[anonymousnotme]

I think lying is not ethical, but is it a lying to have an online persona that has a different name that one's legal name? I think not. One can have a legal name and a common law name that are different. As long as one does not claim one's online persona/name is one's legal name and one is not harming other people, I see no issue. If the intent of having the legal name and online name be different is to obscure one's real identitity because one is doing something illegal online, then that is clearly not ethical. If one is not harming anybody, then there should be no issue with having an online persona/name that has a different name than one's legal name and should be considered ethical. A tougher question might be whether one is doing something illegal and uses an online name that is not one's legal name. For example, say one is subject to seizures and cannabis greatly reduces the occurance from say 100 per month to less than 2 per month. Cannabis is still a schedule 1 drug and illegal at the national level. So, joining a dicussion on the net about seizures and cannabis with a persona whose name is different from one's legal name would be common. I also think this is ethical. One is not harming somebody else and is in fact making oneself more healthy (opposite of harm).