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Thank you. I agree that identity a social concept - I'm not sure there is a need for identities without a society. However, I believe you're confusing "identit

Thank you. I agree that identity a social concept - I'm not sure there is a need for identities without a society. However, I believe you're confusing "identity" and "identity document". Identity document (which is fundamentally different from identity itself) is a social tool too, serving the purpose you've mentioned - consistently identifying someone to the society as a single person. However, what I wanted to point out that it is absolutely not an identity, but rather a credential. That's not how it's typically colloquially called, but that's what it factually and effectively is. (Of course, please let me know if I'm wrong.) Making a passport or some online account an actual identity is a true "identity theft" - an attempt of the modern world to take over human identities. And I really don't like this trend. I can't really put it well, but something about it is deeply unnerving to me, it's just so philosophically wrong. Hope you can see it. Oh, and I specifically want to clarify: absolutely nothing wrong with governments issuing documents, of course! Just please, for the love of all that's still sane in the world, don't call such documents an "identity" - it is really not. And that's the only reason I'm so anal about this - language shapes reality, and identities are already quite messed up, so I thought I'd try to point it out. Sure, I'm pissing against the wind here (and I'm bad at expressing my thoughts well), but I have to try.

littlestymaar 2y ago
I'm not sure you can really separate concepts and their practical embodiment in this world. To expand on your example, when you get your passport stolen and someone gets a credit in your name, it's not just the document that has been stolen but very well your identity as seen by society: now the entire society (in practice the bankers and law enforcement, maybe your employer or eventually even your neighbors) think that you own the bank some money, and the bank will leverage their legal power to recoup their money from you. And respectively, if the state you live in decides that Aleksei Deaman* doesn't exist, removes all traces of you from official records and declares that all identity document you have are counterfeit ones, then you lose your identity pretty much instantly: your bank will close your bank account, your insurance doesn't cover you, including your housing loan, and your employer cannot keep you because you are now assumed to be an illegal immigrant. At the end of the day your life is pretty much ruined, not just because you've lost your identity papers, but because your entire social identity has been taken away from you. The less familial and based on mutual trust a society is, the more the distinction between “identity” and “identity papers” is blurred. (Not saying that it's a good or a bad thing, that's just what it is).
- drdaeman 2y ago
  > it's not just the document that has been stolen but very well your identity as seen by society Yes, and that's also very wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15346081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15346081 (the article link died, but it's still available at https://medium.com/securitybytes/quick-one-stop-calling-it-identity-theft-10a5ab9e1b60 https://medium.com/securitybytes/quick-one-stop-calling-it-i...) > but because your entire social identity has been taken away from you. I totally agree with all you say, factually - yea, if the state decides I no longer exist, I'm pretty much fucked, pardon my language. Except that - if we use correct terms - I don't lose my identity, I lose authorization because my credentials are revoked (or erased) and so no one formally or legally recognizes me anymore. The identity is still there, though. Even the "social identity" - if we look at the original social identity theory, if I get it right, it's a self-concept, derived from one's own perceived membership in some social group. The social identity will be only "lost" (or, rather, transformed into something different) when I mentally process the erasure and stop believing I'm a part of the society I used to be a part of, and maybe start living and associating with somewhere else. Which is going to happen pretty quick in the outlined scenario, of course. But even though the factual outcome is the same - the semantics are whole lot different. And I believe that's really important. Not using the correct terms is exactly the issue that irks me so much. If we start believing (most people already do) that "identity" is something that is provided to us by society, that our passports are our identities, it gradually leads us to decisions that we wouldn't have made otherwise, because things sound okay - but they only do because the language was perverted in a way to make them sound so.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    > If we start believing (most people already do) that "identity" is something that is provided to us by society, But it is: first of all you didn't even chose the name you're bearing right now, society did it for you : your parents chose your first name among the list of socially cool/acceptable name in the context you were born in, your last name was given to you according to socially decided rules (patrilinearity, Zhukov/Zhukova, etc.). Then there's your job, from which we derive a significant part of our identity (note how we say “I am a software developer”). > it gradually leads us to decisions that we wouldn't have made otherwise We don't exist in a vacuum, most of the decisions we take every day, big or small, are shaped by the society we live in, no matter if you believe “that our passports are our identities”. The reason why you put an alarm clock to extract you from your bed this morning isn't because you believe in passports, but because you committed to, and this commitment is a big part of your identity: it shapes how much you sleep, how often you see your parents or play with your kids, it even shapes how much you have sex. Then of course you can argue that “your life” and “your identity” aren't the thing, thinking about the “identity” as some kind of abstract, immutable, thing that's attached to any individual (= the soul), but I don't think this thing really exist: we are the life we live.

