BOZ, UNKEwlj, MrV, REDietz

[redietz]

When I say everyone should post under their own name for the greater good, I'm referring to the country and life in general.

AP's who need to stay anonymous should just create their own private forums. Doesn't cost much. A small donation from each would cover it. Then it's a private club. You wouldn't have to deal with people claiming to win at baccarat 40 out of 41 sessions or stop loss nonsense.

So we should have 100's of forums with only a few members each? That sounds silly. if that's the case, there is no need for a private forum just get a group chat. But then your ability to meet new and interesting people from around the world is stifled. if a private forum gets too big somome always infiltrates it, and that's even worst since people might think they are in a safe place and say too much when in fact they are not in a safe place.
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Had you not gotten into sports touting thing (or whatever you want to call it) a business where your name attached to provable stats is key and u want that to follow you, you want the credit attached to you, but instead, some other form of AP, you might feel differently.


I think there's a big difference between someone using a handle and someone 'hiding' behind a handle in complete anonymity.

it even goes beyond just having a nickname for the forums, it helps you and others who may address you in a casino not to use your real name.

I get a kick out of you guys. You live in a country with First Amendment rights, and you refuse to exercise them. I was originally trained as a journalist. That means you put your name on your work. And yes, I think "unnamed sources" are hugely overused. If you don't put your name on what you have to say, you're just babbling.

Academic papers and medical papers have names attached and for good reason. If you're going to provide and argue data, your name has to be vetted and attached. The rare exceptions are papers occasionally coming out of a place like China. The United States is not China.

I find it absurd that many on the right choose anonymity online when they are simultaneously criticizing journalists and scientists, who shoulder the responsibility and have the courage to attach their names to everything. So you have conservatives arguing for the Constitution who are scared to exercise First Amendment rights while journalists and scientists are required to exercise First Amendment rights constantly.

I think this is going to go down in history as the freak show generation -- a full generation of allegedly anonymous experience with online porn (which, let's face it, has been the primary usage of the internet for a generation) and a bloated expectation of online anonymity. So if this generation's cover is blown to family and friends, folks find themselves in embarrassing situations.

A generation from now, and certainly two, the expectation of online anonymity will be extinct. So what is occurring now is going to be a freakish exception to online history.