Oddbean new post about login | logout My chief complaint about NOSTR: https://chrisliss.substack.com/p/anonymity
Interesting perspective on anonymity on #nostr - I started out anonymous on the forums back in 2014 but realised I needed to put my name to my work so ceded the comfort and started posting under my real name. @Chris Liss mentions that some of it could be a throw back to traditional social media where people needed to be more careful, and that could be true for some. However I think privacy is the main driver behind anonymous posting on here. Am I right? The other think I like about anonymity is that it forces a person to confront an argument, not a person. If you don't like someone's view you can't insult their character or person of you don't know anything about them...and let's be honest, we've all seen it happen, or done it. nostr:nevent1qqsqd98n0wx99rpcar97ahz5nux8q50jfjewtzh2vrwsq6d34su66scpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyp4d8c4rfqvtz57grayvtr6yu5veu760erd7x7qs5qqdec7fpdm5qqcyqqqqqqgx9pk5r
Well put - true discourse of ideas can only be done with nyms, genuinely
I think it’s only that way because we’ve accepted censorship. We’ve bought into the premise that our views are too radical, too impermissible to have attached to our real identities.
Let's start with the question. What is a “real" identity? First impression: You seem to live in a country where you never encountered the power of the state yourself. Heretic views will always be edgy until they slowly enter the sphere of collective consciousness and only then get accepted as obvious. For ideas it really doesn't matter where they originate and eminate as long as they can freely propagate and resonate. I guess there is room for both. Even at the same time. No one is hindering you in entertaining multiple identities that serve different purposes.
There are deep philosophical questions around the concept of identity, but in this case everyone knows what we’re talking about. I was attacked pretty hard in my industry and job for my views during covid. But I also had a lot of people tell me what I posted was helpful to them. Not just the ideas which were out there, but someone credible they knew standing behind them and taking heat for them. So I agree ideas are the most important things, but ideas with someone willing to stand up for them are more likely to propagate. And if you really care about growing NOSTR, I think more people will need to ID themselves as being there.
I guess both approaches can be powerful in their own ways. If I would encourage one thing it is awareness of the upsides and downsides to each approach. Combine the upsides of both in a healthy way without linking those identities. Don't hide your real life identity out of fear, but also recognise the benefits of a focussed discussion and exploration of a topic that becomes possible when we detach ourselves from any identity. Also I am really glad that most Monero devs are anonymous. It reduces the attack vector as code is the only thing that remains to discuss.
Yeah, as I wrote in the article, there are people for whom and situations for which anonymity is necessary. But it should not be the default for sharing your views in the public square. It’s like everyone went to the public square in masks because no one could deal with disagreements.
You are welcome to post under your government name. I am also free not to. Anonymity in this space is a definitely a feature, not a bug.
Boy… I couldn’t disagree more I’m advocating for the abolishment of the existing power structures in the world and I work in Hollywood, which would blacklist me in a heartbeat for holding my views. Anonymity is literally the only way I could engage with other people on controversial topics, work out the truth as I now understand it, and still keep feeding my family in the meantime. No, I don’t think my daughter should go hungry because I happen to think Israel is committing a genocide in the Middle East.
I think anonymity should be permissible but discouraged. So no one is advocating for doxxing you and getting you in trouble at your day job. But do you not see the problem here? Maybe there are 10 other people who work where you do who don’t dare speak put, and the censors believe all the compliant employees are in lockstep with their permitted world views. How would they even know anyone is dissenting? How would someone else at your work know to reach out to you? But even beyond that, you undermine the views you hold by being unwilling to stand by them. And should you simply stating your opinion that Israel is committing genocide get fired, perhaps long-term it would be for the best. And as I said, I don’t think anyone should be doxxed, but I think putting your name to your views and letting the chips fall should be encouraged.
I’m not going to risk my daughter’s livelihood for your 20th century ideals of accountability. I speak openly in-person about my thoughts and opinions. But I don’t see any reason to leave a trail of my ideas tied to my government-issued identity for future adversaries to comb through at their convenience.
Yeah, I mean, the founding fathers would like a word. Several used pen names.
Yeah, I mean, every member of the Illuminati adopted a pseudonym. If it’s good enough for the spooky fucks trying to rule the world, it’s good enough for me.
