I think an answer is maybe to have multiple identities on the web. Like I've got real name stuff on Facebook and Linkedin and some anonymous accounts too. You keep the real name stuff safe for work and your mum seeing.
I wish people were more public
91–100 of 127 posts
Re: I wish people were more public
#92[dead]
Re: I wish people were more public
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been posing online with my real name since the 90's because if forces me to self sensor. I don't say things on the internet that I wouldn't say to people in the real world who know where I live. I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
>> I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do. I agree. I've often advocated for zero anonymity by default. Everyone traceable by anyone. The thinking is that bad behavior (threats and such) could be reported. There was enough pushback to make me rethink that. People will still make threats when you know who they are - less often but they will. Offli…
Traceability and Anonymity aren't antonyms.
This fact comes up with Bitcoin a lot. I and everybody else doesn't know who a random hash is but all the activity involving that address is highly traceable. So all you need is an oracle (like a cryptoexchange) that can convert a hash into a person to enforce any penalties against a person.
Same could be true of the internet. You notice illegal activity from a specific IP; that source is responsible for that activity (they did it!). In general that IP is going to be some intermediary (like an ISP) who was relying a packet from a different IP so it'll be on them to provide the next person who is accountable and do you do this chain until you get to an end subscriber. Everybody is anonymous by default but can be traced back to an actual person.
Re: I wish people were more public
#94If you're on the internet long enough, I think you learn that openness has plenty of downsides. You indirectly interact with tens of thousands of people and in that set, there will be people who don't wish you well, sometimes for reasons you can't even grasp. In the 1990s, I used to put my phone number in my .signature file. I've come to regret that. In the 2000s, I participated in relatively large online forums unde…
I've been posing online with my real name since the 90's because if forces me to self sensor. I don't say things on the internet that I wouldn't say to people in the real world who know where I live. I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
This just makes the internet a place only for the overtly shameless, which is certainly different, but you'd need to convince me it'd be better.
Re: I wish people were more public
#95If you're on the internet long enough, I think you learn that openness has plenty of downsides. You indirectly interact with tens of thousands of people and in that set, there will be people who don't wish you well, sometimes for reasons you can't even grasp. In the 1990s, I used to put my phone number in my .signature file. I've come to regret that. In the 2000s, I participated in relatively large online forums unde…
I've been posing online with my real name since the 90's because if forces me to self sensor. I don't say things on the internet that I wouldn't say to people in the real world who know where I live. I think the internet would be a lot nicer place if people were held accountable for the things they say and do.
Probably also doing an undeserved benefit to all the others with the moniker.
Re: I wish people were more public
#96Everytime I intentionally interact with Meta's apps/data factories, I feel a bit like in the movie Matrix when Neo is disconnected from the Matrix, wakes up from his pod and sees the other pods. And have to admit I saw that movie when I was to young for it and that scene really did a number on me. I don't mind being public but I mind if I'm in a way a slave to an entity that uses that to farm my identity and distorts…
If they farm your identity, they do so whether you post online or not. The only way to not contribute is to practice no identity. In that case your biomass still serves as a battery somehow (the movie fails to explain the physics here.)
As I heard it explained, the original manuscript had the humans kept alive because the Matrix was actually running on the humans' brains as the computing substrate. This both made much more sense than humans as a power source, was more horrific, and a better story.
Apparently this was deemed to hard for the unwashed masses to understand, and we were left with this battery analogy instead.
Re: I wish people were more public
#97> I will often find a blog post on Hacker News that really resonates. And when I go to check the rest of the site there’s three other posts. And I think: I wish you’d write more!
I really miss that period in the 90's and early 2000's when:
- people were doing interesting things online and tending to those spaces regularly,
- Google actually worked and it was easy to find those things,
- Myspace/Facebook wasn't a thing
I'd love to have the general mood and vibe of the 90's back, which I think contributed greatly to the early Internet and the ability and desire to be public within it.
But even in the 90's, spam was a problem, and it's grown amd morphed into different things over time. Banner ad popups, link farms, SEO optimization, etc.
Age verification laws are going to fully destroy the Internet for anything other than approved business uses, such as selling stuff. Soon, any "public" left will be spammers-spammers in the modern form of influencers either directly trying to sell you something or sponsored in order to support/create a market. Some may argue we've mostly reached that point.
It's over. The forward thinkers need to think beyond the Internet. Until then it's closed groups and chats.
Re: I wish people were more public
#98I usually don’t like it when people use unnecessary big words. But sometimes a word comes by that explains exactly the idea. One of my favorites is Schadenfreude ( it’s funny and real at the same time). When I noticed the author used Solipsism, I definitely judged him for a moment, but after I read the explanation, it was a beautiful description of his stance :)
Solipsism is a philosophical position asserting that only one's own mind is certain to exist.
Re: I wish people were more public
#99The post made me think of a different compromise: more public artifacts when we choose, without surrendering our lives to centralized platforms. Like mentioned in the comments, today’s internet is permanent, searchable, and easily weaponized through harassment, surveillance, or data exploitation, so the personal cost of being ‘public’ can be unpredictable and high.
So why don’t we build a system where our identity and activity data live with us by default, on a small server in our home, instead of scattered across company clouds? Everything we do online could be logged locally under our control, and shared only when we explicitly allow it. If a company wants to use our data (for ads, analytics, or training models), it should be a clear opt-in, scoped to a specific purpose, and priced transparently. If it’s valuable, we should get paid for it and that creates incentive structures.
This also matches how I want to use AI personally. I want my own local model that can learn from my data privately, say something like training or updating nightly while I sleep; so I get the benefits of personalization without handing over the raw contents of my life to someone else’s servers. In a world like that, being “more public” becomes a choice you can make safely, not a gamble you’re forced into.
~ organized thoughts with GPT5.2 and used Apple proofread
Re: I wish people were more public
#100Reading is as much engagement as writing if not more.