Ah yes... I'm Skimmington Harborough, Esq., I come from a family that made its fortune in philanthropy generations ago.
This seems like a pretty straightforward mechanism for covert operatives, to generate a believable (and memorizable) cover that pulls attention away and maintains coherence.
That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole like "character work for entertainment only". A persona requires misrepresentation, which is not the same as de facto anonymity.
So, while I love the write-up, I don't think it's saying what they think it's saying.
> That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole
The primary "ethical loophole" here is that there is no viable ethical alternative. Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona.
There is literally no other option that I have been able to find that both protects your privacy and also does not require you to sequester yourself from humanity entirely.
Pure anonymity bars you from the following activities: joining a social group, signing up for some longish term business relationship (hiring a contracter, signing up for a service), engaging in the political process, holding a job, and probably more that I cant think of. You simply wont be able to do any of those things if you tried to give your name as "chaboud" or "rt4mn".
The best option if you care about your privacy, in those scenarios, is to use a nickname/alias/persona, and be honest and say "no its not" in the vanishingly rare case where you are asked directly whether or not that's the same name you have your birth certificate.
> The primary "ethical loophole" here is that there is no viable ethical alternative. Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona.
There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that information, or just avoid that questions. Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable.
It is also a signalling issue. There is a universal social contract not to lie. If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy, because there is no reason to assume they would not lie or hold other social contracts in more serious cases when it does not suit them.
> There are simple ethical alternatives, just not disclose that information, or just avoid that questions.
That's not always possible.
> Lying in this case is clearly unacceptable.
In what case?
If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by an ex who is a cop required to be honest about their identities? Are reporters investigating sex trafficking required to be honest about their identities?
In a more broad sense, there are many corporations and governments out there who follow no ethical rules whatsoever and are sucking up as much information on everyone as they can. These people don't have any sort of right to that information, and don't have a right to my honesty. If anything, I think the moral thing to do, if any, is to hamper these people's efforts by feeding them as much incorrect information as much as possible.
> It is also a signalling issue.
Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions about nuanced topics, and therefore can't be trusted in nuanced situations. If you wouldn't lie to the police to protect a pot smoker, or lie to an advertiser to protect my privacy, you aren't an ethical person by my standards. I do believe you have good intentions, but intentions that don't translate into the correct actions don't mean much.
> There is a universal social contract not to lie.
This is what I mean about not-very-nuanced opinions.
> If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy, because there is no reason to assume they would not lie or hold other social contracts in more serious cases when it does not suit them.
1. What issues are you considering minor? You seem extraordinarily willing to generalize some specific-but-not-described situation you're imagining to all of reality.
2. There are lots of reasons to assume that someone who lies to cops won't lie to me, for example.
> If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by [...]
You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about.
I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases.
But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad.
Please don't do this, it makes the discussion less interesting for everybody.
> You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about.
I'm insinuating that they argue for _always_ because they are being extremely vague about what "this case" is. If they aren't arguing for _always_, they can answer the question.
Notably, they responded to my post with an explanation of what they think "this case" is, and it's... a straw man that the original article wasn't talking about.
> I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases.
I'd be happy to have such a discussion with you if you can illuminate what "such cases" are.
To be clear, the original article wasn't discussing lying "just to avoid awkward social interactions". That's a straw man.
> But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad.
In most cases it is. And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona.
> In what case?
In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying.
> Everything is a signaling issue. Your post, for example, signals you as a person who has not-very-nuanced opinions about nuanced topics
Or perhaps you just ignore the context of the article to strawman my position.
> What issues are you considering minor?
Where the cost of not telling a lie is just some social cost unrelated to personal security, employment or other similarly important needs.
If you protect your anonymity in 999,999 cases out of 1,000,000, your anonymity is blown. "Most cases" isn't enough.
> And the article suggested preemptive approach, which implies lying in all cases while being in persona.
Yes. Because lying ex-post-facto after people have already started trying to figure out who you are doesn't work.
> In situations described in the discussed article: "If you defiantly refuse to say who you are, it can make people angry that you’re upsetting social reciprocity". I.e. to lie just to avoid awkward social interactions instead of explicitly or implicitly refuse. People being too agreeable in their social interactions so that they would rather lie than cause discomfort. This kind of casual lying.
