> the critical issue is how to cultivate anonymity
> and community at the same time.
It is impossible to create community without trust.
With anonymity, there are no names, and without names,
there is no ownership and hence no trust. Right?
> Social relationships tend to
> be what make people behave well instead of badly,
EXACTLY. Community enforces behavior.
> and anyone who has stumbled across an Internet flamewar has gotten hip
> to the perils of anonymity. It's far easier to call people
> who disagree with you pigfuckers if you don't have to say it
> to their faces. Cypherpunks say that you can deal with this
> problem by creating permanent online identities that can be
> banished from cyberspace communities if they act up, but the
> fact remains that the creation of online culture is more
> complicated than any of the utopianist manifesto writers
> first thought.
If Canter and Siegel can keep taking up anonymous identities,
there is no utopia. Utopia is basically exactly what we have
now, only much, much better.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
.sig double-play!
When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to
have remarked to Eve, "My dear, we live in an age of transition."
-- Christina Rossetti
Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,
opulence is when you have three... and paradise is when you have none.
-- Doug Larson