“You shouldn’t be doxed, but you should dox yourself.” Do you even read what you fucking write? Jebus.
yeah, I read it because I wrote it. Did you read the post? Seems like you did not.
best reply this week
The reply is retarded. You can’t dox yourself as doxxing is about having your info shared *against your wishes*.
>you cant dox yourself are you new to the internet or something?
your definition of dox is wrong btw
how would we know anyone is dissenting? maybe we could have anonymous elections? and say a few people with his beliefs could be elected? we could call this system democracy
To me this just reads that you care more about money then speaking your mind. Surely you could find another job to feed your family, but instead you prefer to keep your paycheck and support the same people that would blacklist you for speaking your mind with your labor. Maybe your representative of society at large, willing to keep their mouths shut for money. Paid off to hide their opinions. Maybe society should value freedom of speech over money.
You make a good point but I disagree. Anonymity is not the same as pseudonymity. On #Nostr your real name doesn’t matter, because your reputation is linked to your pseudonym. Forever. So there’s your skin in the game.
Yeah, you have *some* skin in the game, especially if you build up a following. But it’s not as powerful IMO as someone who is saying, “Yeah, that’s me IRL saying and believing these things, and standing up for my right to do so, even if other people are going to be mad about it.”
Absolutely right. But the current reality is that your opinions can have real world consequences, and most people are not in a position to risk their livelihoods on what they believe in. A separate online identity does provide that freedom. So in my opinion that’s a net win.
But think of it in game theory terms. It’s a net win to hide and post something rather than nothing for the individual, but at the cost of standing up and actually showing we are the many, and they are the few. Yes, some people might lose a job, just like some soldiers storming the beach at Normandy lost their lives. But you don’t win the war if no one is willing to fight for the cause. In this case the cause is a free and prosperous society rather than the dystopian shithole the WEF censor types are trying to bring about.
Yes. That works in theory. But in reality we aren’t organised like soldiers following a general into battle for a common belief or flag (and the fear of punishment for desertion). Instead we are decentralised individuals. And we’re organically using the means at our disposal to fight this battle in other ways. Using the power of encryption, reach and pseudonymity as both are defensive and offensive arsenal. That’s just us evolving into the Information Age.
I don’t mean to get too caught up on the war analogy, but more the Game Theory. Sometimes people settle on a suboptimal outcome for fear of a worse one, when if they cooperated, they would get a far better one. The fact is if everyone who believed trans women playing women’s sports is a joke, said so loudly and under their real names, that shit never would have gotten started. I use this as a trivial example. But no one wanted to speak up because they could get cancelled, so we have this absurdities which we permit. We empower the tyrant by fearing him and validate the censor by not exercising our rights to free speech, consequences be damned. Encryption is for private messages. I’m talking about ideas you want to see proliferate in the public square.
You make good points, ser. Thanks for this discussion 🫡
thanks — appreciate your engaging on this respectfully and in good faith.
Likewise 💜
exactly
Some great comments here. Allow me to blather a bit. "By only voicing your dissent anonymously you are reinforcing the frame of the censor" - by discouraging anonymity you reinforce the power of the censor, not just directly, but also indirectly by causing people to mindlessly self-censor and never realize they might actually believe the forbidden stance if they entertained it. "So what to make of the fact that the world's first decentralized, peer-to-peer content protocol is filled with anonymous handles? The optimistic view is it's just a remnant of centralized media where someone really could throttle your reach or de-platform you for wrong-think, and anonymity were more necessary." - Bitcoin is pseudonymous. Nostr is less so. I think humans have a flaw, and that is that we have a hard time loving people in the real world that we know think differently than us. Sometimes we kill them. Sometimes we simply don't hire them. That's why we have laws to protect freedom of speech. Laws that don't prevent people from being hired by a private company because of wrong think. A lawsuit is so much more messy than just being a nym and not having to deal with it at all. Anonymity tempers those weakness. "creativity-killing self-censorship resulting therefrom" - yeah once the net effect on creativity is 50/50 maybe we start discouraging nym use. For now, it doesn't even close. Anecdotally, a while ago I said something to a friend that could easily have gotten me cancelled in the recent environment. For 24 hours I stressed over whether he would go to the presses. I watch as my mind convinced myself I didn't mean it. No wait, i did! I couldn't have.. In the end I had no idea whether the gears of social pressure and possible exile had changed my mind, or whether I had actually discovered my error. What data could we use to inform whether we should be discouraging or encouraging nym use?
