5 ms·

> used against you in job interviews I used to think blogging come as complementary to your skills. How will anyone use them against you?

mirimir 6y ago
Well, it depends on what you blog about. If, say, you blog about some social/economic/political position that is (or becomes) unpopular/unacceptable, your career may be toast. Such as, for example, happened for James Damore. So if you're going to blog as your meatspace identity, you gotta protect your brand. If you want to blog carelessly, you'd better do that using a persona that can't readily be linked to your meatspace identity. That's why I'm here as Mirimir. But even then, Mirimir has a reputation to protect. And that's why I use other personas, which can't readily be linked to this one.
- loquor 6y ago
  Can you leverage Mirimir ever in your real life? If Mirimir writes some stupendous essays but 5% of his posts are critical of say, some aspect of the LGBT community, then wouldn't it be a huge risk to your IRL reputation? Then you couldn't admit that you're Mirimir to others IRL. But I like the idea of blogging under a fake name! This will sound ridiculous, but I'm a young individual with big ambitions. I don't want to blog, lest my future enemies figure out my psyche to use it against me.
  - tome 6y ago
    > I don't want to blog, lest my future enemies figure out my psyche to use it against me. I think you overestimate the sophistication of your future enemies. The bigger risk may be that by not blogging you don't figure out your psyche, to use it for you.
  - mirimir 6y ago
    Yes, that is indeed a limitation. Nobody IRL will ever know that I'm Mirimir. Also, I can't attend physical events as Mirimir, or do anything with audio/video. I suppose that you could use other personas for totally non-controversial stuff. Indeed, you could have a range of them, and disclose some if you like. There is the issue of writing style. At this point, Mirimir is my only persona that writes extensively in English. There are a few others that are basically Mirimir's pseudonyms. But my IRL identity doesn't post much in English. For some others, I've translated into other languages, using offline software.
- 101404 6y ago
  It's sad, but that's the reality of things in our "politically correct" modern world.
  - mirimir 6y ago
    When are you thinking it was better?
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      The world hasn't had enormous user generated content platforms (where it's reasonably common to use your real name) for very long at all. But I would say it started out in a much better state than it is now, and has been progressively getting worse. It's reasonably common to have somebody held in high esteem by the various groups that are highly concerned with political correctness, suffer catastrophic falls from grace after some ancient tweet is discovered, from back in a time when it was OK to have opinions and make jokes. Personally, I would never risk publicly voicing an opinion on any topic that was strictly technical.
      - mirimir 6y ago
        You mean "not strictly technical", right? As Mirimir, I have voiced opinions about such topics. I'm not dogmatic, but neither do I avoid dark humor, so I suspect that I've managed to piss off some on every "side". Anyway, I was thinking about decades ago. There were opinions that you just didn't voice, if you cared about your reputation. Back in the 50s, communism became a dangerous topic in the US. And homosexuality was a dangerous topic there until the late 70s. Although there were some flamboyant stars, and cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, they were just perceived as strange. Further back, dissent among Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony led to the establishment of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.
        AmericanChopper 6y ago
        > You mean "not strictly technical", right? Yes I did, sorry. The rest of your comment here highlights why I believe freedom of expression is so important. Society would not have progressed if it were not for people brave enough to defy those social norms. I guess the intolerance for alternative points of view has not changed, but over the past ten years or so we have seen the establishment of an entirely new set of sacred social norms, which I would characterize as a bit of a regression.

mirimir 6y ago

Well, it depends on what you blog about. If, say, you blog about some social/economic/political position that is (or becomes) unpopular/unacceptable, your career may be toast. Such as, for example, happened for James Damore. So if you're going to blog as your meatspace identity, you gotta protect your brand. If you want to blog carelessly, you'd better do that using a persona that can't readily be linked to your meatspace identity. That's why I'm here as Mirimir. But even then, Mirimir has a reputation to protect. And that's why I use other personas, which can't readily be linked to this one.

loquor 6y ago
Can you leverage Mirimir ever in your real life? If Mirimir writes some stupendous essays but 5% of his posts are critical of say, some aspect of the LGBT community, then wouldn't it be a huge risk to your IRL reputation? Then you couldn't admit that you're Mirimir to others IRL. But I like the idea of blogging under a fake name! This will sound ridiculous, but I'm a young individual with big ambitions. I don't want to blog, lest my future enemies figure out my psyche to use it against me.
- tome 6y ago
  > I don't want to blog, lest my future enemies figure out my psyche to use it against me. I think you overestimate the sophistication of your future enemies. The bigger risk may be that by not blogging you don't figure out your psyche, to use it for you.
- mirimir 6y ago
  Yes, that is indeed a limitation. Nobody IRL will ever know that I'm Mirimir. Also, I can't attend physical events as Mirimir, or do anything with audio/video. I suppose that you could use other personas for totally non-controversial stuff. Indeed, you could have a range of them, and disclose some if you like. There is the issue of writing style. At this point, Mirimir is my only persona that writes extensively in English. There are a few others that are basically Mirimir's pseudonyms. But my IRL identity doesn't post much in English. For some others, I've translated into other languages, using offline software.
101404 6y ago
It's sad, but that's the reality of things in our "politically correct" modern world.
- mirimir 6y ago
  When are you thinking it was better?
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    The world hasn't had enormous user generated content platforms (where it's reasonably common to use your real name) for very long at all. But I would say it started out in a much better state than it is now, and has been progressively getting worse. It's reasonably common to have somebody held in high esteem by the various groups that are highly concerned with political correctness, suffer catastrophic falls from grace after some ancient tweet is discovered, from back in a time when it was OK to have opinions and make jokes. Personally, I would never risk publicly voicing an opinion on any topic that was strictly technical.
    - mirimir 6y ago
      You mean "not strictly technical", right? As Mirimir, I have voiced opinions about such topics. I'm not dogmatic, but neither do I avoid dark humor, so I suspect that I've managed to piss off some on every "side". Anyway, I was thinking about decades ago. There were opinions that you just didn't voice, if you cared about your reputation. Back in the 50s, communism became a dangerous topic in the US. And homosexuality was a dangerous topic there until the late 70s. Although there were some flamboyant stars, and cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, they were just perceived as strange. Further back, dissent among Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony led to the establishment of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        > You mean "not strictly technical", right? Yes I did, sorry. The rest of your comment here highlights why I believe freedom of expression is so important. Society would not have progressed if it were not for people brave enough to defy those social norms. I guess the intolerance for alternative points of view has not changed, but over the past ten years or so we have seen the establishment of an entirely new set of sacred social norms, which I would characterize as a bit of a regression.