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Quality Contributions Report for August 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

@birb_cromble:

@Tanista:

@Muninn:

@self_made_human:

@DiscourseMagnus:

@gattsuru:

Contributions for the week of August 3, 2026

@Shakes:

@FtttG:

@quiet_NaN:

@iprayiam3:

@georgioz:

@birb_cromble:

@Tretiak:

@100ProofTollBooth:

@YoungAchamian:

@Aapje58:

Contributions for the week of August 10, 2026

@gattsuru:

@GBRK:

@Thoroughlygruntled:

@FtttG:

@zoink:

@georgioz:

@JeSuisCharlie:

Contributions for the week of August 17, 2026

@faceh:

@Shakes:

@ratherblather:

@Shirayuki3:

Contributions for the week of August 24, 2026

@hanikrummihundursvin:

@faceh:

@Shakes:

@RandomRanger:

@netstack:

@FtttG:

Contributions for the week of August 31, 2026

@thejdizzler:

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@Tanista “it doesn’t matter what immigrants think……various pro social things if they are forced to by the populace”

I feel like this is wrong. I guess you can somewhat force them to learn to say American values but it’s probably impossible for them to adopt American culture in the inner monologue.

Most here I think would accept an HBD argument that evolution doesn’t stop at the neck down. And things like ability to do algebra in your head have significant differences. But I also believe evolution doesn’t stop at your ability to be a human calculator in your head but have significant personality trait differences.

For example the Japanese seem to be very pro-social in a lot of ways. And they are largely smart so many would think they would be ideal immigrants. But the Japanese also seem to have a personality trait that is very conformists. When the leader says Japanese now do things “X” way the whole society seems to instantly become super “X”. It’s why they could be a closed society then within a generation open to the world and become a global power quickly. It’s in their long hour work culture. It’s why they could blow the biggest real estate bubble the world has ever seen. It’s why when they did deflation they did it very well after the big inflation bubble. It’s seems like when Japanese society decides to do a thing they do it extremely well.

Supposedly this has something to do with growing rice and rice growing versus European agriculture required a lot more conformity. Hence this personality trait is very strong in Asians. And why many Asian 20 something’s took to woke very quickly when it became the dominant societal power.

Americans are not this. We traditionally have a big contrarian and rebellious streak. Genetically I came across something called the Wanderlust gene and you can find it at high rates in Americans of European descent versus the population groups they came from in Europe. In the past going to America was a big trip. Crazy for true Heritage Americans and basically guaranteed to be a one way trip for the economic means of most of them. For the Ellis Island wave it was still a huge step. For modern immigrants it’s basically trivial and can be reversed with a 1k flight. There would still be some selection for this personality trait but far less.

If culture has a hereditary basis then cultural assimilation isn’t going to happen. I am assuming culture is a combination of innate personality + your art/constutition/great works etc.

The one conclusion I’ve had from this is that some of the early waves of Indians seem to have 100% assimilated and the filters we had on Indian immigration then were perfect. Nikki Haley’s kids are barely distinguishable from an old money Southern Boy. Indians are largely hated today as immigrants and I have no idea on them as the filters and ease to get in were relaxed.

Personality I believe has a genetic component. And if it’s genetic then assimilation isn’t just forcing people to learn your memes and words.

Do I believe that Japanese Americans and Somali Americans and Heritage American are going to become behaviorally identical or even broadly the same within America? No. Do I think a selective immigration system (it's more selective for some than others) can pick people who would be much closer to some tolerably American orientation? Yes.

In this particular case we're talking about a certain sort of ideological hostility towards the legacy population and culture and this is strongly encouraged by a certain faction within these countries. I can see a world where Somalis continue to underperform (as they do elsewhere) but someone like Ilhan Omar wouldn't dare go on TV and parrot the talking points she does cause the populace just wouldn't stand for it.

There are people who just hate the kaffir for sure, but a lot of people are essentially striving conformists who are taught that this is the appropriate stance to take towards America, that essentially all brown migrants should behave as if they have the same right to ambivalence about the national project as the Foundational Black Americans, as Tariq Nasheed calls them. Maybe certain people would be tribal in any context, but there is a world where even rational tribalistic impulses would suggest you shut the fuck up about the plan to dissolve the old status quo and beat your racial enemies and be more American than the Americans.

That is not some given. That is not a fact of life. It's a product of a national divorce between red and blue legacy Americans, with the children being told they can pick a side.

The degree to which stopping this makes people Americans in their hearts is debatable because I just don't know how to quantify that from your post (one could argue that many whites are not American in their desire for socialism and welfare). I think it would certainly be an improvement.

But why? What’s in it for me?

You are right red and blue tribe are not united enough to even try forced assimilation. I still think it would often fail due to personality differences.

Every time we do mass migration in the US we see massive outmigration of the native population from desirable locations. Many call this white flight. We now have zero urban environments in the US for middle class natives.

When the great migration occurred it eventually led to white flight thru out all of the rust belt cities. They left because the schools collapsed and their kids were being bullied in their communities. Crime rose. Which led to the birth of the suburbs and policy to keep land values expensive.

Recently LA and NYC have seen a new wave of white flight. Sure we can say this is due to blue tribe governance making housing and taxes unaffordable for the middle class. Regardless, immigration came to these cities and politically governance changed. I am personally a victim of the crime to white flight thing. It sucks. But not as much as staying and waking up to police marking bullets in the morning. Most of the people fleeing NY and Cali do not share my politics. They just left because the areas got worse and the financial mature sense to leave.

And you talk about the red tribe-blue tribe divorce. In reality with only the white vote we would have the power to do forced assimilation. I saw data that Trump would still win the election if only white females voted. But that’s not our electorate anymore. But I will emphasize I don’t believe forced assimilation would work due to genetic personality differences.

I understand why immigrants want to come here. I don’t hate them. It just makes my life worse.

So I will asks you what is in it for me?

But why? What’s in it for me?

You don't have to take migrants at all. I don't think there's anything immoral about being Japan. Maybe things would be a bit slower (though recent events in Canada and UK have proven problematic for the Max Immigration == Growth thesis so there're clearly diminishing returns) but that's a tradeoff a reasonable person can prefer. Practically, I don't think it's likely to happen but you can want that.

Even if you did close down the borders now though, something has to be done to digest the large numbers that have already been taken.

A lot of the pro-immigration people act like it is a moral thing so I respect that you don’t think it’s moral.

I guess I’m an urbanist. Which is sort of a blue tribe personality trait. Demographically and where I grew up I would be predicted to be very red tribe but my preferences are very blue tribe.-

I do think one of the strongest arguments against immigration is Americas inability to build middle class urban environments. Americas preference for building suburbs in my view is based on a strong preference not to live in diverse environments. I guess one could say blacks are special and prone to having unacceptable levels of violence and new immigrants are fine. That is kind of a justifiable view. But while we just had a huge immigration wave our biggest cities didn’t build more housing and make it work but instead had out migration of natives. So my opinion is if blue tribe wants me to accept mass migration then they need to show me they can run a multicultural city that doesn’t result in mass out migration of natives.

A lot of my anti-immigration views can boil down why doesn’t America have cities. Because I like living in cities.