1. I disagree — the censor has no power because NOSTR exists. No one can cause you to self-censor once you realize your expression can’t be stopped. Only you are self-censoring. 2. Bitcoin is money so pseudonymity is a reasonable expectation. When I buy something I’m not intending to announce it to the world. Social media is the opposite — I am precisely announcing it to the world. And stop working for people who would fire you for dissent! 3. No one is saying your private communication with a friend should be public. I’m taling about things you are posting in the public square.
Lmk if you’d like a more detailed response, but pressed for time at the moment, it sounds like we are feeling out the tension between social regulation / correlation of thought as a good and a bad thing. I think both parts are there. I just think (maybe too optimistically given the number of Q followers) that we will get used to the fact that nyms haven’t supplied the proof of willingness to get negatively affected by their opinions and therefore should value them more when they say edgy stuff. 🫂 I do think the rise of LLMs wil bring this question to a head. I don’t want to talk to an LLM all day, my mind gradually bending to its hidden agenda. Only real humans please. Preferably respectable ones.
Value them more = value non-anonymous accounts more on edgy stuff *
nostr is less pseudonymous than bitcoin?
well said otherwise
Address reuse is rampant haha. I suppose we could post as a new one each time..
This is one of the only places left on this fucking Internet where people can speak without fearing they'll get banned or have their lives ruined over their opinions, and you want to discourage that?
obviously you didn’t read the post
I did read it, you want to discourage anonymity. My point is it's anonymity that gives people the freedom to truly speak their mind.
Exactly. Your point is that without anonymity you wouldn’t speak your mind. And that’s a problem that you can’t only blame on the State.
You want people to suffer real life consequences for voicing their thoughts on the Internet, when you know damn well the outrage mob will take great pleasure in going after those that say the wrong thing. It must be really fortunate for you, where every thought you have is in line with the group think.
LOl, what a ridiculous statement. I was one of those they went after on Twitter. But I’m glad I said what I said because I had a right to say it, and I also happen to correct in almost every case.
what is rediculous about it as it seems fine to me? maybe he is off on you? you seem quite close to reasonable in your speech so really why would you worry?
Alright, I was a bit unfair. I don't know you, good on you for standing up for what you believe. I agree with some of your points, like this one: "By only voicing your dissent anonymously you are reinforcing the frame of the censor, validating his contention that no decent person would hold your view." You're right, but there is a massive power imbalance. Everyone who speaks is made an example of. It's just not possible to speak freely and without fear when your livelihood and safety are threatened over it. Most of us cannot afford it. Knowing who you are is an implicit threat that the system holds against you. It's not a coincidence that all major social media platforms are cracking down on anonymous accounts. So I disagree that anonymous speech should be discouraged. On the contrary, I think we need to re-normalize it. By doing so, we normalize the idea that it's ok to share your opinion without having to fear for your life.
dont apologized, he is displaying typical glownigger behaviour
Yes, I address that power imbalance in the post. But the remedy IMO isn’t to hide, but the opposite. The only reason they can get away with going after your livelihood is that so few people are saying the real shit under their real names. If we all did it, that would end. It’s like saying — how are we going to storm the castle, we might get killed. Yes, but if 100 million people storm the castle, the castle will surrender. Key is to convince people that we are the many and they are the few. And anonymity undermines that.
When you got banned from Twitter, it didn't achieve anything. Musk buying it is the only thing that changed it, for better or worse. Countless people got banned from Facebook and it meant nothing. Just another voice that can no longer be heard. People will never spontaneously rise up against anything, that is a myth. We change little by little, by discussing and sharing ideas. Eventually small changes lead to big things. All totalitarian regimes are obsessed with controlling access to information. It's information that is the real danger, they would love nothing more than to have people stand up for what they believe in. It saves them having to find them.
I didn’t get banned from Twitter. A mob of angry psychos came after me. And many people told me they appreciated the way I stood my ground and didn’t let it shut me up. But I fundamentally disagree with your premise which is that they are strong, and we are weak. That we need to hide because they’ll get us, and if we show ourselves we’re doomed. No. If I’m a totalitarian regime I want everyone thinking like that. I want them too scared to stand up. The last thing I want is every citizen to avail himself of his free speech rights and tell me to fuck off. Then they have a problem. It is not they who are powerful and hunting me. I’m am the predator and they should be terrified of the reckoning for what they have done the last three years to our basic liberties and to our institutions. I will see to it they are prosecuted to the extent I can. I just need to persuade frightened people to come along. And I will. One at a time if I have to.
