4 ms·

lol tor... why even bother, you'll be lumped in with all the pedos and terrible people of the world...

falcolas 11y ago
A form of martyrism - making a sacrifice for a cause. You can argue if the cause of anonymity is a greater good (I think it is), but there are always those who are willing to give something up to support it.
- kbenson 11y ago
  I think it would be interesting to think about ways in which the core important benefits or anonymity could be achieved through a non-anonymous society. Anonymity is becoming fetishized in certain subgroups of western culture, but I don't think anonymity is the real goal, but what it allows. This is important, because while it may not be possible to salvage anonymity in some or all locales in the future, that doesn't necessarily mean we can't salvage some of its benefits, such as protection from authority. Not that I know how we would accomplish this, but like I said, I think it would be interesting to think about.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    Maybe perfect equality could be a substitite for anonymity, but as long as there are any power balances in the world, good people with minority views (say, political activists in oppressive regimes) will need to hide from powerful majorities. I think a better question is how to cure the societal and individual ills that lead to the abuses of anonymity that cause people to oppose it.
    - kbenson 11y ago
      > I think a better question is how to cure the societal and individual ills that lead to the abuses of anonymity that cause people to oppose it. And that as well might only be solved by perfect equality. Actually, looking at it this way, where each spectrum has a range of positive and negative consequences, but the constrained side of the spectrum is self perpetuation and not self correcting, reminds me of freedom of speech itself, where we just accept the alternative is accepted (in some parts of the world at least) as the de-facto standard because of this. Maybe the way to frame anonymity is that anonymity is freedom of speech, and there isn't truly freedom of speech without it, so we should just accept the ills that come with it. This is probably a known and accepted strategy and I'm just slow on the uptake. :/
    - 2ifrgtmypss 11y ago
      this is a good way to think of it. i agree
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - falcolas 11y ago
    The two biggest benefits to my mind is the near-total prevention of retaliation, and having content judged by the content, not who said it. I don't know how to work around human nature to give these two benefits to non-anonymous society.
kafkaesq 11y ago
That may be precisely the intended strategy, here. :(

A form of martyrism - making a sacrifice for a cause. You can argue if the cause of anonymity is a greater good (I think it is), but there are always those who are willing to give something up to support it.

kbenson 11y ago
I think it would be interesting to think about ways in which the core important benefits or anonymity could be achieved through a non-anonymous society. Anonymity is becoming fetishized in certain subgroups of western culture, but I don't think anonymity is the real goal, but what it allows. This is important, because while it may not be possible to salvage anonymity in some or all locales in the future, that doesn't necessarily mean we can't salvage some of its benefits, such as protection from authority. Not that I know how we would accomplish this, but like I said, I think it would be interesting to think about.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Maybe perfect equality could be a substitite for anonymity, but as long as there are any power balances in the world, good people with minority views (say, political activists in oppressive regimes) will need to hide from powerful majorities. I think a better question is how to cure the societal and individual ills that lead to the abuses of anonymity that cause people to oppose it.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    > I think a better question is how to cure the societal and individual ills that lead to the abuses of anonymity that cause people to oppose it. And that as well might only be solved by perfect equality. Actually, looking at it this way, where each spectrum has a range of positive and negative consequences, but the constrained side of the spectrum is self perpetuation and not self correcting, reminds me of freedom of speech itself, where we just accept the alternative is accepted (in some parts of the world at least) as the de-facto standard because of this. Maybe the way to frame anonymity is that anonymity is freedom of speech, and there isn't truly freedom of speech without it, so we should just accept the ills that come with it. This is probably a known and accepted strategy and I'm just slow on the uptake. :/
  - 2ifrgtmypss 11y ago
    this is a good way to think of it. i agree
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- falcolas 11y ago
  The two biggest benefits to my mind is the near-total prevention of retaliation, and having content judged by the content, not who said it. I don't know how to work around human nature to give these two benefits to non-anonymous society.

kafkaesq 11y ago

That may be precisely the intended strategy, here. :(