The article doesn't say anything about it being "to avoid awkward social interactions". On the contrary, the reason given for doing so is as a further protection of one's anonymity.
And to be clear, there are many cases where any reasonable person would agree it's ethical to lie to protect one's anonymity, some of which I've described in my previous post.
> If someone is willing to lie in such minor issues, then such person is totally untrustworthy
What’s the backing for this? If a stranger asks me what my favorite color is, I don’t feel any particular obligation to give them a truthful answer. But at least in my experience, that hasn’t manifested as a willingness to lie or deceive in cases where it matters. I think it’s possible that your personal social contract is not as universal as you think.
I guess that for truthful people, lying is something that they do not even consider as an option. They could be pressed to it if situation is dire. But if someone consider lying as an option in a banal case, then they could consider it in any case. There are obviously other reasons why not to lie or deceive in particular issues, so 'totally untrustworthy' is likely too strong.
> If a stranger asks me what my favorite color is, I don’t feel any particular obligation to give them a truthful answer.
I do not feel particular obligation to give them answer altogether, but if i decide to do, i would feel obligation it to be truthful.
I think you may want to revisit whether your guess is actually accurate. As others have pointed out, "little white lies" are a relatively prevalent part of society.
To pick a mundane example: if somebody asks me "how's it going", I'm almost certainly going to say "good", even if it's not.
I lied the last time in September 2014. I exaggerated a man’s height. And yes, I tell everybody if it’s not going well. I don’t need to be awkward like in “The Big Bang Theory” or something either. I can be nice in every single situation without lying. Empathy and trust help a lot.
Just because something is prevalent, it doesn’t make it good, or necessary.
Situation 1: Daughter of 5 years was drawing a house and a dog. Looks terrible. Asks me how I find it. It reply "good job! what a nice house and dog!" It's a blatent lie. But obviously she'd been crushed had I replied otherwise and never drawn anything else.
Situation 2: Random acquaintance got a new hair cut. Looks terrible, asks how she looks. I reply "fits your face!" Not true, but any real criticism would have been inappropriate. We are not that close.
Situation 3: Colleague asks me casually in a team lunch setting about my favorite color. It's brown, but I don't want to say since 10 min ago the topic of nazis came up, turns out they are jewish and lost all their grandparents in concentration camps. So I reply "depends on the day". Clear lie about "something as mundane as their favourite color".
Which of these situations was an unacceptable lie and which was a "phrase / exchange with established meaning, both sided knows the protocol."
Nonchalantly redefining lying just because everyone is vaguely aware the lie exists is silly.
You do realize you can just adjust your original absolutist position on lying = indicator of future trustworthiness by just recognizing the nuance of human communication, correct?
It's not a redefinition. Lying requires the purpose of deception. When you ask me how I'm doing as part of a greeting ritual and I say "good" as a response neither of us actually believes we're communicating anything meaningful about our states. In that circumstance it's understood and even expected that the response will be superficial. Indeed, malicious honesty could be entirely impolite. For example if you say "how are you?" and I say "well I was doing really poorly, but then I took a giant crap in the office restroom and now I feel better" and then continue with full and excruciating honesty to describe all the gory details you might not appreciate that oversharing.
The fact that the first person you mention is "your best friend" is an indication of the importance you're placing on it. Nobody is using a nom de plume for their electric bill, you're being deliberately obtuse.
A best friend, by definition, is one of the people you choose to trust the most. If you want to replace it with someone else significant in your life, by all means, it doesn’t change the point in any way shape or form.
A random company is the other end of the extreme, it’s an example of a very limited relationship.
The point is that the bigger your relationship, the more you’d entrust them with secrets. Secrets like your real identity. It’s a pretty basic and obvious concept.
I'm not sure that there is a universal social contract in place. There are many situations where a lie is acceptable or even expected.
In business dealings it's acceptable to lie about the price you are willing to pay (or receive) for a service. It is however completely unacceptable to lie about business finances when communicating with investors or the tax office.
Even in personal matters, if someone told you information to keep in confidence, and then someone else asked if you know anything about it, it is acceptable (even honorable) to lie to maintain the trust with the first person. However, there are also situations where revealing the information to the second person is the more honorable action.
My preference is simply down to he act of lying increasing my cognitive load to engage with others. If I choose not to tell someone something, that's relatively easy. If I tell them something artificial, I have to maintain and harmonize that falsehood for the duration of the interaction.
