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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2642 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What email provider do you use and why? Do you judge people based on what email provider they use? Scott included an email address for an AI Safety group in a recent post and commenters pointed out the irony of them using gmail.

I started using gmail when it was first introduced (invite-only-early), because it wasn't immediately clear we shouldn't have, but have been a longtime ProtonMail user, because I'm cool like that. I don't evangelize Proton... but I sometimes have trouble taking Google users seriously. Scott uses google

I use a local email forwarder to gmail. The forwarder is run by a non-profit association with the idea that once you join as a member (currently for a small one time fee), you get to keep that alias forever and only need to point it to a different mailbox if you change your email provider.

Nice. Where does one buy into such a service?

By being Finnish or living in Finland. There may be other similar associations elsewhere but this one relies on both social cohesion (many Finnish internet tech people are members and there's a strong belief that email should have similar privacy and impartiality guarantees as snailmail) and the Finnish law regarding associations (Finland is the promised land of associations with associations for pretty much everything possible) so the membership is restricted to "people with ties to Finland" (in practise people who can navigate the intentionally Finnish only website and pay the membership fee to a Finnish bank account).

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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