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naraburns  nihil supernum  27d ago (text post)   4693 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for March 2024

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.

Contributions to the Main Motte

@Kinoite:

@JTarrou:

@felis-parenthesis:

@George_E_Hale:

@self_made_human:

@Stefferi:

@Rov_Scam:

Contributions for the week of February 26, 2024

Health Scare

@self_made_human:

@ControlsFreak:

Affirmative Faction

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@Stefferi:

Why Not Both?

@RandomRanger:

Contributions for the week of March 4, 2024

@guesswho:

@ArmedTooHeavily:

@MaximumCuddles:

@07mk:

@ArjinFerman:

@popocatepetl:

Let's Talk About Us

@FCfromSSC:

@WestphalianPeace:

Contributions for the week of March 11, 2024

@Folamh3:

@Capital_Room:

@RandomRanger:

@hydroacetylene:

What is a Man?

@BaronVSS:

@100ProofTollBooth:

@WhiningCoil:

@naraburns:

Contributions for the week of March 18, 2024

@fauji:

@blooblyblobl:

@urquan:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@PyotrVerkhovensky:

Free as in Software

@Walterodim:

@WhiningCoil:

@ControlsFreak:

Contributions for the week of March 25, 2024

@Walterodim:

@07mk:

@PierreMenard:

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Ah man, I have been getting busy :(

We had a full fledged India discussion, and I missed it.

Glad to see the other folks generally echo my opinion. India is a beatuiful mess. The left ran India for 50 years. Nehru was a university professor turned cult-leader. Indira was Nixon. Rahul Gandhi made his own grave and earned his 'Pappu' moniker. There are no left-wing or right-wing parties in India anymore. They are all socially-conservative, and try (unsuccessfully) to be fiscally liberal.

Ah, springtime for populism.

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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.


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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."

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