Yes, I have a Blind account. In that context, I have a handle, but I resolutely refuse to knowingly say anything untrue. It's just too much work to be bothered.
There is emphatically no "universal social contract not to lie," nor should there be, because what this leads to is "invisible obligations to parties more powerful than you, since you're expected to tell the truth to whoever asks it." -- but right to truth ought to be earned.
It is true that it most cases it's not favorable, but the way you're putting it is the stuff of repression.
Self defense, it's good to misinform bad actors, Santa Claus, surprise parties,etc.
> There is emphatically no "universal social contract not to lie," nor should there be, because what this leads to is "invisible obligations to parties more powerful than you, since you're expected to tell the truth to whoever asks it."
That implication does not hold. Even if i accept 'universal social contract not to lie' for voluntary conversations, then i am not expected tell the truth, just not to lie, therefore there is no implicit obligation to answer such questions. One could avoid the question, reject the question explicitly, or leave the conversation.
> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options
You’re presenting this as if it’s a fact, but it doesn’t seem like it is. If for no other reason that it relies on a shared understanding of what’s “best” and what makes options “bad”.
You could justify some pretty horrible decisions if you’re holding that as an axiom.
I tend to just not invent "rules" out of thin air.
In absence of this supposed "rule", where "Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options", you'd need to actually consider whether a decision is immoral. The rule shortcuts that and lets you say "well, there's no other option, so I must be in the clear morally here", which would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.
That's not a quote that appears anywhere prior to this in the thread, from what I can see. You seem to have made it up from scratch here.
The rule given above is "Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options". In the context of the thread, it's being used to justify creating a fake persona and providing false details about yourself as part of a strategy of maintaining anonymity. And already the cracks start to show: the other option, "just don't respond" is classified as bad, and thus doesn't count as a viable option. So what you're left with is "lie about yourself", which the rule holds up as being definitely moral because it's the "best" option. But "just don't respond" is only described as bad because it doesn't give you maximum anonymity.
If I'm broke, and I need some money for lunch, "steal from my richest friend" could be reasonably argued to be the "best" of "bad options". I need to eat, it'll hurt them the least, so lets crack open their wallet. Because I get to arbitrate the option pool and the definition of "bad" and "best", I've got a neat package that lets me absolve myself of all tricky moral quandries.
I don’t think you can argue that steal from friend is the best in that situation. If truly the options are steal from friend or starve to death right now, then perhaps but that’s not realistic.
I’m not sure what you think someone should do rather than make the best decision given all options.
There are many ways to absolve yourself of tricky moral quandaries. But I don’t think using a fake name on a web form is a mora quandary.
If we’re in a world where the only options are that one can’t lie about themself online or not participate then that’s a bad world.
I think it depends on the intent of the lie in that lying to get out of advertising seems ok, but lying to trick someone into a date seems bad.
Of course it’s hard to truly know, so people have to fall back do what they think is best and rely on the guidance of trusted friends.
This is how morality in general works, I think. And we just have societal morals that are widely accepted. I think advertising is immoral and unethical, but that’s not a belief commonly held by enough to make it into culture and laws.
> Pure anonymity bars you from the following activities: joining a social group, signing up for some longish term business relationship (hiring a contracter, signing up for a service), engaging in the political process, holding a job, and probably more that I cant think of.
Why do you believe that’s your right? You have the right to be left alone, but in all the examples you offer you are explicitly not minding your own business.
Rather there should be an expectation of reciprocity with respect to identity.
> hiring a contracter, ..., engaging in the political process, holding a job
These are all situations where the desire for anonymity is outweighed by the requirement for accountability.
You're aware that 'hiring a contractor' requires entering into a contract right? And so does being employed.
Entering into a contract without establishing your identity implies a desire not to be bound by the terms of that contract. Is that your intent?
As for 'engaging in the political process', I have never heard anyone argue that the problem with politics is that people are too honest and open. Do we need more anonymous political party donors?
> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options
Woo, big claim. You're basically saying "best" can be determined entirely in terms of utility with no consideration for morality. A utilitarian world view, which not everybody shares.
I don’t think OP made that claim. “Bad” can be determined holistically with morals and utility and other factors.
For example, I think it’s moral to portray a false persona to avoid invasion of privacy.
Not to mention that most people project some level of falseness just in day to day operations. For example replying “I’m fine, how are you?” Whenever asked.
