Comment by JohnMakin
10 hours ago
> That is not possible and it is extremely suppressive to express yourself.
Also for the fact that you cannot predict how future powers will view past comments - for instance, certain benign political views 20 years ago could become "terroristic speech" tomorrow.
I operate by a simple, general rule - I don't often say anything online I wouldn't say directly to someone's face in real life.
> I operate by a simple, general rule - I don't often say anything online I wouldn't say directly to someone's face in real life.
More people should keep this same energy. I try to stress this to my kids and it feels like it's falling on deaf ears in regards to my teen. Alas.
I can be a rude prick online sometimes, but I can be in real life too - basically though the reason I do this is I never want it to be some huge surprise IRL if someone sees what I write online and be like, "wow, I didn't know that about him." I'm pretty much what I am online and IRL the same. For some reason this seems to matter for me, at least in the past when people have tried to like, send employers stuff I may have written online. The reaction is like "oh, yea, we knew that already about him."
Nothing terrible, maybe slightly embarrassing, but you know how online spaces can be. just be yourself basically, at least I try to be.
Your framing is interesting. You may feel that you can’t change who you are in real life, but people have a choice on how they behave online (or choose not to engage at all). So you could choose to be nice (or at least not a jerk); I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t get people writing to your employer complaining. I’d argue that if you know you’re sometimes a jerk, it’d be less stressful for you and others if you didn’t bring that energy online.
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As someone who gets dopamine hits from downvotes on HN, I approve of your behavior!
>just be yourself basically
Yea, it is boring when everyone is the same. I would like a rude but interesting world (even if I might not survive long in one), than a nice, boring one.
This is very import: you don't know how the cancelation culture will be in 20 years.
I like to use the example of a guy who did a blackface in a party back in 2000's. Although reprehensible, was not commom-sense racism back then. Today society sees it as completely unacceptable.
Eventually that guy became prime minister of Canada and things went pretty bad when that photo surfaced decades later.
Is it far to judge someone's actions by the lens of a different culture? When the popular opinion comes, they won't care about historical context.
I think the problem with this, especially amongst younger people, is having spent so much time online, they don't know where to draw this line anymore.
Interesting. You could probably get into trouble in those two places for extremely different things you said.
of course, and it has happened, but I think authenticity is usually appreciated
what two places?