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Maybe I'm from a different era, but I still think that the best default position is that anything somebody has listed about themselves online may be a work of f

by Taywee 4y ago

Maybe I'm from a different era, but I still think that the best default position is that anything somebody has listed about themselves online may be a work of fiction that we shouldn't be expected to take at face value in most contexts. If encryption is not immoral, encrypting your personal information is also not immoral, even if you also want plausible deniability. Privacy is not unethical. If a persona and pseudonym is the best route to that, you aren't hurting anybody. As a person who prizes the idea that what we say and do are more important than who we are, I disagree that honesty and ethics always align. If some dishonesty maximizes peoples' actual wellbeing, then that dishonestly is probably actually more ethical than the honesty that compromises and hurts people for no gain other than ideological purity.

ljm 4y ago
I’m not sure how you’re pulling encryption into this argument. You can be honest or dishonest and it will be encrypted and decrypted all the same. Your second argument to me doesn’t follow. You are saying what you say and do is more important than what you value, I think, but you are also saying that what you say and do are not important so you can be dishonest. My conclusion is that you prize winning over being ethical. Just think of all the other cases where honesty and ethics have been put on the back burner on the basis that you think your thing is more important; a lot of them legal.
- Taywee 4y ago
  You use an alias or a persona to mask your identity, just as you use encryption to mask information. Keeping something intentionally hidden, either via an alias or encryption, is not dishonest nor unethical. I do not prize winning. I'm not sure who is "winning" or "losing" when I decide to not publish my name. I'll note that I use my real name and attach my real identity to lots of things. I just don't agree that people who choose to mask their identity through a plausible persona are somehow walking an ethical tightrope. They are entitled to use a fake name.
1659447091 4y ago
> As a person who prizes the idea that what we say and do are more important than who we are I am not sure I follow - what we say and do is who we are, how could it be otherwise?
- Taywee 4y ago
  That's my point. Saying that there's an unethical dishonesty to using an alias or an entire persona is missing the point that it's actually unimportant, and behavior is the only thing that matters. I was responding to a comment that stated that "it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole". I disagree that an online persona is inherently unethical or even dishonest, because the basic assumption should be that it's all unimportant and possibly fake.

by Taywee 4y ago

ljm 4y ago

I’m not sure how you’re pulling encryption into this argument. You can be honest or dishonest and it will be encrypted and decrypted all the same. Your second argument to me doesn’t follow. You are saying what you say and do is more important than what you value, I think, but you are also saying that what you say and do are not important so you can be dishonest. My conclusion is that you prize winning over being ethical. Just think of all the other cases where honesty and ethics have been put on the back burner on the basis that you think your thing is more important; a lot of them legal.

Taywee 4y ago
You use an alias or a persona to mask your identity, just as you use encryption to mask information. Keeping something intentionally hidden, either via an alias or encryption, is not dishonest nor unethical. I do not prize winning. I'm not sure who is "winning" or "losing" when I decide to not publish my name. I'll note that I use my real name and attach my real identity to lots of things. I just don't agree that people who choose to mask their identity through a plausible persona are somehow walking an ethical tightrope. They are entitled to use a fake name.

1659447091 4y ago

> As a person who prizes the idea that what we say and do are more important than who we are I am not sure I follow - what we say and do is who we are, how could it be otherwise?

Taywee 4y ago
That's my point. Saying that there's an unethical dishonesty to using an alias or an entire persona is missing the point that it's actually unimportant, and behavior is the only thing that matters. I was responding to a comment that stated that "it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole". I disagree that an online persona is inherently unethical or even dishonest, because the basic assumption should be that it's all unimportant and possibly fake.