Or, you know, go the other way and make your identity as big as possible. Identify with all humanity, all life, the whole universe. I mean it's probably closer to the truth than any other story we might tell ourselves?
Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
51–60 of 321 posts
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#52It is 2021. I am managing several identities across several sites. Some are semi-anonymous (Reddit, Twitter, Bitclout), some are real-name profiles (LinkedIn, Github, HN). I don't think its a problem of one's own identify but rather the role one plays with it's own motivations in that given context. Also, there are now so many bot accounts that many times I am wondering if the discussing is happening with a real pers…
You need to think about the future.
You have no idea how someone might misinterpret something you said, or believe in.
It could be a future employer, client, divorce lawyer, Lawyer collecting a judgment, business partner, investor, future friend, nosey neighbor wondering in you have a permit, disgruntled former lover, etc.
If you are a rich guy like PG, it really doesn't matter what you put out there, but for guys like myself; I stay anonymous.
I think what PG is saying will be more important in the future.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand the connection between this and abusers. The advice is to avoid attaching your identity to any particular ideology. What does that have to do with enabling abusers?
Because when you are a witness to something with which you disagree, speaking out and acting on it is a matter of making an opinion, and then attaching your identity to that opinion. And thus, you might be a developer who only cares about the superiority of C++ over Scala, but now you’ve got to attach your identity to “I didn’t think it was okay for my boss to take our young female employees home if they got drunk at…
> and then attaching your identity to that opinion.
This step is optional. The argument is that it is in your interest to do the former without the latter.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#54> “As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript” I got some bad news for 2009 PG from the future…
Further down the article you will see: >For example, the question of the relative merits of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers.
I noticed that to. PG contradicts himself within a couple paragraphs
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#55Ha, this is the bane of design. You don't need any particular expertise, you just have to like or dislike something. Product managers, you know who you are.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand the connection between this and abusers. The advice is to avoid attaching your identity to any particular ideology. What does that have to do with enabling abusers?
Because when you are a witness to something with which you disagree, speaking out and acting on it is a matter of making an opinion, and then attaching your identity to that opinion. And thus, you might be a developer who only cares about the superiority of C++ over Scala, but now you’ve got to attach your identity to “I didn’t think it was okay for my boss to take our young female employees home if they got drunk at…
You can make an opinion without attaching your identity to it. I don't even know where to begin with that. Are you seriously incapable of holding an opinion without it entirely subsuming your identity?
I think maybe you are viewing this from the perspective of your identity being how other people perceive you, rather than how you perceive yourself?
Like if you pull a drowning child out of a river, do you now become "guy who pulls drowning children out of rivers" and you have to quit your job and patrol the rivers looking for drowning children, because this is your whole identity now?
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Or knitting, or Rust, or the second amendment, or patents, or bitcoin, or Prop 13, etc.
emacs or vi? windows or linux? Kirk or Picard? Marvel or DC? Han shot first!
1) Neither: Nano
2) Neither: VMS
3) Neither: Dr. Who
4) Neither: Family Circle
5) That is correct
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#58The sentence that strikes me as the essence of the essay:
"More generally, you can have a fruitful discussion about a topic only if it doesn't engage the identities of any of the participants."
Is that true? I really don't think it is. I could definitely have a fruitful (as precise as that can be) conversation with a Christian about religion or a "proud Black man" about race in America. Or even learn a thing or two about programming from a lisp evangelist...
I liked this essay at first, but when I read it more critically it doesn't hold up. It at first seemed to preach non-attachment. Now I feel like it's just an excuse for me to tune you out whenever I decide your identity has been engaged by the topic.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#59It must be nice to have the luxury of choosing to keep one's identity small rather than having a big identity foisted upon oneself by society, history, and the circumstances of one's birth.
Fun realization I made over the past 18 months or so after 6 years living in USA continuously: When you're white, you can't be an immigrant. This whole time I thought I was a plucky immigrant seeking a better life (economically). Turns out I was and am just white. Still grappling with this. Learning your identity was wrong is very discombobulating. On some level it feels like maybe I've been here long enough that I'v…
I think I understand the point you’re trying to make, but I don’t understand this formulation: “you can’t be an immigrant”. It sounds like you are, by definition, an immigrant. I wonder if this statement would more accurately capture the truth: “I realised that my experience is not aligned with some dominant popular narratives of immigrant life”. Or even: “generalisations of the immigrant experience are fraught”.
If people are telling you that you can’t “complain or comment” on your experience.. I’d suggest questioning what kind of people you are calling your friends.
Re: Keep Your Identity Small (2009)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Or knitting, or Rust, or the second amendment, or patents, or bitcoin, or Prop 13, etc.
Second amendment is religious text.
It's part of a legal document. Beliefs about it are another matter.