It does feel like I’m defecting a little bit by using a pseudonymous account. I do feel like I’m somewhat intentionally trying to inject my views while getting away with not paying the reputational cost of having them.
My comments use fewer caveats than they would if I were posting under my real name, and I’m more likely to blurt things I currently think without spending lots of time thinking about how correct I am. I also feel under little obligation to signal thoughtfulness and niceness when not writing using my name. Plausibly this contributes to lowering the quality of the EA forum but I have found it helpful as a (possibly temporary?) measure to practise posting anything at all. I think that I have experiences/opinions that I want others on the EA forum to know about but don’t want to do the complicated calculation to figure out if it is worth posting them under my real name (where a significant part of the complicated calculation is non-EA people coming across them while searching for me on the internet).
I also prefer the situation where people in the EA community can anonymously share their controversial views over the situation where they don’t say anything at all because it makes it easier to get a more accurate pulse of the movement. I mostly have spent lots of time in social groups where saying things I think are true would have been bad for me and I do notice that it did cause my thinking to be a bit stunted as I avoid thinking thoughts that would be bad to share. Writing pseudonymously feels helpful for noticing that problem and practising thinking more freely.
Also idk pseudonyms are really fun to use, I like the semi-secret identity aspect of using them.
Yeah, pseudonyms are great. There’s been recent debates about people using one-off burner accounts to make accusations, but those don’t reflect at all on the merits of using durable pseudonyms for general conversation.
The degree of reputation and accountability that durable pseudonyms provide might be less than using a wallet name, but it’s still substantial, and in practice it’s a perfectly sufficient foundation for good discourse.
I still think I’ve found being pseudonymous more useful than writing under my name. It does feel like I’m less restricted in my thinking because I know there are no direct negative or positive effects on me personally for sharing my thoughts. So for example, I’ve found it easier to express genuine appreciation for things or people surprisingly. Perhaps I’m too obsessed with noticing how the shape of my thoughts changes depending on how I think they will be perceived but it has been very interesting to notice that. Like it genuinely feels like there are more thoughts I am allowed to think when I’m trying on a pseudonym (I think this was much starker a few months ago so maybe I’ve squeezed out most of the benefit by now).
My defense of posting pseudonymously:
It does feel like I’m defecting a little bit by using a pseudonymous account. I do feel like I’m somewhat intentionally trying to inject my views while getting away with not paying the reputational cost of having them.
My comments use fewer caveats than they would if I were posting under my real name, and I’m more likely to blurt things I currently think without spending lots of time thinking about how correct I am. I also feel under little obligation to signal thoughtfulness and niceness when not writing using my name. Plausibly this contributes to lowering the quality of the EA forum but I have found it helpful as a (possibly temporary?) measure to practise posting anything at all. I think that I have experiences/opinions that I want others on the EA forum to know about but don’t want to do the complicated calculation to figure out if it is worth posting them under my real name (where a significant part of the complicated calculation is non-EA people coming across them while searching for me on the internet).
I also prefer the situation where people in the EA community can anonymously share their controversial views over the situation where they don’t say anything at all because it makes it easier to get a more accurate pulse of the movement. I mostly have spent lots of time in social groups where saying things I think are true would have been bad for me and I do notice that it did cause my thinking to be a bit stunted as I avoid thinking thoughts that would be bad to share. Writing pseudonymously feels helpful for noticing that problem and practising thinking more freely.
Also idk pseudonyms are really fun to use, I like the semi-secret identity aspect of using them.
Yeah, pseudonyms are great. There’s been recent debates about people using one-off burner accounts to make accusations, but those don’t reflect at all on the merits of using durable pseudonyms for general conversation.
The degree of reputation and accountability that durable pseudonyms provide might be less than using a wallet name, but it’s still substantial, and in practice it’s a perfectly sufficient foundation for good discourse.
As someone who is pretty far on the anti-pseudonym side of the debate, I think your point about caveats and time-saved is a real concern
Idk this just occurred to me though.. what about norms of starting a comment with:
epistemic status: blurted
or
epistemic status: halp I just felt someone needed to say this thing, y’all pls help me decide if true
And couldn’t that be fun too, maybe? If you let it be so?
Yeah, that does seem useful.
I still think I’ve found being pseudonymous more useful than writing under my name. It does feel like I’m less restricted in my thinking because I know there are no direct negative or positive effects on me personally for sharing my thoughts. So for example, I’ve found it easier to express genuine appreciation for things or people surprisingly. Perhaps I’m too obsessed with noticing how the shape of my thoughts changes depending on how I think they will be perceived but it has been very interesting to notice that. Like it genuinely feels like there are more thoughts I am allowed to think when I’m trying on a pseudonym (I think this was much starker a few months ago so maybe I’ve squeezed out most of the benefit by now).