Playstation 4 and your real name

[aimeeandbeatles]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

And what if you have some guy stalking you online? Yeah, I have something to fear in this case. I'd rather not have to change my phone number .... again.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There is a difference between privacy and anonymity and I think society would be well off with less of the latter and more of the former.

Edit: LOL you apologized to the troll for being trolled. Damn I am getting good at this.

Sorry, it's hard to tell. I've gotten some pretty extreme reactions from people I know ( usually people who are shocked I'm not on Facebook ) when I've questioned this kind of stuff. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Yes, the discussion is endlessly fascinating. I don't believe we can just completely give up all privacy and anonymity, but I also don't have a realistic solution. I'm firmly convinced that the ultimate consequences of having absolutely no privacy won't be positive.

EDIT: Downtown: I'm absolutely not interested in having my real name exposed when I game online. Perhaps online gaming would simply be better off without "my kind" then, I'm not sure. For me, for many reasons, this is not negotiable. If a platform/game requires my real name to be exposed I simply won't use it.

qft

 

[AlpsStranger]

@aimee: Yeah, but the magic of the transparent society will fix that because reasons.

It's no use arguing with it. The "privacy free" society experiment is determined to play itself out even if I already know it will be a disaster. All I can do is try to stay sane during it and hope most people end up agreeing with me in the end.

EDIT: Don't knock anonymity. It has its uses. It lets people try ideas and interact with others without being weighted down by whatever conversations they have. Is that completely without value?

 

[Phrossack]

Spoiler disagreeable opinions :

I can't stand the thought of Google Glass being commonly worn. It'll sever what few links remain to the real world, and people can finally live entirely in a fake, electronic world at all times, totally disconnected from what's going on in front of them. People will get hit by cars crossing the street because they were googling something with their glasses. And driving on roads with Glass wearers will be a nightmare. People are distracted enough by cell phones; this seems like it'll be worse. And there are the obvious privacy concerns, as others have already noted. We could be recorded anywhere, by anyone (not just government agents, but any normal Joe), all the time, and never know it.

On the other hand, our soldiers need something like Google Glass immediately if they don't already have it. Great potential there.

 

[ace99]

At least it'll be easy to record cops.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@aimee: Yeah, but the magic of the transparent society will fix that because reasons.

It's no use arguing with it. The "privacy free" society experiment is determined to play itself out even if I already know it will be a disaster. All I can do is try to stay sane during it and hope most people end up agreeing with me in the end.

EDIT: Don't knock anonymity. It has its uses. It lets people try ideas and interact with others without being weighted down by whatever conversations they have. Is that completely without value?

To your edit: yes, pretty much. In reality I think all that anonymity facilitates is douchebaggery 95% of the time.

 

[AlpsStranger]

ace99: Yes, and that's good. I'm not saying this stuff is 100% negative and I never have. I'm frustrated that most people seem convinced it's overwhelmingly positive. I think it's net-negative but has upsides.

EDIT: Hobbs: I'm sorry you feel that way. If chat venues that aren't directly tied to your real name cease to be available then I won't be here to chat with you, sad to say. I would severely limit my online activity to only the blandest things at that point.

 

[Akka]

The growing inability of people to graps the concept of "privacy" is frankly frightening.
We don't even need to get an authoritarian government, the masses of clueless idiots are doing its job themselves.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Yes, exactly, and crowdsourced oppression via "consequences" and social norms will be capable of reaching levels of effective oppression undreamed of by the clumsy analog dictators of yesteryear.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

And what if you have some guy stalking you online? Yeah, I have something to fear in this case. I'd rather not have to change my phone number .... again.

Yeah stalking is much less of a concern than the everyday abuse female gamers go through. Typically CoD MP session with a female player:

Dude: Hey b!&%h f&&k off!
Girl: hahaha I pwn you
Dude: F&&k you I'll rape your mouth
Girl: yeah sure right after I win this round
Dude: No. I'm going to come find you, knock down your door and rape your mouth you stupid b!%ch f$%*ing die c$ntn&*get!

