site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  3mo ago (text post)   5200 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for July 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.

Quality Contributions to the Main Motte

@gattsuru:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@John_Doe_Fletcher:

@Rov_Scam:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@OliveTapenade:

Contributions for the week of June 24, 2024

@Capital_Room:

Contributions for the week of July 1, 2024

@Felagund:

@The_Nybbler:

@Throwaway05:

@faceh:

Contributions for the week of July 8, 2024

@TracingWoodgrains:

@Folamh3:

@rayon:

@gattsuru:

@satirizedoor:

@FCfromSSC:

@Belisarius:

Contributions for the week of July 15, 2024

@gattsuru:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@NexusGlow:

@FCfromSSC:

@screye:

@naraburns:

Contributions for the week of July 22, 2024

@WestphalianPeace:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@cjet79:

@problem_redditor:

Contributions for the week of July 29, 2024

@100ProofTollBooth:

@Dean:

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Here.

In Trace's own words when forging thier 'evidence';

The worksheets were meticulously laid out: mostly innocent on the surface with hints of something people would find sinister: “musky” and “husky” planted next to each other in the word search, a “non-binary” check box next to “male” and “female” on the fursona design worksheet, games every child plays next to memes only people far too familiar with the furry fandom would pick up on. That taken care of, we seeded the word search with a few references to rdrama, the trolling forum I had gathered the participants from.

Emphasis mine.

Also, more from Tracing;

In all honesty, with the replies we were getting, we thought the game was up pretty quickly. She replied quickly wanting, oddly enough, more details than the vague stew we provided. So we got to inventing. Charles, we decided, desperately wanted the world to know, but his wife’s friend insisted that specifics be kept out of it. We could give the school district, but nothing more.

...With the next reply, apparent disaster struck, as Libs of TikTok elected to do the one thing that could foil our scheme: look for actual evidence that any of this had ever happened.

Again, emphasis mine.

People who argue that LoTT didn't do due diligence clearly didn't read the article; Uncharitably, they're just trying to carry water for TW and obscure the fact that TW and his cohorts made up alot of fake shit to try and sell a story that LoTT is somehow just blindly repeating whatever it is people tell her.

Yes, it's very easy to sell a story someone doesn't fact-check when you go all-in on trying to scam them.

This was one of the elements that distinguished Tracingwoodgrain's actions from the Sokal Hoax defense. Sokal's hoax relied not only on self-apparent nonsense of the arguments presented- physical impossibilities that simply dressed in ideological language- but also the lack of follow-up. Tracing not only provided claims that were not inherently nonsensical- marital concerns are absolutely a factor in what people would / would not talk about in ways that could impact them- but also provided further information upon being challenged.

Part of the construction- and the point- of a Sokal hoax is that it wouldn't survive being challenged. The point isn't to fool an inspection, but to reveal a lack of inspection. By intervening to sustain the deception, Tracing lost the plot on any Sokal analog... which was admittedly not the point, and never claimed as such in the original presentation.

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