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naraburns  nihil supernum  7mo ago (text post)   4477 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for April 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

@RenOS:

@MadMonzer:

@Tenaz:

@aqouta:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@MollieTheMare:

Special Issue: The Whiteish Question

@KulakRevolt:

@ZRslashRIFLE:

@ahobata:

@WaltBismarck:

@FlyOnTheWall:

Contributions for the week of April 1, 2024

@Hoffmeister25:

@gattsuru:

@Folamh3:

@Amadan:

@FarNearEverywhere:

@RandomRanger:

@doglatine:

Contributions for the week of April 8, 2024

@Rov_Scam:

Contributions for the week of April 15, 2024

@clo:

@WestphalianPeace:

@ymeskhout:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@urquan:

Contributions for the week of April 22, 2024

@RandomRanger:

@FCfromSSC:

@Dean:

@Primaprimaprima:

@ControlsFreak:

@campfireSmoresEaten:

@Here:

Contributions for the week of April 29, 2024

@rokmonster:

@4bpp:

@dovetailing:

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Some good writing this month. I enjoyed @coffee_enjoyer and @FiveHourMarathon’s brief discussion of the Amish Question. There’s a risk when discussing isolated and backward tribes that one projects the way that we do today onto hunter gatherers in the Amazon or the Sentinelese, where we assume that we were like them instead of acknowledging that they - for not having settled, for not having advanced - are the unusual ones and so may not tell us as much about our ancestors as we think. Similarly, the Amish aren’t necessarily a fair or accurate example of most traditional civilizations in many ways, or of what ‘we’ could be if we attempted to restore some of those institutions.

A second issue is the peculiarity of the group. I think it unambiguously true that the Amish probably are happier and have higher QOL than most modern westerners, but the degree to which this is the product of trad-ness is hard to measure. Consider those Mennonites who stayed in the Alps and assimilated into normal mountain Swiss society. Today they live in one of the richest and highest functioning countries on earth, a place bus drivers make a hundred thousand dollars a year, where the median household wealth is among (possibly the) highest in the world. A clean and exceptionally safe country, an ordered country, a place in which one’s neighbors will indeed send the police to tell you to stop playing music after 9.30pm. A place where the recycling is always sorted (God help you if it isn’t). Possibly, alongside Denmark (which has its disadvantages) the final remaining civilized country in the West.

It is hard to compare the Amish with their assimilated cousins in Switzerland because Swiss statistics are muddied by lower performing French and Italians (and others). But a lot of the ‘Amish QOL advantage’ might just be HBD.

I love reading through these. I feel like I'm on here a lot and for a lot of time but I didn't see the vast majority of these the first time around. One of the best features of this site, I think.

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