People never stand up against totalitarian regimes, those regimes rot from the inside and eventually fall to coups. Most coups are dressed as revolutions, but they aren't. They never are. There is no power in the unorganized masses. The sheep could all band together and trample the dog but they never do. They never will. If you want to go after those in power, you need to orchestrate power of your own. Presumably your vote matters, so what better way to influence that vote than changing people's minds. You can't do that if you get de-platformed and fired over it.
no thats physics
I’m not anon on here 😂 I see what you mean though. It doesn’t bother me, if people want to remain anon then that’s their prerogative. Sadly I could only read 1/4 of it as it wanted me to sign up. Glad to see that you are spending more time on Nostr than Twitter(yes I will always call it that) 💜🫂
It’s a free newsletter — should be able to read the whole thing. And again, I don’t think anyone should be forced, but if you want to grow NOSTR, and want there to be an ethos of free speech, people are gonna need to make that choice IMO.
You have wrote yourself into a catch-22. Either, A. The discourse is less genuine due to lack of skin in the game Or, B. The discourse is less genuine because people will self censor if they have too much skin in the game Further, You then state that claims are easier to verify if we know what credentials users have... This is part of fiat culture, not of a meritocracy. Ideas should stand (or fall) on their own merit (or lack thereof).
No, skin in the game is what enforces genuineness over the long haul. Because there’s a cost for being full of shit. And you don’t judge the truth of something based on credentials. You judge the motives/ of someone who works for Pfizer based on the fact that you know they must say and believe what they’re saying otherwise they couldn’t work there.
"Skin in the game" as you define it promotes group think. Just go look at any other social media platform...
without skin in the game you have people who stand for nothing, Other social media platforms could deplatform you. Now that’s no longer possible.
you can have skin in the game here with your social graph
well said
im actually a famous public figure influencer celeb but im staying anon on nostr
That’s great, but think about how many more people would come to a true free speech protocol if they knew you were here.
but also think how guarded they would have to be about what they say? i would rather anonymous celeb than nonanonymous talk in the space of ideas not identities
The way you show you believe in your idea is by attaching your name to it. Talk is cheap. Talk without skin in the game is the cheapest.
so you want people persecuted for their ideas? 'skin in the game', maybe pound of flesh lol anonymity is physics, natural law, it has been used by many famous people in history, many a pen name and spy who knows maybe 'chris liss' is not your first identity and not your last
I haven’t finished reading it yet so sorry if I misrepresent your views or if I ask something you already addressed in it but I immediately had a question that’d be helpful in understanding the point you’re making How do you define anonymity? Eg Is nostr:npub1r0rs5q2gk0e3dk3nlc7gnu378ec6cnlenqp8a3cjhyzu6f8k5sgs4sq9acanonymous? Anonymity is not a byproduct of social media cancel culture; pseudonymous users were the norm in Usenet and BBS days.
I define anonymity as unconnected to a person’s actual identity in real life.
always jews and feds railing against anonymity mr 'liss' anonymity is true protection of speech ai is a double edged sword remember that when someone trains one to post as you
always with “the jews” Stephan. Can’t respect someone who stoops to that in a respectful discussion like this.
not interested in your respect, but jews taking your position on this is a well recognized pattern
I think an account is always connected to an identity, Chris, it's just that it's not revealed to you, the reader. Also, anons have skin-in-the-game, the reputation of their pseudonymous accounts. This, with the quality of the arguments and ideas expressed, should matter, not the person who makes the argument.
I think the premise of the article is faulty; there is no “default anonymity” in nostr; there’s a name field and you enter there whatever you want, the alternative being what you explicitly denounce in the article, so I know that’s not what you’re proposing, KYC. It’s just a matter of early adopters who lean more towards being more privacy conscious and opting to use different names than what appears in their passport.
That’s not the point, though. Privacy is important, but we’re talking about *public* posts. Ideas.
I don’t buy the skin in the game argument. Even as a nym you have a reputation to lose. You’re always a mute button away from irrelevance.
Yeah, that’s why I wanted to dig in more on the definition of “anonymous”, the way I see it, you Karnage, have created a very important reputation, whether your parents or the state knows you as Karnage or Johnny is of no importance to me.