> A utilitarian world view, which not everybody shares.
you make it sound like it's not a complete or consistent system, but it's just a worldview where only some people have the attribute of being in the right, unfortunately an attribute not everybody shares.
I don't think its not complete, it just doesn't always apply to every situation. Thats why there are other belief systems like Deontology[1] which I tend to gravitate towards the most. Utilitarianism has plenty of issues. Doing whats right for everyone, doesn't always yield the best results for society. Sometimes you need to do whats right for the few because the masses doesn't always understand the long ranging ramifications of decisions based off this belief.
> Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona.
Let's substitute some of the bits with variables...
"Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exist in the world and X, the only real option is to Y."
...and see how this holds up...
X="be rich"; Y="kill your neighbor"
Now, you might object "that's absurdly extreme!". True, I have chosen an extreme example, but only because it makes the fallacy conspicuous. Ethical principles don't have loopholes or dispensations. It's not as if big lies are bad because they're big and small lies are okay because they're small. They're both bad because they're both lies. An evil effect of one's actions may be tolerable under specific circumstances, but a means that is inherently evil doesn't cease to be evil because you have no other option to attain the desired good. Ends don't justify means.
In this case, a pseudonym is not a lie when a) the intent is not to deceive but to conceal, and b) there is no normative expectation that the name given is real and thus when you do not owe others your real name. On social media, while we know many might conclude that a pseudonym is real, generally speaking, I would say that error is a tolerable side effect (it depends on the particular social medium; LinkedIn is different than Twitter, for example). However, IMO, things start to become more dicey with active fabrication. There is a fine but definite line between lying and mental reservation. There is a difference between speaking ambiguously or evasively on the one hand and lying on the other. This places rather severe limits on what you can licitly say or express. Constructing a persona means you must actively engage in creating a fictional character that you intend people to believe is real as a means of concealing you identity. This is by definition a lie and different from allowing people to falsely infer a persona based on what is ambiguous information that is intended to conceal truths others have no right to.
"Create and post a back-story to answer (instead of avoid) the frequently asked questions."
The article's author's advice is effectively precisely because it involves lying. Lying works exactly because the default expectation based on the essential function of speech is to communicate the truth.
My name is Matt Chaboud. My username is my last name, and I'm easy to find. I try to behave online in a way that doesn't rely on anonymity (though I recognize that that carries some risk).
But I think your point is understood. However, a handle, to me, by virtue of convention, leaves little room for confusion as to whether it is a real or artificial/partial identity (generally).
Thats fair enough. Googling for my username takes you pretty quickly to my name as well.
I don't think I did a good enough job in my initial reply emphasizing that from my perspective a nickname that you only used in certian social contexts is functionally a persona. If your wife calls you Jason but all your drinking buddies call you Jack because of a hilarious collage hijink (or something), a random passer by at the bar would have no clue that the name on your birth certificate (the one that can be used to impersonate you) is actually Jason.
Thats really what I am talking about. As long as you dont lie about the fact that "Jack" is a nickname when asked, your not being unethical, in my view.
> The primary "ethical loophole" here is that there is no viable ethical alternative. Something can not be immoral if it is the best of a series of bad options, and if you want to exsist in the world and protect your privacy, the only real option is to create a persona.
No, that's not how ethics works. Sometimes you're just in a no win situation and there is nothing moral other than self sacrifice.
Before it was de rigeur to use real names on the Internet, most of us used personas that were informed by our handles.
It's unusual—I might even say unethical, if moral realism were coherent—to insist on real names as a matter of honesty given that real names disproportionately benefit the powerful. The powerless cannot use their real names on the Internet because often there are real world consequences.
> That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole like "character work for entertainment only". A persona requires misrepresentation, which is not the same as de facto anonymity.
I don't think the persona needs to be completely falsified. Rather, you consider which topics you engage in on a given account. For example I consider "tsumnia" to be unofficial/official "professional" username - while I don't explicitly say my name, it'd take you looking at my profile to know exactly who I am.
On the other hand, I have my hobby/nerdy username on Reddit for when I want to talk about the latest Last of Us episodes. Same person, but different aspects of my personality are on display. Its not that the other one is a troll or anything, just one name to talk about deliberate practice in CS education in one thread and then another to make jokes about video games.
