Am Di, 31. Aug 2021, um 13:10, schrieb John Clark: > [...] > > Hmm.... that would explain why you refuse to sign your real name to your > screeds, in a way I can sympathize, if I held your opinions I'd be ashamed of > them too.
John, I mostly agree with you on this ongoing (and rather boring for a non-American) debate over US politics. That being said, I think that the old Internet tradition of using pseudonyms is a good thing. There are many reasons for not using your real name beyond shame over your opinions. Maybe you are a non-believer in a strongly religious environment, and disclosing this could put your life in jeopardy. Maybe you need some job to surive, and you know you could get into trouble if your real opinions were known to your employer, and so on and so forth. Maybe spud has his reasons, that's none of our business. There is a relentless push toward "real identities" that, I think, started with facebook. Their incentive here is probably mostly about increasing the quality of the data that they mine for their advertisement algorithms, but it has the side effect of magnifying the chilling effect on public discourse. It is better to remain silent than to say something that might get you into trouble. It certainly helps the status quo (whatever the status quo is in your country). Hummm... I guess I was influenced by the times when the Internet was young and full of promise as a technology that could amplify human agency and freedom instead of curtailing them. I now know that that was pretty idealistic and naive, but I will still resist anonymity-shaming until my last breath. People who want us to force us to use our real identity no matter what are usually the same people who wish to control us, and probably not with our best interests in mind. I do sign with my real name here. Probably everywhere, maybe not. I won't tell and nobody should ask. Telmo -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/e4c6d4c1-4097-4011-8844-4d3d29df2906%40www.fastmail.com.