littlestymaar 2y ago

I'm not sure you can really separate concepts and their practical embodiment in this world. To expand on your example, when you get your passport stolen and someone gets a credit in your name, it's not just the document that has been stolen but very well your identity as seen by society: now the entire society (in practice the bankers and law enforcement, maybe your employer or eventually even your neighbors) think that you own the bank some money, and the bank will leverage their legal power to recoup their money from you. And respectively, if the state you live in decides that Aleksei Deaman* doesn't exist, removes all traces of you from official records and declares that all identity document you have are counterfeit ones, then you lose your identity pretty much instantly: your bank will close your bank account, your insurance doesn't cover you, including your housing loan, and your employer cannot keep you because you are now assumed to be an illegal immigrant. At the end of the day your life is pretty much ruined, not just because you've lost your identity papers, but because your entire social identity has been taken away from you. The less familial and based on mutual trust a society is, the more the distinction between “identity” and “identity papers” is blurred. (Not saying that it's a good or a bad thing, that's just what it is).

drdaeman 2y ago
> it's not just the document that has been stolen but very well your identity as seen by society Yes, and that's also very wrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15346081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15346081 (the article link died, but it's still available at https://medium.com/securitybytes/quick-one-stop-calling-it-identity-theft-10a5ab9e1b60 https://medium.com/securitybytes/quick-one-stop-calling-it-i...) > but because your entire social identity has been taken away from you. I totally agree with all you say, factually - yea, if the state decides I no longer exist, I'm pretty much fucked, pardon my language. Except that - if we use correct terms - I don't lose my identity, I lose authorization because my credentials are revoked (or erased) and so no one formally or legally recognizes me anymore. The identity is still there, though. Even the "social identity" - if we look at the original social identity theory, if I get it right, it's a self-concept, derived from one's own perceived membership in some social group. The social identity will be only "lost" (or, rather, transformed into something different) when I mentally process the erasure and stop believing I'm a part of the society I used to be a part of, and maybe start living and associating with somewhere else. Which is going to happen pretty quick in the outlined scenario, of course. But even though the factual outcome is the same - the semantics are whole lot different. And I believe that's really important. Not using the correct terms is exactly the issue that irks me so much. If we start believing (most people already do) that "identity" is something that is provided to us by society, that our passports are our identities, it gradually leads us to decisions that we wouldn't have made otherwise, because things sound okay - but they only do because the language was perverted in a way to make them sound so.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  > If we start believing (most people already do) that "identity" is something that is provided to us by society, But it is: first of all you didn't even chose the name you're bearing right now, society did it for you : your parents chose your first name among the list of socially cool/acceptable name in the context you were born in, your last name was given to you according to socially decided rules (patrilinearity, Zhukov/Zhukova, etc.). Then there's your job, from which we derive a significant part of our identity (note how we say “I am a software developer”). > it gradually leads us to decisions that we wouldn't have made otherwise We don't exist in a vacuum, most of the decisions we take every day, big or small, are shaped by the society we live in, no matter if you believe “that our passports are our identities”. The reason why you put an alarm clock to extract you from your bed this morning isn't because you believe in passports, but because you committed to, and this commitment is a big part of your identity: it shapes how much you sleep, how often you see your parents or play with your kids, it even shapes how much you have sex. Then of course you can argue that “your life” and “your identity” aren't the thing, thinking about the “identity” as some kind of abstract, immutable, thing that's attached to any individual (= the soul), but I don't think this thing really exist: we are the life we live.