Do you try to keep them separate in the sense of not being connectable? That could be hard, as writing style is a pretty strong give-away (as recently demonstrated just here on HN where somebody wrote a very simple tool to detect alt accounts).
It's ok if you don't. I'm just wondering if it's even worth trying. The persona strategy could be worthwhile for simple tracking purposes, but for somebody actually trying, it shouldn't be hard to link all your personas, given enough data. Or maybe one should avoid posting with real name altogether, anywhere. That includes though carreer-building blog posts or public documentation, even written in a professional setting where it could be hard to avoid.
> Do you try to keep them separate in the sense of not being connectable?
I think part of the persona creates different writing styles - my other account(s) have never been rated close to each other. For Reddit, my other account is just my default. I only switch over to tsumnia for /r/professors, or other coding-related subreddits these days. Reddit Enhancement Suite helps out nicely for that. My other account(s) never really write enough to generate enough substance for comparison I think and never interact with each other (not replying to myself or something silly like that). Sure its possible, its just... not something I've had to worry about. tsumnia writes long winded responses and my other accounts... don't. If anything I'd be impressed and nerd out on the math if someone could connect the accounts.
> it shouldn't be hard to link all your personas, given enough data
I'm not some big name that I'd really need to worry about that. Even if I became one, like I mentioned I'm not trolling, flaming, or being obscene in the other accounts, just writing about my hobbies. Things I openly admit to in real life, just don't write about. It may be harder if an account is some super personal stuff like sexual orientation / gender identity, but I don't do any of that. Even if they did impact me, those fall into things I just don't bring up on the internet. Likewise, I imagine it may be harder for women that are dealing with online stalkers, but again, that hasn't been something I've had to deal with.
Plus, any organization that REALLY wanted to find me can simply reverse lookup the account IP addresses anyway. If I think an account that I want to remain private has gonna a bit too personal, I simply retire the account name. It can be annoying if account karma/points/whatever is "important", but... eh... I made plenty of DnD characters over the years, I can start using another character's name or something with a pun. Internet points only limit what I can and can't do on a site, nothing else.
> maybe one should avoid posting with real name altogether, anywhere.
That's always an option. Since I used tsumnia for so long, I sort of just DECIDED to let it be public. I had more or less doxxed myself (or narrowed down who tsumnia could be) before I openly said it was me. No different than a YouTuber doing a face reveal, except I don't have millions of fans. Instead of retiring tsumnia, I acknowledged it and created a new one that doesn't connect to me. I imagine that's how lots of usernames start - being anonymous but occasionally they drop a nugget of personal information. Those accrue over time and boom, its an alias. I'm a little more cautious to drop personal information on the other accounts, but I think its because I can always use tsumnia for those situations.
I'd be curious to probe a framework that thinks it is, while not holding that axiomatically. As someone who leans heavily into consequentialism, I can think of plenty of times lying can lead to a net positive for everyone. Likewise, there are harmful truths that should be suppressed.
That suggests to me that lying is, in-of-itself, amoral. The effect of the lie (or the intent, if you swing that way) determines whether it's ethical or not. Who is harmed by your assuming a fabricated identity? For the vast majority of people, who exactly you are matter little. So it's hard to suggest they are harmed by having an incorrect model of you. It may be manipulative to those trying to piece together your identity, but being doxxed can and often does lead to harm befalling your person, so your lies against them can be plainly justified under self-defense.
In deontology, lying-is-bad is practically the canonical example of a basic rule. Kant especially is famous for that -- leading directly to extensive arguments about whether "lying to the murderer at the door" is ethical.
It goes deeper than you might expect. There are good reasons to think that it might indeed be unethical to lie, even when the consequences are bad. I don't necessarily agree with the premises involved, but it's worth researching rather than dismissing out of hand. Especially since consequentialism has problems of its own, and it's a way to get an alternative take on the criticisms of consequentialism.
Personally, I'd like to see deontologists accept that lying isn't such a great example, and instead take up a different one. There can be good deontological approaches that accept that consequences can be part of rules.
The deontologist believes lying is against the universal maxim. If everybody lied all the time, we wouldn't have a functioning society.
The virtue ethicist believes it is bad to be in a habit to lie because being predisposed to lying is opposed to the virtue of the truth. We've all known people who lie by habit and they are unpleasant and vicious to be around. I don't know if most virtue ethicists (who don't also fall into the natural lawyer camp, below) would say it is per se bad to lie, but most would say it is vicious.
