> Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into?
> you're free to engage openly
This is what I was going to answer.
Sometimes I disagree with my own writing later. It's easier to distance from this writing when I have released it through a pseudonym so that when that old self dies because of a life event or transformation/initiation, I am able to more easily close that chapter of my life, instead of having this old self be connected to my new self.
I also don't think we've reached this stage of the awareness of 'evolving selves' yet in internet culture. That's why taking precautions, like using a pseudonym, go a long way for my personal peace of mind. I do treat most corporate services as compromised because of excessive surveillance/Snowden's NSA leaks, but I think individual data leaks will start happening (where these pseudonyms would be revealed through NSA [and thus Google, FB, Google] metadata) after the current power structures topple, and a Commons-based peer production paradigm emerges.
At the same time, my reluctance to embrace my old selves and their viewpoints also comes from a lifetime of having been told I was not 'smart' (i.e. in school). Now I am learning that my delayed development was actually due to insecure attachments to primary caregivers. Together with frequent moves around the world which disturbed the possibility of forming secure attachments to other adults, this hindered my cognitive development. This means I am behind in some areas, yet it also surprisingly drives my immense interest in adult education/lifelong learning, as well as Sudbury schools etc.