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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.

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.

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naraburns nihil supernum 3d ago (text post) 1909 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for February 2025

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

@problem_redditor:

"The convenience of modern travel makes it easier to get around, but in an odd way, it also makes the world smaller and less interesting."

@self_made_human:

"You can't buy a new set of clothes, but you sure can get still get drunk there. This is a story of how I did."

Contributions for the week of January 27, 2025

@OliveTapenade:

"Aquinas was familiar with international charity."

Contributions for the week of February 3, 2025

@recovering_rationaleist:

"Someone's wrong on the Radio: Internal contradictions in the narratives on USAID"

"Benjamin Franklin famously described the government created by the Constitutional Convention as 'A republic, if you can keep it.'"

"In 1913, the federal budget was only about 2-3% of GDP. It was funded almost entirely by tariffs. Today, the federal budget is about 25% of GDP, funded mostly by taxes of individuals."

"Given those choices, you are much better off taking your chances with the Christians than with the nominal Atheists."

"However, if your rivals have been enforcing their rules without regards for fairness, good things can actually come of returning the favor and enforcing your rules with no regard for fairness."

"Immigration is like steroids or heroin, it changes the decision-maker in ways that make their future decisions unforeseeable."

Contributions for the week of February 10, 2025

"As a society, we are not guaranteed to decline and fall. We can fix it."

@NelsonRushton:

"Hitler's Identity Politics, Part I"

"...I think you're making a historical error to include things like the Bengal famine and even the Irish potato famine in with the holodomor uncritically - especially using the same term for both Ukraine and Ireland."

"Well, the mistake is in thinking that 'left' and 'right' as used in practice represent any object-level political positions at all."

"John Green is a good point of discussion in philanthropy apropos USAID."

@Tophattingson:

"The Chagos Islands Deal, or, The Next Westminster Scandal Is Already Here, You Just Haven't Noticed It Yet"

"Due to the elevation, topography, and regional climate, the term 'fighting season' in Afghanistan was literal, not just figurative."

@WhateverHappenedToNorman:

"A few thoughts on the male feminist sex pest."

"Having pundits on both sides of the aisle say similar things about our nation's political trajectory serves to increase my worry that 'Brazilification' might be a real thing, and makes me wonder how quickly it might happen, and how seriously I should take the possibility."

"I try to be sympathetic to feminist arguments, because I do in fact believe women are people, but very much of modern feminist writing seems to fall within the stereotype often described here of women wanting all the privileges, none of the responsibility."

"'What, exactly, makes something a "universal human right"?', I asked."

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

"And so, it turns out that being extremely unreasonable, confrontational, and obnoxious can be surprisingly effective."

@Supah_Schmendrick:

"In fact, the checking of one aggressive force (wokism) by an equally and oppositely-aggressive one (Trumpism) is precisely the balancing of powers and passions contemplated by Madison and the federalists."

@LacklustreFriend:

"So my question to all those who just want to 'retvrn' to the liberalism of decades past - how to you plan to address or reform liberalism so it will won't cause woke again?"

Contributions for the week of February 17, 2025

"Trump-Europe can be an alliance in which the Americans are the mercenaries paid for by the EUropeans... but mercenaries still have to be paid."

@self_made_human:

"Batman might be a a typical Wuxia character. Superman would be a weak character in a Xianxia setting, especially in a novel that's managed to steadily creep up in both power and page count."

"This is going to be a split between a movie review for Ne Zha 2 and some of my thoughts on the state of culture from a China-born American."

"In the short-term, perhaps it is kinder to play along with trans people’s beliefs about themselves and affirm their claimed gender identities, if failing to do so makes them sad and upset. But in the long-term..."

"A breakdown of the Daniel Greene-Naomi King sexual misconduct scandal"

"Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait: Part 5"

"No AI has ever passed a Turing Test."

"The transgender memeplex wants to expand the usage of the word 'woman' to include unfalsifiable claims about someone's internal mental state."

Contributions for the week of February 24, 2025

"Wand waving Narcan does not look like compassion or tough love to me. Withholding the best medicine available doesn't sound decent to me."

"The wording of the Amendment was designed to unambiguously include freed slaves, but exclude unconquered American Indian tribes."

"I can only imagine how obnoxious an American ghetto would be in Japan."

@DirtyWaterHotDog:

"Indians (among other first-gen immigrants) are more spiritual, family-oriented, and 90s-American-like than naive 2025 Americans."

"The gay community is not typified by two men in a committed long-term relationship."

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Dean Flairless 2d ago

I particularly enjoyed the Xianxia, very deserved AAQC!

Pease feel free to do more in the future!

2

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? Dean 2d ago

Thank you! It's a wild world out there, browse by top of all time in /r/MartialMemes and you'll get a fair inkling.

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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

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