risk making people look at the rest of their thoughts."

Contributions for the week of November 3, 2025

@OliveTapenade:

"What I noticed after writing that older post was that these options line up very easily with the three major branches of global Christianity - Protestantism (especially evangelical Protestantism, in the US), Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy."

"One of the issues to first spark debate among evangelicals after our definitive split with the mainline in the early twentieth century was how to relate as evangelicals to non-evangelical communities."

"Do you remember a short story called "Cat Person," which was published in 2017? It went viral and caused quite a stir at the time."

"I object to coercion and restricting people's freedom, even freedom to make bad choices, so I am not going to subscribe to 'We should make women do what's best for them' even if I really did believe it's what best for them and not motivated by self-interest."

@BreakerofHorsesandMen:

"This church has absolutely lost sight of the priority to save souls, by overemphasizing loving their neighbor."

"I don’t like the fact that there is something approaching a general consensus here: that the time for discussion and dialogue is over and the normies can be led around by the nose to believe and fight for whatever makes them feel good."

@Bartender_Venator:

"I'll leave it to the gallery to decide if OP simply has natural talent at this, or is a trained and well-polished master baiter, but, from me, kudos."

Contributions for the week of November 10, 2025

"The piece uses the term 'identity' 33 times and I think defining that term is at the heart of this whole thing. Identity has a few factors and all importantly interact with what trans even is."

"For a given novel virus like SARS-CoV-2 the following steps are needed to produce an effective, safe, and most importantly manufacturable protein based vaccine."

"As much as it was never going to happen, even at the time of the series I remember really liking the 'Harry is a decoy chosen one / Neville was the real boy who lived' theories for what it could have let Harry Potter be."

"Tim Tebow was hated because he completely upended puplic perception of what a pro athlete was supposed to be."

"For years, Chase Strangio of the ACLU characterised gender-affirming care as lifesaving medical treatment. Before the Supreme Court, under oath, Strangio admitted that there's no persuasive evidence that gender-affirming care has any impact on the rates of suicide among gender dysphoric children."

"Fundamentally, I want to live in a High Trust Society with traditions and social institutions geared towards maintaining it against all interference."

Contributions for the week of November 17, 2025

"You know what movie I'm kind of coming around to? The Last Jedi."

"Fundamentally, we have less opportunities to exercise agency anymore and that shapes one's mind in a weird way. It embeds the Watchers in the back of your mind when they are not there physically."

@FiveHourMarathon:

@DirtyWaterHotDog:

"No, girl-boss feminism doesn't aspire to be equal. They aspire to be the same."

"People including myself will often point out how the first American Civil War was militarily not much like a traditional civil war, and more like a war between two nations. But the political breakdown leading to that actually does look a lot like a civil war..."

"The International Criminal Court is a treaty-law organization. Its powers derive not externally, but from the sovereign authorities of its constituent members."

Contributions for the week of November 24, 2025

@self_made_human:

"You're staring at a map, noting that the map is made of paper, and then worrying that the territory might be made of paper too."

@FiveHourMarathon:

"The problem is really that any high trust group can defraud the government pretty easily."

"In so much that I present a definition of 'victory' for Ukraine, my inclination has generally leaned towards 'terms that are sufficient to allow Ukraine to deter yet another continuation war by Russia.'"

"So I finally finished The Years of Rice and Salt by KSR by recommendation of @self_made_human and my 15-year-old self."

"According to an anonymously leaked preliminary memo the US military will be cutting ties with Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America)."

@problem_redditor:

"Just to give you a sense of how large that margin is, in 2018, the number of men killed in occupational-related transportation incidents alone (1,929 men) exceeds the number of women killed in all occupational deaths and maternal deaths added together."

"In one sense seeing women in such a power seems like matriarchy, but she still relies on men for everything - be it her ex husband, or overwhelmingly male police force for protection of her person and her legal entitlements."

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FtttG 8hr ago

According to this article, 80% of artists on Spotify have fewer than 50 monthly listeners

It's good to be above average.

Context

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

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