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> I’m not sure a riddle that stumps young children is a good basis for how people should define their own identity. I certainly don’t think it should defer to t
by Edman274 5y ago
> I’m not sure a riddle that stumps young children is a good basis for how people should define their own identity. I certainly don’t think it should defer to the convenience of others. Especially when identity, or conflict thereof, can be a source of trauma and/or expose people to serious risk.
The riddle is a reflection of reality. I used it as an example to illustrate the idea that everyone - including children - implicitly know that a name is a social contract with everyone (including software and government databases) that uses that name.
> Especially when identity, or conflict thereof, can be a source of trauma and/or expose people to serious risk.
Identity absolutely can expose people to risk. No system, anywhere, has ever exposed someone to a special form of risk or trauma by asking for a first name and a last name. They absolutely have by asking for valid government names without privacy protections (as Facebook, Google+, and others have), but that's an orthogonal issue.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago> No system, anywhere, has ever exposed someone to a special form of risk or trauma by asking for a first name and a last name. Countdown til this gets added to Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names, if it hasn’t already.
- xena 5y agoAuthor here, part of the reason I want to disassociate myself with my assigned at birth last name is for trauma reasons.
- Edman274 5y agoDoes the requirement to define any last name at all expose you to a special form of trauma that would be mitigated by not having to define any last name, even if the last name is of your choosing?
- xena 5y agoI would rather it be a last name of my choosing if I have to have one at all.
- Edman274 5y agoThat's the point I was making. The mere existence of a constraint that says "you have to define a first name and a last name" is not a traumatic constraint. Whether the first name and last name match up with a previous name that has baggage is a separate issue from whether or not it's okay to ask for any first name and last name. A database schema does not ask you to provide a problematic last name, it asks to provide a last name. That's why I said, in the comment responding to a great-grandparent comment, "They absolutely have [exposed someone to a special form of risk or trauma] by asking for valid government names without privacy protections (as Facebook, Google+, and others have), but that's an orthogonal issue."
- eyelidlessness 5y ago> That's the point I was making. The mere existence of a constraint that says "you have to define a first name and a last name" is not a traumatic constraint. It can be, for me. It depends on my state of mind when I encounter it. Recall isn’t always traumatic for me, for which I’m grateful. Sometimes when I hear my family name or I’m compelled to say/write it, along comes a flood of other mental references. Many of which are traumatic. When I’m compelled to put name values in forms I… have trained my mind well to consider how deeply I’m going into that memory cave, but I’m already there before I’ve evaluated whether I think that form needs my information for valid reasons. Your “point” that people can substitute names for convenience of data collection is not avoiding trauma, it’s avoiding you bothering to accommodate it. Me faced with just the fact of the whole of my name, my family history, I’m looking at abuse and suicide and misery. Even if I ultimately write in “eat” for first name and “butts” for last.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI’m glad I still have the time window to self reply and encourage anyone still reading to register as “eat butts” everywhere you possibly can. It won’t accomplish anything important other than it’ll hopefully make you snicker, but please have a good laugh about butts and eating thereof.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI made that leap, and I’m sorry to hear that but I’m glad it wasn’t an inappropriate leap.