🚀 go-pugleaf

In the previous article, Joe Parente  <jparente@optonline.net> wrote:
> > Anyone who uses their full real name on Usenet is whacko.
> 
> No, they're just someone who has the balls to stand behind their
> opinions. People who post anonymously are scared creatures who are
> afraid that someone might actually hold them to their opinions.

Then you won't mind posting your birthdate, home address, full name
(including middle name), any other names by which you may have been
known during your life and -- of course -- your social security
number?

After all, it's just so that we can verify your identity.  Nothing you
say can be taken seriously if we can't verify that, right?  We
wouldn't want you trying to weasel out of accountability later on by
claiming that was *another* Joe Parente who made those comments.  Oh,
yes, we'll need a thumbprint, too.

This is a stupid argument on both sides.  No one knows, really,
whether the name in your newsgroup headers has anything to do with the
one on your birth certificate, passport and driver's license.  (I
guess it's a safe bet that names like "Erik The Destroyer" are usually
aliases, though.)  And there's no good reason for anyone to care.

If you're replying to someone's post to argue a point, argue the
*point*.  Focus on the ideas, facts and logic.  Who gives two shits
whether his correct middle initial is being displayed?  Concerning
yourself with that is the ad hominem fallacy in its purest form.

For the record, the name in my header is my actual last name, preceded
by my actual initials, by which nearly everyone I know calls me.  (As
in, "Hey, J.D., how's it going?")  So it's my "real" name.  I have
also posted enough details about my life that anyone with two working
neurons and access to deja.com could, if he so desired, find his way
to my doorstep in a matter of hours.  In twelve years on the Internet,
including a few where I put my place of work right there in my .sig,
I've never had a problem.  (Of course, my heavy participation in gun
rights forums might have had a deterrent effect in a case or two; no
way to know, really.)

On the other hand, I don't give out my actual full first name on
Usenet, just because I don't want any automated databases correlating
my identity now or a few years in the future.  I live to thwart
marketing droids.

Of course, you have no way of knowing that any of the above is true,
other than to take my word for it.  And the same is true of anyone
else whose identity is not known to you personally -- i.e., 99.999999%
of participants in Usenet.

So what it boils down to is this:  you are mentally assigning a higher
credibility to someone who simply lies about his name than you are to
someone who is open about the fact that he wishes to remain anonymous.
That's beyond stupid -- it's downright perverse.
-- 
  _+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\      /  baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
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