The natural lawyer believes that speech has as its natural end telling the truth and therefore it is contra naturam to lie. See the almost-impossibly-extended discussion here, for that: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09469a.htm
For all of these groups, there has variously been admitted something like an "equivocal statement"---a statement which has some interpretation that is technically true, but not the interpretation that the speaker knows will be taken by the listener as a falsehood. For example, my friend invites me out on Friday and rather than saying I'd rather be at home, I say, "I have something going on that night." He takes it to mean that I have other plans, but I don't. But technically, breathing is "something going on" so I haven't lied. (Whether your social relationships will stand your doing this is another matter ;))
I'm personally fall in something like the virtue ethicist camp, but I do believe sometimes, in justice, a lie must be said, and not all of those situations can be covered by an equivocation.
If everybody used deceptive but ultimately truthful statements all the time society wouldn't function either. Allowing for deliberately deceptive truths is just a ridiculous contortion to solve the "murderer at the door" or "nazi at the door while hiding jews" problem. To me it just shows that they don't truly believe in their ethical framework since they will twist it into something ridiculous as soon as it gets difficult.
That phrasing has to do with how Kant thinks you come to discover moral truths: it’s an appeal to Kant’s idea of the categorical imperative which, for him, is the basis of all morals. So, essentially, the claim here is “since you cannot lie all the time and have a functioning society then, by my prior arguments about what morality is, you can never lie”
That interpretation falls on its own absurdity. "Since you cannot eat all the time without dying of obesity, you must never eat at all". The categorical imperative only generalizes across people. "Can you have a functioning society where people tell a white lie now and then?" And the answer is clearly yes. Is it superior to one where everyone is perfectly honest? Less obvious.
I think lying is not ethical, but is it a lying to have an online persona that has a different name that one's legal name? I think not. One can have a legal name and a common law name that are different. As long as one does not claim one's online persona/name is one's legal name and one is not harming other people, I see no issue. If the intent of having the legal name and online name be different is to obscure one's real identitity because one is doing something illegal online, then that is clearly not ethical. If one is not harming anybody, then there should be no issue with having an online persona/name that has a different name than one's legal name and should be considered ethical.
A tougher question might be whether one is doing something illegal and uses an online name that is not one's legal name. For example, say one is subject to seizures and cannabis greatly reduces the occurance from say 100 per month to less than 2 per month. Cannabis is still a schedule 1 drug and illegal at the national level. So, joining a dicussion on the net about seizures and cannabis with a persona whose name is different from one's legal name would be common. I also think this is ethical. One is not harming somebody else and is in fact making oneself more healthy (opposite of harm).
I agree with this line of thinking. Especially the focus on effect. If your persona is made with the pure intent of anonymity and you make an ordinary persona whose abilities aren't exaggerated and could easily be swapped with your own persona without much impact on the people you converse with, then I don't think any harm is being done and you're merely keeping your anonymity while still presenting your authentic abilities and personality to some online community.
There are frameworks that have lying as axiomatically evil.
But to be consistent - a painful truth must be preferable to a rewarding lie.
To live a lie free life is to invite pain, and to view that pain as both functional and necessary - it is not for the weak to try.
It would make little sense not to be confident in a subjective opinion. As the sole arbiter of truth concerning my subjective experience, it would be absurd to waffle about it.
I was an NOC Agent for Canada then I got married. There's so much data out there, nothing is easy with creating a false persona. Your eyes, walk, fingerprints, etc.
It's possible in the short run, but you're leaking a lot of data doing it. My MO when I really didn't want to end up Googleable was to just give my real first name and leave it at that even if people pressed.
Edit: The reason is simple. If someone gives a false name and you know their real one then you're much more certain that they're trying to conceal their identity. So the downside is real, even if it is practical in some circumstances.
Fascinating. How long were you a NOC for? I guess your spouse did not know of it while she was your GF. Did it impact your life negatively, having to maintain secrecy? You must have been for quite a while, I understand a long time passes before agents are fully functional.
Well, I'm allowed to talk about it publicly but I still would like to default to undersharing. It was a little over five years. Long enough.
My spouse and I got married very quickly after meeting and yes the impact on one's life is real, but so is the upside and I find few online that talk about it. The upside is real. You see the extremes of humanity and it clarifies the importance of ethics in life.
