Stop using substack it’s lame sauce

Even though I disagree, I always like a good LOTR analogy.

Just because you post under a nym doesn't mean there is no cost. Whether it is a nym or true name you can lose reputation. It takes time and is hard to build reputation and you can burn that in an instant. That reputation is valuable psychologically, socially, and/or monetarily.

There are many nyms that are more credible and trustworthy to me (because they have been around so long and proven themselves) than some people who post using their true identities (either because they are new or have shown themselves to be dishonest/wrong all the time.)

You also don't have to choose. You can have your true name and multiple nyms that are unconnected and use those nyms to freely speak and work out more controversial or even dangerous topics depending where you are from.

While I agree with you that free speech and being yourself "should" be normal and the honest and upright "should" always be able to post as themselves, that is not the reality of the world we live in. I don't think we will ever live in that world. We can only get closer and farther.

Anonymity helps offset the asymmetric advantage that the powerful and corrupt have.

Like you said, Frodo uses the ring to hide from powerful foes many times where he would've been captured or killed. He even uses it for good on occasion. The ring is just a tool. It is not good or bad. The person is the one that uses it for good or bad. That's how I look at it.

You can always disassociate from the bad faith and troll nyms by muting. But I found it isn't really an issue in my experience.

I got so many questions after reading this.

*encourage whom? History is full of meaninful writings and art released under pseudonyms for a reason. Would you *encourage Satoshi to write white paper under his "real" identity?

What are you even referring by "real" identity? If I want to identified as 21seasons, is that somehow less "real" than my other names/identities?

Isn't it up to everyone to decide what's real and what name they identify themselves by?

I’m quite comfortable saying everything my handle says in real life with my real face and my real name.

The internet is a very large public square and I don’t trust everyone in the whole world. I can build a reputation with my nym and grow a community of friends and trust. Then I can invite certain people in and exclude others from my real life. This isn’t hiding this is sensible and secure.

I wear a digital outfit to cover the parts of myself that I don’t want to share with everyone. This isn’t fear it’s common sense.

It’s why people are gravitating here, most are embracing the censorship resistant bliss. The majority are not hiding behind a nym, they’re using it to create a community that might not be so easily done if using their given name.

Pen names have been around since the age of the newspaper. Just because this is a decentralized platform, I don’t think we now need to trade in anonymity for anyone to have a voice. The fact that we are now interacting with ideas that aren’t attached to a name, face, position, or social status speaks volumes.

Long live #nostr

#bitsof₿eth

Well this is a good point tbh, there are a lot of shared values between the users of the protocol.

The thing here is that even if we wanted to discourage it wouldn't be possible at all just by the way it is build, you don't need anyone's permission to create a pair of keys assigning that a name and a picture.

Now that i think of it, how many of those not anon accounts are actually real in the sense they are giving their real names, or even they are not using someone else's identity?

Still i think these are topics worth discussing 😉

Very cool being able to read you here, I think you are adding a lot of value with dissenting perspectives.

Keep them coming 🧡

Well said, both on suppression-of-speech/safe-space-maximalism and on the total-submission-to-allopathy once you’ve made the choice to engage the system. Fortunately, we still have a choice whether to engage the system or not! Like involving the state, healthy people do so at their own peril.

Ok Boomer.

If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry. - some guy with no credibility, reportedly

I didn’t want to do the Reddit post dissection thing but I did disagree with the entirety of your article, I just picked on the first point as it was glaringly obvious.

That you took the bait of my Boomer comment shows the value of NOT putting your face in a pfp. You gave something away whilst knowing nothing of me, you’re immediately at a disadvantage in that dynamic and I used it for a reaction and got it.

That’s what I’m referring to in you not understanding how younger ppl interact online and are projecting. I could continue the troll here but it’s already illustrated my point so I’ll refrain and try to be kind.

You can’t have it both ways claiming nyms lack credibility and then conceding highly credible individuals use nyms.

I don’t know you from a bar of soap, this is our first interaction on #nostr - I could point to a hundred nyms who have a greater reputation than you and whose opinions are more credible than yours so where has your real name and picture gotten you other than trolled?

Your second point is tied to the first - nyms have reputations. Just because you don’t ascribe credibility is meaningless - others do.

And your most important point I did address with my point that you have false assumptions of why ppl use nyms. I reject your frame that I’m assuming the censors frame, that’s NOT why ppl use nyms. And not only am I not cedeing a right to free speech, your contention of that being an absolute right is myopically American - I’ve lived across the world and seen the spectrum of speech, you’ve applied your narrow lens and assumptions with little appreciation for what this looks like elsewhere and why nyms are useful generally whether it’s here or elsewhere.

Great, articulate, knowledgeable and accurate respone in my 📕!

Freedom of Speech over socially engineered diatribes.

Just read at least to the 50%, and my only thought is that even when 80%+ of accounts are anonymous the general feeling is way better here than on Twitter where sometimes it seems to become a Battle Royale.

Personally here on Nostr the only thing I have found is support, nothing else, and this from other accounts that are anonymous.

I think the main thing here is that here is no incentive to say stupid things, or write for clout in the sense of generating polemic in any way as if the first people don't find you post appealing they won't like or zap you, there is also nothing like a "For you" tab, which means no biased algorithms, the closest thing is the trending filter on Primal where you find the most liked posts which tend to be pretty useful or nice personal posts like pics of food, family, or projects, and the comments are nothing more than "good vibes" or constructive criticism.

In Twitter for one of these pics or posts you get a couple of likes, some troll talking crap about anything on the picture, or basically no one gives a damn about it.

Better to use a long form content client

I just don't want every boring comment I'd make coming up in a search engine for my name.. Always hated Facebook for their real name policy. Tagging everything online to your real name plus something like Google glass etc sounds hellish to me.

"Privacy is important, but we’re talking about *public* posts. Ideas."

If you believe there is a public benefit to posting with your real name instead of a nym online you are several steps away from claiming we need digital IDs in order to have a voice online. This is the point you are making several times now, and claiming you are not or "lol, wtf" ing as if I write in a different language.

Ideas do not need to be signed with a government approved name to qualify for a discussion/debate.

>“First, a post with a real identity attached is inherently more credible because that person’s reputation will suffer if they are dishonest, lazy or simply a poor judge of what’s happening.”

Tell that to Gigi.

He’s got more credibility than you or I here and he’s a nym.

That nym is it’s own identity with its own personality and reputation. I could describe more about Gigi, his worldview and his personality, than I could my neighbour and I have a degree of trust in him that his repeated correct actions have established where I’d sooner listen to him than my neighbour.

This post seems like Boomer projection because it’s what you are comfortable with; you haven’t understood why many use nyms (you made false assumptions) probably because you’ve interacted with the internet very differently than people 5-10-20 years younger than you have.