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Blog Anonymously

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Re: Blog Anonymously

#411

Post by a1369209993 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #177
brightball wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same reason that many authors publish under a pseudonym. A friend of mine is a teacher who has written a couple of books. He likes to publish them under a pseudonym because if a parent took exception with part of the story it could create an issue for him professionally. In today’s climate, it’s hard to avoid offending somebody.

> In today’s climate, it’s hard to avoid offending somebody. And importantly, offending someone today is much more likely to have serious consequences than it was 10 years ago (that's my perception, anyway). A decade ago if you wrote something innocuous (especially while having the wrong immutable characteristics) and someone wrote your employer demanding your termination on the grounds that your innocuous thing coul…

> "the author is wrong because of their identity" or rather "the author is not only wrong but evil/hateful/racist/otherwise-deserving-of-cancelation because of their identity"

Nitpick: this is not about the author's identity[1][2], but about incidental physical characteristics[0] or (charitably) aesthetic preferences[3].

0: ie, the person making the 'rebuttal' is themselves racist/sexist/etc.

1: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

2: http://web.archive.org/web/20200623015648_/https://slatestar...

3: see [2] and search for "Tribe is most classically typified by" and "code word for the Red Tribe".

Re: Blog Anonymously

#412

Post by a1369209993 »

BorisTheBrave wrote: post #15
dijit wrote: post #4

This goes into the how, but to me the more interesting question is the 'why'. Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? I only have one example of why; I'm a genuinely curious and open person and I like having my beliefs tested, some of my beliefs are nuanced enough that I sometimes break down my current beliefs and my reasons into blog posts. Things that I thin…

I think the two most common reasons for anonymity are: * blogging from an oppressive regime * to isolate yourself from online mobs If you write something controversial these days, sometimes it catches a wider audience and you can find yourself under a lot of attention. A minority of those poeple will not be nice, and may send death threats or worse. Your experience is a tiny fraction of what this can be like. Being a…

> [1:] blogging from an oppressive regime

> [2:] to isolate yourself from online mobs

If we're talking about common, I'll add:

3: to normalize anonymity so that people in groups 1 and 2 stand out less, have less peer pressure to compromise themselves, and so that attackers have to spend more resources than if they could focus their attacks on the few people they actually want to target (compare HTTPS Everywhere and other "Encrypt all the things!" efforts).

Re: Blog Anonymously

#413

Post by a1369209993 »

ytrytr wrote: post #360
senderista wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given recent incidents I’m sure we’re all familiar with, I would never consider writing on any controversial topic under my real identity. Why would I leave my family’s economic security at the mercy of malicious, ignorant mobs?

The sheer arrogance of thinking the people that disagree with your controversial topic are the "malicious, ignorant mobs". Hahaha, the irony here is funny.

The sheer arrogance of thinking (some of) the people that agree with your controversial topic are not also "malicious, ignorant mobs".

Re: Blog Anonymously

#414

Post by ThA0x2 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #315
ThA0x2 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIR: Justine Sacco still suffers from severe PTSD and has to attend regular counselling. Adria Richards fell off the face of the planet, was chronically unemployed for a while, then finally ended up at a no name company, probably making peanuts compared to where she was. James Damore was also similarly unemployed for a while, was in several lawsuits with Google, and claims to be working at a start-up, but he may als…

Adria Richards is actually an interesting case. She was "cancelled" for cancelling someone else. One of the major criticisms of the Harper's letter is that people speaking out about injustice have historically faced severe retribution, and that the recent concern about cancellation is only in response to this retributory cannon being pointed toward those "in power". I can't see the people who are today concerned abou…

>Not a very long time though.

It was for a long time. He may actually still be unemployed.

>And the lawsuits were ones he chose to file.

No one said otherwise.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#415

Post by justnotworthit »

adrusi wrote: post #92
surround wrote: post #82

> Feel free to use a VPN, though Tor is more than enough for your needs. This is a misconception. Using a VPN with TOR makes you less anonymous, not more. https://write.privacytools.io/my-thoughts-on-security/slicin...