No problem at all. If we were at a bar I'd say more, but with online stuff the safety margins are tighter because every word is picked over by everyone. It's not just states. There are a lot of mentally ill people out there.
That said, I think others should consider working in this field. The impact is real and I think many HNers would make good agents and officers. So I'm starting to talk about it online and I'm reworking my website and other things. Think of it as continued public service. We (Nato and friends) need good people doing this work.
One thing I should have mentioned is that I'm still working in this area, just not directly for the Canadian government any longer.
I believe that is Non Official Cover Agent. Basically, a intelligence agent that, well, they do a lot of stuff, but from my understanding, not having worked in the system, they mostly handle informants and turn sources and handle intelligence gathering. A spy. It's non-official cover in the sense that they don't come as a diplomat attache or anything of the sorts but go there and present themselves as a private individual. Some countries, not sure of the case of Canada, you can't share your real job with your friends or family but have a cover story instead. They mostly present their real name as well, since it's hard to produce fake personas, hence... his original post.
Much less glamourous than James Bond, but I believe it's an.. interesting job.
This is a good summary. Most people I knew didn't know and if they knew anything it was only a hint here or there and most assumed I was doing sigint work.
It is not categorically imperative to never lie nor misrepresent. The opposite is true. There are some situations where "standard" ethical principles (don't lie, don't kill) are unethical. If left with no alternative, lethal self-defense is not just acceptable, but is morally necessary. An exception to the exception might exist if your attacker is acting justly, but that takes it to another level of analysis.
Maybe I'm from a different era, but I still think that the best default position is that anything somebody has listed about themselves online may be a work of fiction that we shouldn't be expected to take at face value in most contexts. If encryption is not immoral, encrypting your personal information is also not immoral, even if you also want plausible deniability. Privacy is not unethical. If a persona and pseudonym is the best route to that, you aren't hurting anybody.
As a person who prizes the idea that what we say and do are more important than who we are, I disagree that honesty and ethics always align. If some dishonesty maximizes peoples' actual wellbeing, then that dishonestly is probably actually more ethical than the honesty that compromises and hurts people for no gain other than ideological purity.
I’m not sure how you’re pulling encryption into this argument.
You can be honest or dishonest and it will be encrypted and decrypted all the same.
Your second argument to me doesn’t follow. You are saying what you say and do is more important than what you value, I think, but you are also saying that what you say and do are not important so you can be dishonest.
My conclusion is that you prize winning over being ethical.
Just think of all the other cases where honesty and ethics have been put on the back burner on the basis that you think your thing is more important; a lot of them legal.
You use an alias or a persona to mask your identity, just as you use encryption to mask information. Keeping something intentionally hidden, either via an alias or encryption, is not dishonest nor unethical.
I do not prize winning. I'm not sure who is "winning" or "losing" when I decide to not publish my name. I'll note that I use my real name and attach my real identity to lots of things. I just don't agree that people who choose to mask their identity through a plausible persona are somehow walking an ethical tightrope. They are entitled to use a fake name.
That's my point. Saying that there's an unethical dishonesty to using an alias or an entire persona is missing the point that it's actually unimportant, and behavior is the only thing that matters. I was responding to a comment that stated that "it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole". I disagree that an online persona is inherently unethical or even dishonest, because the basic assumption should be that it's all unimportant and possibly fake.
>That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest
Yes, I get it. When I go for job interviews, they ask me what my weaknesses are, I say that I fuck off every once in a while, that I will sometimes badmouth the company and my boss after I leave the company. That sometimes I go to the company bathroom and masterbate to relieve stress. That I don't really like my mother because she is a meth addict all her life even when she was pregnant with me so when I was in her womb, I was basically on meth, too, and it really fucked up my mental capacities and so sometimes I go off in an irrational manner and maybe will start yelling at people. I belch and fart a lot, too and that usually upsets co-workers.
I go on and on like this for about 20 minutes on all my weaknesses, because I want to make sure that I completely answer their question in an ethical manner, because I don't lie by ommission. They didn't ask me what my "strengths disguesed as a weakness" were, or how to "spin it by giving the best picture of myself" and "market myself" to them.
It's the same with women when they ask about me. I say that I fart and burp a lot as mentioned above. They are not regular farts but real stench bombs. I also pick my nose a lot in public and then eat it but not when people can see.
