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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2946 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.

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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 have a gmail.

The web experience is fine. The mobile web experience always asks me to use their app. I am profoundly disinterested in adding another piece of shit to my phone for something I check once a week or less; Google does not care. Now even logging in on my desktop occasionally reminds me to put their app on my phone.

As much as I hate the term “enshittification,” this is as good an example as any.

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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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