I covered this in the post. Skin in the game is one aspect of it, but you still have less, and there are many other aspects.
Sure there are trade offs in anything. But for society to thrive we must be able to express ourselves freely. Pseudonymity allows for that. You always have the choice to cage yourself in a very limited existence for the sake of feeling safe.
Yes, my argument is that you feel you need to hide behind a handle to express yourself freely means things have gone very wrong. And IMO the way to remedy that is to stand up for our rights in broad daylight. Otherwise, they will only further erode.
This to me sounds like showing up to a war and telling your front line to rush the enemy at their convenience. Unorganized and destined to fail.
The only thing that’s destined to fail is the strategy of staying anonymous while the censors take away more and more of our rights. If everyone stood up and told them to fuck off, the flight would be over today. And I can’t order anyone to do anything. I can only say, “Look, I’m going to charge, and I encourage you to back me up because we are in the right, and this is important.”
That’s not the reality we find ourselves in. With comforts of modern life you won’t have organized revolt. Even when it is organized, very few things change. See Canadian truckers. You don’t win by being loud, you take action. Vote with a brain not party lines, speak up when others have nothing to say, and don’t use their money. We have all the necessary tools at our disposal and it’s up to people to use them. Sadly, harder said than done - see bitcoiners on X.
Truckers are a good example. They won: https://www.sott.net/article/481158-The-Truckers-Won-Everything
didnt seem like they did
Have you lived in an oppressed country ? Have you been oppressed ? I'm guessing its a big No. For every Snowden and Assange, there are thousands out there in detention camps and prisons all over the world who have been there for years for saying something their govt didn't like. Welcome to reality
If you’re a gay person in Uganda, it’s pretty clear you shouldn’t be posting your real thoughts under your real name. That’s not the case for 80 percent of the people here with nyms though to whom the post is obviously addressed.
You are welcome to make a hybrid client that requires email and enforced real names and ask people to use it. If people agree with your take, maybe they will. There are many good reasons to use nyms. If you don’t agree, that’s fine.
You obviously didn’t read the post: Short term benefits and medium-term risks aside, I’m generally against the practice, though I wouldn’t go so far as to require platforms to KYC (Know Your Customer), and obviously doxxing people, barring proof they’ve committed a crime (a real one, not a thought crime) is wrong. In other words, I think it should be legal, but discouraged.
Ah yes, please do tell us who needs nyms and who does not. Should I also put my home address in the profile page next to my real name?
Strawman harder!
please post all personal details, be brave, help us all stand up
I like your profile pic. Very descriptive..🫂😊
I’m quite comfortable saying everything my handle says in real life with my real face and my real name. The internet is a very large public square and I don’t trust everyone in the whole world. I can build a reputation with my nym and grow a community of friends and trust. Then I can invite certain people in and exclude others from my real life. This isn’t hiding this is sensible and secure. I wear a digital outfit to cover the parts of myself that I don’t want to share with everyone. This isn’t fear it’s common sense.
This is actually the best objection to my post I’ve read today — and there have been many. There are a lot of psychos out there, and it’s why I’ll put pictures of my dog on social media, but never my daughter. But there’s a difference between social media activity of making friends and socializing vs voicing your views in the public square. With the former what you say makes a ton of sense. With the latter, I think it makes a big difference for things to come from a person for the reasons I said in the post.
I covered that in the post. You have *something* to lose, but not as much. And that’s not my primary argument against it.
It's a bitcoin thing.
Although I don't agree with the core of the article, I understand that it feels weird to interact with weird pictures as their avatars and non-human names all day, it makes everything look artificial and broken. I just wanted to point that on Nostr it would be very simple to have a "verified human" badge thing issued by some trustworthy organization attached to people that want to ensure everybody else they are human (and not just using some fake human name and picture as people could do too).
I don't think having such a thing would be a slippery slope and lead the entirety of Nostr to the KYC world. That would require non-human people to have their "protocol rights" restricted, like they're doing now on X.
And while I would *encourage* ditching the anon handles, I would never want to require it, or do what Elon is doing.
It feels a bit weird, but that’s not my main complaint (though IMO NOSTR would grow a lot faster were there more real names attached.) My main complaint is that while private communications and life details should remain private, public square posts should be with names attached to the extent we want a robust public square and to beat back censorship. And yes, it’s true anyone can pose as a real-life person while faking it, but I’m more talking about nyms who are obviously real people and encouraging them to post under their real names. The issue of verifying that is separate, though obviously important in that case. I love the platform, BTW — just think now that we have this freedom tech, it’s the time to stand up for the courage of our convictions in the open.
