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by squigz 190 days ago
You think people don't have those ideas in person? They absolutely do, and not being anonymous does not stop most of them.

While I agree the Internet has contributed to this belief, I do not see how being anonymous or not would fix that. To say nothing of the myriad other issues that would come with a non-anonymous Internet.
2 comments
Merrill 190 days ago
The internet took every Cliff Clavin out of his neighborhood bar and gave him a global platform.

Society wasn't ready for what had been private discussions to become public.

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pixl97 190 days ago
>I do not see how being anonymous or not would fix that.

I mean there are some valid things that show up here. For example Bob is racist, and Steve is racist, but they don't know they are deeply racist. You typically have to slowly enter into conversation to ensure you don't offend them.

Being anonymous can shortcut this process. You show up on a semi-local forum as Anon1 and talk to Anon2 about how you want get rid of all those dirty $_fill_in_the_blank's. You realize you share the same convictions, and it's safer to exchange details on who you really are.

Now, it's correct non-anonymous internet is bad, especially if you are a targeted group that hasn't done anything wrong, for example gay groups.

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squigz 190 days ago
You don't need to be a targeted group for anonymity to be important, nor do you need a "valid" reason to be anonymous on the Internet. I have yet to hear a compelling reason otherwise.

People like to say, "Well you're not anonymous IRL" and ... well, yes, we are. We are not forced to say, "My name is X and I live at Y" when we stay stuff in public

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pixl97 190 days ago
>We are not forced to say, "My name is X and I live at Y" when we stay stuff in public

I mean these days you can pretty much be immediately identified by facial recognition. Not saying it's a good thing, but it is the world in which we live.

If you're mad at one, then be mad that the other because this is what technology enables.

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squigz 190 days ago
Don't worry, I'm not exactly thrilled about that either, but that's beside the point.
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pixl97 190 days ago
Not really, the fact is technology is going to make the world really tiny and public and it's likely we can do very little about it in the end.
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squigz 190 days ago
So we should lean into it and speed it along and make those things even easier to do?
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