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.
A few comments from the editor: first, sorry this is a little late, but you know--holidays and all. Furthermore, the number of quality contribution nominations seems to have grown a fair bit since moving to the new site. In fact, as I write this on January 5, there are already 37 distinct nominations in the hopper for January 2023. While we do occasionally get obviously insincere or "super upvote" nominations, the clear majority of these are all plausible AAQCs, and often quite a lot of text to sift through.
Second, this month we have special AAQC recognition for @drmanhattan16. This readthrough of Paul Gottfried’s Fascism: Career of a Concept began in the Old Country, and has continued to garner AAQC nominations here. It is a great example of the kind of effort and thoughtfulness we like to see. Also judging by reports and upvotes, a great many of us are junkies for good book reviews. The final analysis was actually posted in January, but it contains links to all the previous entries as well, so that's what I'll put here:
Now: on with the show!
Quality Contributions Outside the CW Thread
@Tollund_Man4:
Contributions for the week of December 5, 2022
@problem_redditor:
Sexulation
@problem_redditor:
Holocaustianity
Coloniazism
Contributions for the week of December 12, 2022
@Titus_1_16:
-
"This is the sense in which, post-2010s, all marriages are gay marriages."
-
"Oppression makes brutes of a people, and the oppressor ends up riding a tiger."
@YE_GUILTY:
Contributions for the week of December 19, 2022
@To_Mandalay:
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think this is a bit dishonest. I read through all the discussion yesterday and it is quite clear that the revisionist poster is arguing their case much more successfully, while the other side is acting very offended, signaling disbelief and eventually flaming out. If this discussion was about any other topic, the balance of upvotes would be much much more skewed.
If
where did all the Jews gois such a good refutation of their argument, you should go ahead and ask it, and then pursue them until either you get a straight answer or their evasion becomes obvious. Holocaust denial is clearly not a position held by vast majority of the users here so you would surely manage to change the voting balance in no time.I think you're being somewhat deceitful, I'm sorry. It's quite clear the revisionist poster is arguing their case more successfully because of Motte norms, not because of some inherent virtue in their argument. The line in question was asked several times and notably never answered, and yes, the other side eventually acted offended and signalled disbelief - this is the point of a Gish Gallop, to induce a failure state on the other side. The goal is never to prove anything, merely to clog the argument with so many extraneous facts (or simply introducing doubt into facts somewhat removed from the central point) that they cannot be all effectively refuted, leaving you the 'winner' in the debate.
If the original poster asking the question ended up being downvoted, why do you think I would fare any better?
What are these norms that gives one side so much more argument power?
Most of those long-winded comments are simply replies to people asking about many specific details or very broad questions such as "what about the victim accounts?". It is also really not a good look that most of the "pro" arguments got defeated so easily in detail. This forum doesn't lack people who can write walls of text about the most mundane things. There should be someone around who can spend half the time they spend on complaining about nazis in this forum to put forward some irrefutable high quality arguments and then link that every time the revisionism rears its head.
This is not a good portrayal of the discussions in the link. I don't know if the revisionist dude is actually a Nazi in disguise but it is not difficult to see that they believe substantially less Jews than the official history numbers were murdered (or died due to poor treatment/conditions) and that this was done in ways and reasons largely aligned with why other tens of millions of people were getting murdered (or dying due to poor treatment/conditions) at the time. Hence the extreme attention on details such as gas chambers being a fabrication, high death tolls from typhus and allied bombing, lack of direct orders, unreliability of many accounts, reprisals being considered a legitimate instrument of war at the time etc etc. He is trying to make the point that the treatment of the Jews was largely in line with the other monstrosities of the period, many of them perpetrated or allowed by the Allies. It makes sense when you see it from the perspective of someone who thinks Holocaust shouldn't be the central event of the Western moral universe, or who is trying to genuinely subvert that moral universe. Maybe because of pathological contrarianism or maybe because they think this moral universe is inherently against people like themselves. Certainly wouldn't be the first person to realize the unique status of the Holocaust above any other 20th century atrocity puts right-wing movements at quite a bind in the West.
Perhaps it makes sense to me because I wasn't taught the Holocaust in school as a very significant event and it doesn't carry the same emotional load for me.
Why do you bother to comment on anything if you don't believe most people on Motte try to act somewhat fairly with their votes? You could also get dogpiled here.
If there aren’t enough people who can’t discuss an event 80 years ago without flaming out, it doesn’t say good things about the degree of mythological significance that event has gained. Makes it a more interesting topic to argue about.
More options
Context Copy link
Probably you are right. But it doesn’t change the fact that the seemingly extraneous bits of trivia that the octopus alludes to, have a coherent target.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Probably also a selection effect in play. I haven't seen any Holocaust revisionism that rose to the level of being actually interesting, so I just ignore the topic. People inclined to the position are presumably more willing to read a 50 comment chain arguing about it.
Quite likely. But then also vast majority of historical work and debate is extremely uninteresting.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link