What makes any name less real than another? Reputation and respect can be built and attached to any name. Security and cryptographic verification of accounts is far more important.
I posted about it. In real-life reptuational risk adds skin in the game. But more importantly it sends the message that the censors are wrong, and you’re willing to stand up (with that real life skin in the game) for what you believe. Nyms undermine that because you’re only willing to say it under the condition it can never get back to you.
I will reiterate my same comment again. Reputation can be attached to any name. And with real money and value attached to any account the skin in the game is just as real but with the added advantage of better op sec. We are at war on multiple fronts and there are plenty of advantages to having multiple names in all of them
Yes, I get it, but having real skin in the game (the state knows who you are) makes your dissent much more powerful than if you are only saying it while invisible and unaccountable. How many followers you have is small potatoes, especially when the reason you got those followers was from dissenting anyway.
The state doesn’t need to know who we are for us to undermine them. And In fact it only takes them loosing account and control over a small percentage to bring it all down. This doesn’t even require any posting, just individual action. And btw we are way later in the game than you think
You might be right that we’re late in the game, and it’s teetering, but one way it would collapse for sure is if millions of people in regular jobs just told the truth as they see it rather than pretending to go along.
This sounds like it’s framing nostr (like many have with Twitter before) as largely a platform for political discourse. Much talk on this platform has nothing to do with spouting beliefs or political agendas. Many here talk about their computer setups, running nodes and relays, the lightning network, 3D printing, and other hobbies/endevours. Some do so in places where it’s not legal/acceptable. Others, like myself, simply do not owe the world the right for our personal tech infrastructure to be doxed. We’re also not talking about a centralized platform, but an open protocol, that if scales and succeeds, the features and freedoms of one’s npub/nsec traversing the internet, now forever tied with a “real ID” in your argument, is a double-edged sword with potentially frightening consequences.
Yes, I used to have an anon handle on Twitter to ask technical questions too. I didn’t use it as a substitute for my political opinions (though I did occasionally slip into posting some there for a minute.) There are times and places for it (as I stated clearly in the post). And yes, I’m talking about social media as the public square. In that case I think most people should speak up about things under their own names and be counted. Ironically the entire reason why there’s some risk in having your views out there with your name attached is that fewer people are willing to do it. I’d like to see this risk reversed by everyone posting as though it was their right. Because it is.
The internet’s a big place out there. I don’t need someone sending a swat team to my house because they don’t agree with something I said. Using a real name puts a disproportionate amount of power in an attacker’s hands.
At the individual level that’s true, but hiding behind anon handles puts the power in their hands at scale. It means we’ve agreed we can’t speak our minds openly.
I speak my mind openly in meatspace, too. There’s a big difference between engaging in meatspace and engaging online and the risks inherent in each.
Right, my point is if you take the risk of doing so online, it’s a personal one. If you avoid the risk, it’s a societal one. In the unlikely event the state wants to get you, it will. But if no one speaks out under their name, we will have a state so empowered, it will usher in a dystopia for everyone. That’s why one *should* take the risk now while it’s still relatively small in many places. That’s the gist of the post.
The state has enough resources it could deanonymize me through countless means. I am not so naive as to think that’s what I’m doing. This is more to protect myself from some bored internet rando who decides to harass me or my loved ones, or a retroactively-applied rule about what is socially acceptable to say. I appreciate your candor and civility. Hopefully I’m not adding to a dogpile for you.
One of my gripes is seeing people try nostr and give up because they don't find anyone they know posting. They have friends on here, but can't find them because they're hiding behind nyms.
Wait, but why don't their friends tell them what their nym is?
That would be bad opsec
That’s a 150 iq move
80 IQ pleb here 🫡
Haystacks
Why don't we, ourselves, verify each other? People who we know personally and know they Nostr profiles. Also users who we do not know but follow and have read a whole bunch of their notes, and we see others are interacting with them. The more verifications a user has the more genuine his account is. For example, we all could now verify your account because we can acknowledge your identity, and you can be the first person verified. Than you start verifying other users and so on. We will build a verification network whish is transparent, a spider web of interactions. Of course, we need a verification button for that reason. Births, marriages, deaths all had witnesses for ages, and for the same reason to verify the event or person. And, why our digital identity has to be the same as our government ID? This probably has advances and limitations but could be worked on.