If they weren't anonymous, this would happen a lot less as they offenders would be opening themselves up for serious public ridicule. Same for your stalker example - they could be identified and stopped without you having to make life changes. I'm not saying loss of anonymity is perfect but there is advantages you and Alps are ignoring.

EDIT: Hobbs: I'm sorry you feel that way. If chat venues that aren't directly tied to your real name cease to be available then I won't be here to chat with you, sad to say. I would severely limit my online activity to only the blandest things at that point.

I'm not saying it will all go away or even that it should necessarily all go away. I'm just saying I think you are mistaken in your automatic assumption that anonymity = good, non-anonymity = bad. You take a pretty black and white approach to the issue.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Oh, they won't do anything about it. The authorities, I mean. Unless it's "cyberbullying" and then everyone whines about it, but since I'm an adult it doesn't really matter. I'd rather keep my anonymity and privacy to try to avoid the jerk.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yeah stalking is much less of a concern than the everyday abuse female gamers go through.

Wait. Wut?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Wait. Wut?

I'm talking about aimee's theoretical, 'if they know my name when I game they will stalk me' idea. I was talking about gaming, not in general.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Mainly for Downtown: Okay, I'll confess to what's "up with" me just so there's no doubt. I'm not that sociable, guilty as charged. I'm prickly, paranoid, socially awkward, and I like to keep my socialization down to levels I can manage. I'm hypersensitive to what other people think of me ( though I try to work on that. ) Gaming has, for much of my life, been a way for me to be social without being exposed. I've used it as a form of social interaction that didn't freak me out as much as chatting on Facebook all day would. Okay, so you got me. I'm that horrible guy you all think I am.

So I now feel like my little private space, the part of my existence that let me recharge and temporarily take respite from what is probably something like social anxiety disorder, is starting to slowly crack. Do you see what I mean Downtown? If you're comfortable in your own skin and are super sociable and socially networked then hats off to you. I truly envy you.

But can you at least try to imagine it from my point of view? I can't live up there under the stagelights, it's just not in my nature. It's beyond me entirely. If gaming becomes part of the "social network" then I will just have to walk away from it entirely. Surely it's not wrong of me to want a place where I can unwind without feeling stressed out and yet still have some level of interaction with others.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Actually, the only time I went on a public server on Garry's Mod, I was harrassed for being female. Now I just stick to a private server run by one of my Steam friends.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'm talking about aimee's theoretical, 'if they know my name when I game they will stalk me' idea. I was talking about gaming, not in general.

So you are saying the possibility of stalking with a real identity(as per the context) is less of an issue than anonymous asshattery in Call of Duty?

 

[AlpsStranger]

@hobbs: Not really sure I can agree with you at all there hobbs. Real name exposure is a lot bigger risk than someone calling you names pseudonym to pseudonym.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Oh, they won't do anything about it. The authorities, I mean. Unless it's "cyberbullying" and then everyone whines about it, but since I'm an adult it doesn't really matter. I'd rather keep my anonymity and privacy to try to avoid the jerk.

Your anonymity and privacy don't protect you from jerks in online MP sessions. However, if they lost their anonymity, there is a much better chance you would be protected as normal social pressures would apply where they currently don't. I agree with you the people who run these networks, the authorities of them, don't do enough currently.

So you are saying the possibility of stalking with a real identity(as per the context) is less of an issue than anonymous asshattery in Call of Duty?

Yes. They would be known as well making it that much easier for authorities (say the police) to intervene in cases of stalking, which is a crime. Asshattery is not a crime but it is a persistent problem for female gamers. Loss of anonymity could help there.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Or that some random idiot telling me, on Garry's Mod, "tits or gtfo" is somehow more severe than this? (Names are blurred out, including my own.) (Also, I got over a hundred messages like these. They're stored away in my email program.)

 

[AlpsStranger]

That's exactly what I don't want, though, hobbs. I specifically don't want 'normal social pressure' because I don't do well under social pressure. Is my problem completely meaningless? I should have to be completely exposed or just not play online games?

Gaming attracted a lot of people like me. Are we supposed to just go walk off and die because the social butterflies demand it?