site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  5d ago (text post)   4011 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for April 2026

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

@naraburns:

@TitaniumButterfly:

@orthoxerox:

@charlesf:

@solowingpixy:

@OliveTapenade:

Contributions for the week of March 30, 2026

@Amadan:

@thejdizzler:

Contributions for the week of April 6, 2026

@birb_cromble:

@Rov_Scam:

@RandomRanger:

@BigObjectPermanenceShill:

@EverythingIsFine:

@OliveTapenade:

@ControlsFreak:

@IdiocyInAction:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@SpringFish:

@Shakes:

Contributions for the week of April 13, 2026

@cjet79:

@faceh:

@RandomRanger:

Contributions for the week of April 20, 2026

@self_made_human:

@Rov_Scam:

@Bombadil:

@Amadan:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@urquan:

Contributions for the week of April 27, 2026

@RandomRanger:

@MonkeyWithAMachinegun:

@AmrikeeAkbar:

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Would you be willing to expand on this a little at some point? I've been grappling with some issues around this personally and some perspective from your side of things might help a lot.

I'm not sure what I can add, really. Perhaps it's clearer if I specify that I'm not like most Indians in India, or even most UMC, well-educated Indians. I don't share their politics, their ideologies, or even much of the culture. Back home, the number of people I considered to be on a similar intellectual wavelength could be counted on my fingers. I wouldn't even need both hands.

Abroad? I don't know dawg. I know a surprisingly small number of Indians in the UK, courtesy of living up north, where brown skin can be a mild curiosity. I don't even seek them out when I see them. In the US? How would I meet them by a route that isn't an online exchange?

I look Indian. I don't sound Indian. I don't act particularly Indian, beyond a fondness for biryani. I have little interest in, or engagement with, any popular form of Indian culture or media from home. I'm a Bay Area rat in spirit. I know more about American cultural trends and politics than I know about India, let alone the UK. I'm happy keeping it that way, unless I have a pragmatic reason to do otherwise.

Several of my closest friends in those times were first or second generation immigrants. In most cases, they weren't just American, but they felt more American than me. They flew the flag at home, played sports in school, participated in neighborhood cookouts (with mildly weird limits depending on where they came from originally), and did all the things you'd expect from somebody who really liked being in America. One of the best trap shooters I'd ever met hadn't ever fired a gun until he got his citizenship, but he started coming to meets as soon as he could because, in his words, "I'm an American now". Hell, in some ways it was aspirational for somebody like me. I figured that if families from a country as poor as India could manage to live the American dream, maybe a dumb redneck like me could too.

https://www.themotte.org/post/565/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/116844?context=8#context

That's my post popular post on the Motte. Ever. So I can only presume that, if I were lucky enough to be in America, you'd describe me in much the same way as those other Indians you first knew. I envy them. They're living the life I wish I had. I consider myself to be a temporarily estranged American, by misfortune of birth and circumstances outside my control. But if wishing were horses, I'd have given PETA a heart attack and paved the Bering Strait with equine corpses to get there. Right now, I impatiently wait for future opportunities, while feeling barely suppressed rage at how my options were curtailed.

Do you have any idea what's going on? It's caused a measure of cultural whiplash for me. I can't tell if it's a change in culture in India, or different social classes and subcultures immigrating, or changing views towards America, or what, but fuck me if it's not a noticeable difference.

No clue. I don't even have solid speculation to share. I haven't been in the States after 9/11, and it might just be random chance that you just ran into people who happened to be less ideologically motivated and more in it for the money. To be fair, I'm also in it for the money too, American doctors make salaries that make me salivate, even after moving to the UK.

beyond a fondness for biryani.

Can you change my view that Biryani is just crappy fried rice?

You must have had bad biryani. This is understandable, since the best stuff is only truly available in India.

Even in the UK, I've struggled to find anything as good as what I was used to at home. The best I've found is acceptable, it's biryani-shaped and roughly tastes like biryani. And then the "Indian" restaurant I ordered from yesterday served it with peas.

Fucking peas. I haven't been as flabbergasted since I tried lasagna with peas in it. Why not just piss in my mouth instead? I'd probably enjoy that more, in all honesty.

Of course, there's regional variation. Pakistani biryani is different, so is the Afghan kind. There's like half a dozen other variants from India. The one I'm most fond of can't be found anywhere nearby, for love or money.

I believe @DirtyWaterHotDog mentioned finding actually appetizing biryani in the States, he might be able to guide you better.

  1. The site blocks the UK for
  2. Using a VPN, I seem to see that the link is down.

Oh well, I can only imagine the masterful quality of your biryani, while settling for bastardized versions to be found in Anglo lands.

Here is an alt link - https://ibb.co/bjKccZFW

It looks absolutely delicious, but I must complain about portion sizes. That's the quantity I'd feed a teenage girl, a real man needs twice as much, especially after all that work haha.

How dare you! There were 2 pots of Biryani, and I invited the whole town.

Some ingredient proportions for scale.

https://ibb.co/JwHRKq82 https://ibb.co/TBTcBvTK https://ibb.co/HT9rYwn5

I'll probably do it again this summer. I'll take proper photos this time around.

And now you're cooking with gas brother. In fact, you've made me incredibly hungry just looking at that, but I will resist the urge by thinking of England (and whatever passes for biryani in the wider UK).

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