Tell HN: I'm scared of sharing my opinion online

I guess I'm posting this on this throwaway because of the very topic of this post.

I don't feel safe sharing my true opinion online. I generally find that I'm very distant in belief from a lot of people on social media (reddit, twitter, let alone facebook or whatever, even if I don't use them).

Just to give an example, I couldnt care less about people engaging in incest and find it just an old cultural taboo. Adults are responsible enough to know about the dangers of having children and they can do whatever they want.

Say, on reddit (even if some might agree), I would typically get people calling me disgusting, downvoting, going through my post history, attacking me, DMng me, whatnot. This in itself is not a big deal, but when disliked opinions by the hivemind start to pile, you are seen as an enemy, someone to be sabotaged, followed around and downvoted, etc. If it links to your real identity? Oh boy. One wrong opinion here in the US is enough to ruin your life. Ah, i just remembered that article about a mentally challenged guy who dressed as Hitler in halloween and as a result got fired from his 20+ or so year janitor job. Not the same, but I somehow find it relevant in a way. (He was making fun of hitler, he claimed)

I'm not unhealthily paranoid, and I'm not someone with outright illegal views. But I don't fit the right or the left, and so I have no allies, sometimes only enemies.

I don't want to make this too long. I'm venting here because people here are more open minded than in general (even if I feel that's changing with the years and as more people join here... just me?)

Thanks for reading.

Seconded. Not saying you have to use throwaways for everything but have a few usernames you can cycle around and change em up every so often.

I mean, I don’t disagree with the general point of being privacy focused as a default. Yes, that should be everyone’s approach given that we don’t openly share in real life.

However, I do find it hilarious in a rather childish way that you are surprised how people react to your opinion on incest. Of all opinions, why even use that as an example? It just shows that there simply is an issue of over sharing and not being able to read the fucking room

“ Just to give an example, I couldnt care less about people engaging in incest and find it just an old cultural taboo. Adults are responsible enough to know about the dangers of having children and they can do whatever they want.”

You know what I get from your opinion? That you are ok with adults abusing children they are related to. Even if that’s not your point, you have to at least recognize that’s gonna be a generally unpopular opinion unless you tend to hang out with pedophiles.

So, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Why do you want to share your opinions on controversial topics? What do you get out of it? No one cares about your opinions on incest except to dunk on you. You're not going to revolutionize society's opinions on incest. So stop doing that. There's a whole universe of non-politics and non-religion topics out there. Go find a cool one. Maybe explore music theory and analysis, plenty of people to talk to about that. Maybe find a creative hobby, lots of communities to share your creations. Maybe try reverse-engineering an old Nintendo game and documenting your findings.

If it hurts, stop doing it.

I am sure there are plenty of people online who agree with you about these weird things, and other places where even if they don't share your specific opinion they will respect it. As long as it doesn't involve putting yourself in a bubble then there are places where they hang out which I am sure you can find if you want to discuss these things.

If you don't have any interest in discussing specific inflammatory taboos then don't. We all self-censor. You wouldn't casually mention your disregard of cultural taboos at an office party or to someone you just met at a coffee shop, so why do you think that it should be acceptable online? You are still in public.

The fact that you expect people to act like everything is fine because we are in online spaces is not rational nor do I think it is reasonable. Either (I) find somewhere you can go where being 'weird' in your specific way is generally accepted, (II) self-censor your views to mitigate the backlash you don't want to deal with, or (III) deal with the consequences of people thinking that your opinion is a shitty one.