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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4491 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for June 2023

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. But first, we have a special AAQC recognition this month! If you caught last month's quality contribution report, you may have seen @Soriek's first "International Update." Well, there were five Thursdays in June this year, and Soriek didn't miss one. Pulling multiple Quality Contribution reports on a regular "feature" of the Culture War thread is impressive and bespeaks substantial community appreciation of this user's efforts. Bravo, @Soriek!

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming!

Quality Contributions in the Main Motte

@urquan:

@George_E_Hale:

Gex and Sender

@George_E_Hale:

@ymeskhout:

@5434a:

@raggedy_anthem:

@Sloot:

Contributions for the week of May 29, 2023

@raggedy_anthem:

@HlynkaCG:

Identity Politics

@naraburns:

@Ecgtheow:

@Sloot:

Contributions for the week of June 5, 2023

@iprayiam3:

@raakaa:

@RandomRanger:

@HlynkaCG:

Identity Politics

@Soriek:

@problem_redditor:

@FarNearEverywhere:

Contributions for the week of June 12, 2023

@ApplesauceIrishCream:

@faceh:

@Corvos:

@SlowBoy:

Contributions for the week of June 19, 2023

@felis-parenthesis:

Identity Politics

@CriticalDuty:

@problem_redditor:

@5434a:

@FCfromSSC:

@jake:

@raakaa:

Contributions for the week of June 26, 2023

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@Walterodim:

@naraburns:

Islamic Exegesis

@ymeskhout:

@Tanista:

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@faceh:

"'Failing upward' doesn't even begin to describe it."

This reminds of some Fox News segment about street crime in San Francisco, which I saw pop up as a Youtube recommendation. Being moderately curious about that whole trainwreck of a situation, I watched the beginning of the video, which included a short segment from one of Chesa Boudin's public speeches. In it, he declared something along the lines that "it's deplorable to believe that we can be free by caging others". To be honest, it didn't even occur to me back then what utter bullshit this statement is. Only recently did this dawn on me. Very obviously, "we" (i.e. any human society) do not cage others so that we are free; we do so in order to be safe. Isn't this completely self-evident?

I don't think protecting safety precludes protecting freedom. We cage people for coercing others i.e unjustly limiting their freedom, even in cases where the victim's life or health hasn't been injured. You could say coercion implies the threat of violence and so this is really about safety but the concepts have melded together at that point. You've also got cases like blackmail where you're unjustly constraining people's choices without the threat of violence.

Certainly caging other human beings ensures freedom of movement in that, if you cage enough criminals, it becomes safe to walk through neighborhoods at night and parts of a city don’t become no-go zones.

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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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