>We wouldn't need to change our legal names if we didn't have to use them in the first place. Alternately, if everyone used real names we will come to accept t

>We wouldn't need to change our legal names if we didn't have to use them in the first place. Alternately, if everyone used real names we will come to accept that few are the model of perfection, and finding that someone posted something dumb online will be akin to pointing out that they probably had a bowel movement over the past 24 hours. Everybody poops. (aside: Though why then do I feel a tinge of discomfort walking around the grocery store with a giant club-sized pack of toilet paper?) And for those who really go outside of the curve: is personal responsibility for your actions really that unacceptable? Are we all such a bunch of irresponsible assholes that we need to separate our fake selves from our real selves? The whole "everyone should be anonymous" bit over the past while has me concerned at what essentially amounts to group cowardice. The standard response to a statement like that is to point at an incredibly rare example, like that guy in South Korea (or some other far off land) who stalked someone after some online game. Aside from the statistical oddity of something like that happening (which we're clearly too smart to overstate, right?), the paradox is that in that case the participants had the veil of pseudo-anonymity, which makes you wonder if the intense aggression fomented more because of the belief that they were anonymous. If they were fully public the issue would likely have never happened in the first place. A neighbourhood becomes dangerous and downtrodden when good people hide away, leaving the miscreants and hoodlums -- a very small minority in virtually any area -- to ply their trade unchecked. Once people overcome their fears and start taking walks, encouraging others to do the same, soon that fear dissipates and it becomes a community again.