So far, I can't get a job for the last 15 years despite my interviewing 80-100 interviews per year. And no girlfriend.
But at least I can be internally happy because I'm ethical and honest and never lie, and give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Is it a lie to choose a name to go by at different times? Why should you always have to use the name your parents gave you. Some people are even better known by their nom de plume than their real name, from Mark Twain to Lenin.
To lie is to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive.
In a play, actors make untrue[1] statements, but the audience is in on it, so there is no intent to deceive, and indeed no one ends up deceived.
Some professions like police officers, firefighters, doctors, military officers, etc might wear uniforms/special clothing and act in a certain way too. No one actually believes that you change into a different person when you put on a uniform, so again no deception takes place.
Back in the 90's it was simply assumed everyone used a pseudonymous persona [2], so again no intent and no deception. Many people still use pseudonymous personas to this day!
The Author of this article DOES take things a bit far. I'd definitely want to be a bit careful recommending their approach. If you want your persona to interact with the real world, then all the aspects relevant to the interaction do need to be true. For example: depending on context, it may or may not be fine to have a persona who claims to be university professor, but if you start falsely using that credential for real world gain, you may have crossed a line. [3]
So in the end I think it's ethically ok to use personas, provided there is no intent to deceive.
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[1] Arguably: untrue in this world, but perhaps true in the world of the play?
[2] "on the internet, no one knows if you're a dog"
Wait how is this even controversial. We have decades, perhaps centuries, of precedent in liberal democracy of writing under pseudonyms. Since nearly your entire presence online is via your writing, I don’t see how it could possibly be ethically wrong to write online under a pseudonym. If having a fake image in addition to your name bothers you then just use a blank avatar or something.
The whole point of pseudonyms has been that a) your work should stand for itself and not be impacted by your identity and b) to protect individuals.
Can someone use pseudonyms to perform unethical or fraudulent activity, of course. But the pseudonym itself is not unethical.
Indeed. Despite your best efforts, they know that Sir Olivier Stubbingwicke lives at the same address as Bill Swerski, who pays for the Comcast internet.
Similarly, very few people are unaware that XFinity is the pseudonym for Comcast.
I know I'm running with the off-topic comment, but I like to point that out whenever possible. Companies know that if they just change their name, they lose any bad connotations they had with the previous name.
Comcast changed the name of its Internet service to "Comcast Xfinity" for a few years, then silently dropped the "Comcast" at one point.
Spectrum is also Charter, and Altria is Phillip Morris. It's crappy that it actually works most of the time, so I like to point it out to try to counteract that.
"A persona requires misrepresentation, which is not the same as de facto anonymity."
I don't this this is correct, as a persona can accurately represent you, its just a persona. If you want to continue to be anonymous with a persona that represents you, I think differential privacy could help in this situation.
There is no ethical issue here. The companies asking for your identity generally don’t need it and providing them with a persona could be argued is the more ethical route given the implications it has on privacy and mass surveillance.
>There is no ethical issue here. The companies asking for your identity generally don’t need it and providing them with a persona could be argued is the more ethical route given the implications it has on privacy and mass surveillance.
I'd say, to quote a bad movie[0] that "the only winning move is not to play."
Giving those entities even a fake persona will negatively impact your privacy over the medium to long term. The better solution is for folks to vote with their feet and refuse to use such entities.
Sadly, that doesn't seem to be a popular choice, but that doesn't mean it isn't the right one.
People practice personas everyday of their lives, the only difference in the post is the explicit labelling of them. The avatar I present here is different to how I behave in person, or how I engage at work, my friends, my family.
Am I being unethical when I tell the medicare supplemental insurance salesman from India that I am only 22 years old (while hoping to be taken off their list of potential customers) when he asks me my age?
The easy out is that you make it eminently clear that the persona is a fictitious character. At that point it becomes much like any other performer who wears a costume and uses a stage name.
This seems like a pretty straightforward mechanism for covert operatives, to generate a believable (and memorizable) cover that pulls attention away and maintains coherence.
That said, as someone who prizes ethical behavior, it's not possible to practice this and remain wholly honest without some sort of ethical loophole like "character work for entertainment only". A persona requires misrepresentation, which is not the same as de facto anonymity.
So, while I love the write-up, I don't think it's saying what they think it's saying.