Real names vs pseudonyms online
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Using my true name here causes me to take more care in what I write. I’m not hiding behind an identity I can discard.
Some people – and I don’t know if this includes you or not – are overly worried about getting embarrassed or making silly mistakes.
There are some exceptions where reputation needs to be taken very seriously, but I think the general view to take in this matter is that no one cares. Think of the deepest embarrassment you’ve ever felt – and then try to replace that feeling with how others felt about your situation.
Like, if you’re on stage playing the guitar in front of hundreds of people, and you hit the wrong note, you may feel embarrassed. But many people didn’t even notice. And those who did probably didn’t care nearly as much about the mistake as you did.
I think it is more that it is a permanent record of things I have written that may one day be used as an attack vector. It means I need to really mean what I write, so that I can stand behind it (even as potentially an honest mistake) if someone tries to use it against me.
It’s an understandable concern. I subscribe more to the insight from BoI chapter 10. Open societies inadvertently give their enemies more access than closed ones, but they also gain so much more knowledge and strength because of their openness that they can deal with their enemies better than if they were closed.
(I went back and forth on whether to label this as a criticism. I decided to do so but I want to be clear that it doesn’t mean I’m trying to tell you how to live your life.)