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No. Look, anonymity is a wonderful thing. Candide, The Silence Dogood Letters, even The Mill on the Floss wouldn't have been written had the authors had to us

No. Look, anonymity is a wonderful thing. Candide, The Silence Dogood Letters, even The Mill on the Floss wouldn't have been written had the authors had to use their real names. Way too many examples to count. Hard to imagine the Revolutionary war getting as much support state-side as quickly as it did without Common Sense, which was published anonymously. So you can probably say, "Without anonymity you wouldn't be in America." Whatever the problem, the solution should just about never be "get rid of freedom." Having some sort of NSA-approved sign-on for the internet (AKA Facebook) would be horrible. Read 1984, or Fahrenheit 451, or any other book against authoritarianism. First you make a list, then you analyze, then you start crossing people off it...

ashark 11y ago
I kind of miss the days when there was general agreement that only idiots would do anything online under their real name. I think what changed is that it got really, really lucrative to market oneself online—see also: using github and social accounts in the hiring process—even at the low end of reward for Internet activity, the pressure is real. There's now a clash between how the Internet works, which has not changed, and economic incentives, which have. Disclaimer that is for some reason necessary on any comment like this: no, of course I don't think harassment is OK.
- dbg31415 11y ago
  I agree there's a push to have a public persona online. My perspective... you have a "work" account (LinkedIn, GitHub, Dribbble), and you have your personal accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), and you draw a clear line. If you want to Tweet with the public, set up a public Twitter that is only for professional photos, and comments. And block out everyone except your friends from the private account. Is it more work to have public and personal profiles? Sure. But so is putting on a condom. And by the same logic, if you can't be bothered to take the extra time, maybe you should rethink the activity.

ashark 11y ago

I kind of miss the days when there was general agreement that only idiots would do anything online under their real name. I think what changed is that it got really, really lucrative to market oneself online—see also: using github and social accounts in the hiring process—even at the low end of reward for Internet activity, the pressure is real. There's now a clash between how the Internet works, which has not changed, and economic incentives, which have. Disclaimer that is for some reason necessary on any comment like this: no, of course I don't think harassment is OK.

dbg31415 11y ago
I agree there's a push to have a public persona online. My perspective... you have a "work" account (LinkedIn, GitHub, Dribbble), and you have your personal accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), and you draw a clear line. If you want to Tweet with the public, set up a public Twitter that is only for professional photos, and comments. And block out everyone except your friends from the private account. Is it more work to have public and personal profiles? Sure. But so is putting on a condom. And by the same logic, if you can't be bothered to take the extra time, maybe you should rethink the activity.