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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 5d ago (text post) 2562 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for July 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

"'I did poorly because I didn't get the right accommodations, not because I never do the reading' has become the bane of many a college professor's pedagogical efforts, and it is just one small example of an observable trend."

"You know, sometimes when I read accounts of dating by other men I feel like I'm reading text from an alternate universe."

"Bottom Line: AI is becoming super-useful and super-smart (for a very limited value of "smart") and if you are still an AI skeptic, you need to try it on something besides coding."

"Americans have become uniquely insincere, not necessarily because they are consciously lying, but because so much of ordinary social life has become a performance."

Contributions for the week of June 29, 2026

"The States Unfair"

@RussianAmericanMormon:

"The United States is an exceptional country and no American should take for granted the lottery of life that they won merely by being born in that country."

Contributions for the week of July 6, 2026

"The 'stratocaster' shape (also called the S-body) is one of the most copied and cloned electric guitar designs in history."

"In theory, there's nothing wrong with a mass-market brand providing offerings for as much of the market as possible. I think the problem is that you have to commit to a certain minimum standard of quality for something you're willing to put your name on."

"We've talked about Anthony Bourdain here a few times."

"Blue Tribe had no interest in allowing Charlie Kirk a legacy before his death, and they certainly have no interest in allowing him one after his death."

Contributions for the week of July 13, 2026

"The always-great Kaiser Bauch has a new article, this time on the (dis-)similarities between climate change and the fertility crisis."

"The basic problem as I see it is the 'life script' of society."

"Can you name a single policy proposal in any Western Country (hell, try non-Western) that tries to improve TFR by increasing restrictions on female behavior?"

"My favourite example of this was when Scott recounted an anecdote in which he was talking to a friend and saying that he couldn't understand the classical prohibition on homosexuality, and his friend pointed out that the destigmatisation of homosexuality directly precipitated one of the worst pandemics in human history, killing young men in their millions."

@YoungAchamian:

"The problem is several universalist beliefs systems have formed due to liberalism's permissiveness."

"Reasonable Men"

Metamotte

"I'm afraid I've been talking on Reddit. It's goddamn annoying."

@StableOutshoot:

"My vote is that The Motte stays fundamentally what it is rather than trying to expand its scope."

Contributions for the week of July 20, 2026

"When the magic internet rectangle supplies nearly endless content, literature, social concepts, news, and parasocial connections with people far brighter, more gregarious, and more attractive than anyone in your immediate social circle, why would anyone go outside and touch grass, or stop to chat with the neighbor?"

"It seems contradictionary: you have imperialist ethnonationalist progressives? Come on. But it makes sense if you take their ideology seriously."

"Charitably, every group polices norms, leftists are just generally hostile about explaining them to outsiders."

"It was woke politics that grew popular around 2010 that ended up taking over reddit, not the other way around."

"My understanding once was that Historians generated a consensus understanding of the world we live in and how that world came to be, while simultaneously keeping that consensus as honest as possible by puncturing its self-delusions."

Contributions for the week of July 27, 2026

"Psyops and "gotcha" questions as tools for exposing dishonesty, cowardice and ideological rifts"

"In the case of Israel we have already accepted there is going to be genocide, now how bad do you want it to be? And to whom should it be committed against?"

"Anthropic is destroying old books to build AI."

@FiveHourMarathon:

"In a sense, a book like that, a dead novel that hasn't been read in decades, has been given new and eternal life, becoming a mote within the great consciousness."

@JeSuisCharlie:

"Again I reiterate my position that more often than not it isn't the big headline grabbing stories that have the greatest impact but rather the things that happen quietly behind the scenes and that is why I feel obliged to signal-boost these sorts of stories."

@hanikrummihundursvin:

"The right has no ethos. And despite the smugness from the right, it's a land of those the left kicked out."

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sleepyegg 21hr ago

@faceh can you list some interesting websites or forums similar to the Motte? I often out of reading material here and, like a junkie, I need another hit of interesting discussion. I prefer to avoid reddit but if there are some decent subreddits please link them.

Context

faceh sleepyegg 11hr ago

Unfortunately a lot of that has been pushed into walled gardens and groupchats.

Aristillus.xyz was great back in the day, I haven't be on there much lately.

Lesswrong is the classic and still active, but you have a LOT of reading to do to catch up there.

I've been banned from Reddit and have no interest in a new account so not much recommendation to make there.

Certain parts of twitter are still putting out good stuff.

I have a list of relatively reliable pro-masculinity X.com accounts that avoid the standard manosphere that are worth following, IMHO.

The Eternal September has made things rough out there. This site is one of my few regular go-tos anymore.

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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