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naraburns  nihil supernum  1d ago (text post)   1052 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for September 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

@Lewyn:

@gattsuru:

@George_E_Hale:

@Thoroughlygruntled:

@FtttG:

@Rov_Scam:

@ThomasdelVasto:

Contributions for the week of August 31, 2026

@gattsuru:

@quiet_NaN:

@FtttG:

@OracleOutlook:

Contributions for the week of September 7, 2026

@georgioz:

@Ioper:

@FCfromSSC:

@FtttG:

@NullHypothesis:

@TitaniumButterfly:

@MayorofOysterville:

Contributions for the week of September 14, 2026

@falling-star:

@IdiocyInAction:

@Tanista:

@Brainwavez:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

Contributions for the week of September 21, 2026

@georgioz:

Contributions for the week of September 28, 2026

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@FiveHourMarathon:

"Battle" of the "Sexes"

@ratherblather:

@cjet79:

@faceh:

@self_made_human:

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@George_E_Hale – forgive my ignorance, but what's the significance of the road being painted yellow?

The article explains that there is no special significance to the color.

The color scheme is based on the “nudge theory”, in which subtle environmental changes can coax people to willingly modify their behavior.

In the Osaka case, the switch to yellow made the women feel uncomfortable standing on a conspicuous surface.

Ah, I see. I thought maybe the colour yellow had some special significance in Japan (e.g. "yellow journalism").

It's an attempt (which seems to have worked) at putting into practice nudge theory.

Sorry for the wilkipedia link. It's basically a way of mentalizing people to, in this case, become self-conscious and unsettled. I could theorize why this particular application works on Japanese but that would be armchair psychology.

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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