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PaperclipPerfector  26d ago (text post)   2564 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

Ok- I have a general personal email address at gmail. I’ve used it since I was in highschool. If I update for web hygiene reasons to a new email provider, what email should I choose?

Proton even has an LLM assistant, though it's based on open-source models and expensive to use with a pretty small token/week limit.

You forgot to mention that it's advertised as having privacy, unlike its competitors.

How is Lumo different from other AI assistants?

Lumo is built with privacy in mind. Unlike other AI assistants, it does not collect your data to train its models or keep any logs of your conversations. Your data is protected by Proton’s strong privacy principles.

How are my chats stored?

Your chats with Lumo are stored with zero-access encryption, so Proton can't see your chat history. Only you can securely access your conversations by logging in to your Proton Account.

It's Proton - that's a given. (Naturally, Proton attracts suspicious people and there's always been controversy about their policies and how they share the metadata they specifically say they can be compelled to share. But they seem fine.)

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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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