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guess this is the only comment i can reply to.
you raging about threads here is a tough look. same for deleting your top-level, something @ZorbaTHut & co should block as an option, at least when the thread it's in is the weekly.
i don't know of anywhere online where discussion is as good as the motte. i see twitter commentators racking up followers and media appearances/cred for observations that are at best watered down versions of ideas posted here years ago. it's all i think of with the hanania hubub. his pieces i've read, not many, would receive bipartisan scorn if posted by a rando here. yet i see people here treating him with respect and i know a lot of that is only because he's a known name. it's not his old and just bad arguments, it's certainly not his asinine leaps in reasoning or pure worse writing. not when a lot of people here could go on twitter and make a name for themselves, and i think more than a few would do better than hanania. how couldn't they? he'd be a motte washout.
i maybe get some bit of what you're feeling, i try to comment only when i think i have something to add. but i'm tired of people being critical of this place because they can't get a handle on their own emotions, whatever the angry/nihilist/impotent root. yeah in some cases, by no means all, quality dips here because a matter's clearly settled and there's no good faith arguing to be done. or to counter my own point, because it's been hashed out and explored enough everybody knows the positions and without anything novel it suffers from repetitiveness. but in whole, the motte is better at so novel and astute posts than all of substack. i'd like to find the time and impetus to contribute one of those, maybe you should strive for that too. posting something truly interesting, not attention-seeking complaining on the meta level of the best place for real discussion on the english-speaking internet.
also--scott stepped back from this community because for all his brilliance, he greatly lacks conviction.
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