ISP -> VPN -> Tor can be a good idea depending on your threat model, but if you're not completely sure that you need to do so, it's best to avoid it. ISP -> Tor -> VPN is generally extremely stupid, as tor is doing absolutely nothing for you if your VPN subscription is tied to your true identity. If, on the other hand, your VPN subscription is completely isolated from your true identity, then this can be a good way t…

A...few... additional notes on combining Tor with vpns/proxy/ssh/tunnels (some whonix specific, mostly not)

https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tunnels/Introduction

TLDR tho is that you're right. Don't do it unless you have to, and you don't have to.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#416

Post by celeritascelery »

vorpalhex wrote: post #65

This is very incomplete advice for the given threat scenario of "fearful of government persecution". > Snagging a cheap or used device is a good option Cheap devices may well phone home and a used device may be tampered with. I was surprised when reflashing a burner Xiaomi device to see the bootloader contained a nod to the CCP. > Navigate to WordPress.com and setup a free account with that new email address. Certain…

> I was surprised when reflashing a burner Xiaomi device to see the bootloader contained a nod to the CCP

Anyone is concerned about privacy should never use a Chinese made product, hardware or software.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#417

Post by jaccarmac »

waheoo wrote: post #407
jaccarmac wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly I need to spell this out more clearly. Do you believe that support of Trump should be without consequences? I don't have the details of the three cases discussed above, but the lack of detail is exactly the problem: It paints politics as a game that we can supposedly play with no real-world results. I object to that framing (as well as the framing that any degree of "support" for a candidate is equally damnin…

> Do you believe that support of Trump should be without consequences? Yes. You do realise your position violates multiple UN human rights? Take a read through the lot of them. Please. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ People have died to maintain these rights. Please stop trying to tear them down. You're not woke. You're asleep.

Which human rights does my position violate? Please, enlighten me.

YOU do realize that human rights don't include a blanket prohibition on people treating you differently due to your political opinions?

Also, how do you reconcile these "universal" human rights in a state that violates them?

Re: Blog Anonymously

#418

Post by qqn »

thunderbong wrote: post #406
qqn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a good video that underlines your second point[0], specifically mentioning that compassion is increasingly being replaced by moral superiority, that dialogue is often reactionary instead of responsive, and that the system we live in is often trying to group us based on these very differences, not unlike what happens in a high school cafeteria. She's primarily talking about online and big media discussions I…

Thank you for your comment and those videos. They were extremely enriching.

You're very welcome. They really helped me. Ayishat Akanbi had a follow-up talk at Sydney's annual "All About Women" conference shortly after,[0] where she added that "intersectionality is seeing the importance of other people’s suffering. Being active on social media can simplify and minimize issues for the sake of being retweetable." The whole talk built well on top of the original video (though the Q&A was not as useful).

In addition, she used two more quotes that I wrote down: "If you understood everything I said, you’d be me," (Miles Davis) and "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." (F. Scott Fitzgerald). This is just the first half of what he said though, the rest being: "One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise." I think that's nice too.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sni7ghqHBJw

Re: Blog Anonymously

#419

Post by joshuamorton »

DenisM wrote: post #403
joshuamorton wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don't favor mob rule. And I don't agree that cancellation and mob rule are in any way comparable. If you want to make claims like that, much like your claims that "cancellation is authoritarianism", you're going to need to support them. Large groups of people taking action you dislike isn't mob rule. Mob rule is characterized by violence. Is large groups of people expressing their disagreement with you vi…

If you had to, would you be able to enumerate similarities between the mob rule and the cancel culture rule?

Yes, I think one primary difference is that mob rule is classically considered to be the primary form of government. It's a direct democracy with no tools to prevent immediate populist sentiment from controlling things.

Cancel culture exists as an alternative tool that, in my opinion is generally only used when normal power structures break down. It's not really comparable to mob rule because it isn't "rule".

Re: Blog Anonymously

#420

Post by dnissley »

claudiawerner wrote: post #395
dnissley wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regular folks who were "cancelled": - David Shor - Justine Sacco - James Damore - Adria Richards A full list would be a mile long

>- James Damore Regular as compared to a celebrity (well, I suppose he is a celebrity now on HN and tech places on Reddit), but being regular is no panacea agaianst criticism.

No one said that.
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