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Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

anonfriendly.com

271–279 of 279 posts

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely appreciate the points you laid out in both of your comments, thanks for sharing! One counter-point, just from my own personal experience, but adopting a pseudonym online has actually allowed me to be more authentic and more sociable. I've made a lot of awesome friends that I don't think I'd have made had it not been for being pseudonymous. It can be quite liberating and reduces the fear/impact of trying ne…

That’s a fair point. I guess there are contexts where pseudonymity can be useful and enable types of interactions that otherwise might not be possible. Especially in online contexts where you’re interacting with people you don’t know anyway, so using your real name doesn’t add much value in terms of trust. I’m still skeptical that work is a context where I’d want/need this. But it’s a thought-provoking idea!

I'd also add, that in many ways I feel sorry for the guys who grew up during the age of social media. I would never, in a million years, want what I said/felt/thought/etc when I was young being attached to my name now. And as the years pass I find I can often define "young" as Current_Age - 10.

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#273

A common refrain is that "crypto is speedrunning the history of finance." I think this is destined for the same outcome: we're going to hear stories coming out of pseudonymous work that remind us why the rules are in place today. For example: can't file lawsuits against your employer for labor violations if you're trying to stay anonymous! So they really don't have a great incentive to treat you well.

How would you prove to a court that you are an employee of that company??

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#274
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of my thinking currently is about pseudonymous work in the context that I've noticed it being done, which is largely in cryptocurrency. Would you want to hire a pseudonymous cryptocurrency programmer who purposely created a security flaw at his last employer and then exploited his own flaw himself to drain all of his employer’s wallets? How is that any better?

No. Which is why I would ask them to submit a resume, interview them, do reference calls, check their Github, check their social media, etc. I would hire a pseudonymous programmer. I probably would not hire a pseudonymous programmer with zero history or reputation accrued to their pseudonymous identity.

If they're sufficiently active on social media, tied into the rest of this, that starts to be their primary identity and it's not really pseudonymous anymore.

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#275
post #255
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have some more questions, such as: * how do you provide me with health insurance and other governmental benefits? * for the purposes of anything official, am I as an individual technically unemployed? * how do you provide me with retirement options such as a 401k? * how do you report on my earnings to the IRS?

Your questions are very US-centric. What if the company does not even have presence in your country? I understood this as "you do work, we pay you, each of us handles our legal concerns in our respective countries".

In most developed countries the "legal concerns" of an employer include knowing basic details about who they are doing business with.

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#276
post #104

Aren't employers in most jurisdictions required to verify work eligibility and report income? Does "pseudonymously" just mean that they these employers commit to supporting your alternative identity when engaging with the public, the way publishers might handle a pen name? Or is this something different? I'm probably not the only person who will wonder about this, so it might help to put the answer as text on the sit…

I also have some more questions, such as: * how do you provide me with health insurance and other governmental benefits? * for the purposes of anything official, am I as an individual technically unemployed? * how do you provide me with retirement options such as a 401k? * how do you report on my earnings to the IRS?

What is annoying about all of those things is that they are all systems of control: IRS obvious- taxes, 401K - there shouldn't be taxes for investments at all, health insurance - again control - we can't have cheap health insurance because companies pay for it, at any price.

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#277
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a very "out" antifascist, and I've lost jobs due to my public not-liking-fascists That kind of statement makes me curious. What kind of behavior do you exhibit that has cost you jobs?

To start, I've written about what would happen in event of a violent revolution in the US. Mind you, I'm not advocating for it--completely the opposite, because the answer is: it would be fucking terrible and there's a very high chance of the bad guys (fascist "populists") taking it over, even if it started on the left (which is itself improbable, because almost all the violent assholes are right-wing racists). One c…

Ignoring the political aspect, as you're clearly biased: companies will see "whistleblowing" as a bad regardless of whether you exposed something worthy of being exposed. Even if those other companies have nothing to hide. Nobody wants their employees digging around in a hostile manner. They want loyalty, not spies.

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#278
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To start, I've written about what would happen in event of a violent revolution in the US. Mind you, I'm not advocating for it--completely the opposite, because the answer is: it would be fucking terrible and there's a very high chance of the bad guys (fascist "populists") taking it over, even if it started on the left (which is itself improbable, because almost all the violent assholes are right-wing racists). One c…

Ignoring the political aspect, as you're clearly biased: companies will see "whistleblowing" as a bad regardless of whether you exposed something worthy of being exposed. Even if those other companies have nothing to hide. Nobody wants their employees digging around in a hostile manner. They want loyalty, not spies.

You're not wrong. Ultimately, companies are run by bosses optimizing for their personal utility functions, which put them on the strategy of remaining bosses. They want reliable mediocrity, not risky excellence. Variance minimization, not expectancy. The only part of it that's objectively criminal is the false advertising: companies promise meritiocracy and just expect you to have the social skills to realize they don't mean it.

Re: Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

#279
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm not a huge fan of this idea or cryptocurrency in general, "illegitimate" industries are often the spawning point for good new ideas (see: porn industry).

Could you elaborate on the porn industry example?

Late response, but the porn industry served as an initial launching pad for a number of groundbreaking technological advancements. Examples include super 8 film, vhs, online payments, closed captioning, and various smaller achievements related to video streaming, for example the ability to see a still by hovering over the timeline on a video.
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