I am firmly against any type of verification even by friends. It makes it seem as if verified person’s note carries any more credibility than anon, it doesn’t.
I mean isn’t that what nostrocket spaceman is? https://nostrocket.github.io/spaceman/
I do think badges are the perfect solution for this. Verify whatever you want, issued by whomever. One-off pubkeys could also be used to prevent people from correlating badges about a single person. Also, private badges?
i'm quite curious about how to make a keychain for identity, since this can dramatically strengthen the security of the signatures. i never did read up on how xpubs work, maybe i need to look at this soon. i'm working on a keychain right now, and this would be an opportunity to establish a method to do this with nostr.
I'm current working on this, and published a nostr-access-control library (https://github.com/neilck/nostr-access-control) as a proof of concept. As I work through the front-end app through, that library will probably change. 1. When applying for a group membership badge, a user must have all the required admission badges, including a "not-a-bot badge" issued by an web app running Captcha. 2 When using a Nostr app, app can promote notes and other content from people who share the same membership badges. We fight spam by promoting the relevant content versus trying to surpress the negative content.
Whenever I hear the pseudonymity “skin in the game” argument, it seems always framed in a manner that centers around speech and accountability of an individual to a wider (very much anonymous) internet community. But this accountability tradeoff we know is not an equal one. To appease one cyber landlord in this manner (so Jordan Peterson can sleep well at night) is to expose oneself, family, and sometimes community to myriad vulnerabilities. It’s not a fair trade, it never has been, and #nostr fixes this. The internet will always be an opaque arena in one way or another, it’s crucial that it remains that way. The alternative is a dystopian nightmare. The freedom to choose here is the point. If you desire verified human faces to interact with on the internet, don’t worry, your wish is coming true.
I addressed all of that in the post. And I don’t care about Jordan Peterson. You are not posting under your name to appease anyone — it’s to exercise your own rights and beat back the censors. Do you realize people were canceled for saying trans women shouldn’t compete against real women in sports, even though that was a majority opinion? The only reason that happened is because people went along with it even though they knew it was ridiculous. That’s what you’re doing under a nym. Going along with everything then dissenting in a place where it can’t be counted.
Actually, anonymity not only protects us from the Almighty State, but also from being ostracised by our peers. It'd be suicidal to go into an unfair fight without adequate armour.
I fought that fight on Twitter (and that was a bit rough as they tagged my job) and I see the same straw-man, out-of-context, personal insults going on here, even with my tepid (I’d *encourage but not require* people to post under their real name) take. But sticks and stones. They won’t shut me up.
I’m not here to spout politics, there’s enough of that on other platforms. I’m interested in keeping up with the latest technology, interacting with it, and being around the bitcoin community with the most signal. I sort of get the “stand and be counted” argument you’re making but I can’t get around unbalanced tradeoffs it creates. Sure, you get to stand for a greater cause and “the man” or whomever can audit and say, wow look, all these real people have a belief. For me it gets back to—verifiable to whom? Also the platform is such right now that zaps are fairly transparent. Nostr has pulled back the veil in certain regards and put “faces” and names with certain lightning transactions. Requiring verifiable humans, I feel opens a can of worms around financial sovereignty.
yeah, I can see that — as I said I created a separate account to ask technical questions for op sec reasons too. But yeah, I don’t think it’s so much about particular verifiability as there can always be fakes, but generally if people were really fed up with something, and it was just posted openly by prominent and regular people alike, the State would take notice in a hurry. I would also like to see financial transactions to be as private as possible where desired. Maybe there’s a way for NOSTR to join zaps in a pool and unjoin them to obscure it to third parties.
It’s a good discourse to have. Got me thinking this morning for sure. Thank you and followed. 🫡
likewise, I appreciate the good-faith back and forth.
My chief complaint about nostr is people complaining about nostr on nostr nostr:nevent1qqsqd98n0wx99rpcar97ahz5nux8q50jfjewtzh2vrwsq6d34su66scpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qygr26032xjqck9fus86gck85fegenea5ljxmuduppgqqmn3ujzmhgqpsgqqqqqqs7fjny7
may complaint is we don’t have enough people on nostr complaining about nostr
Tell me you're a #boomer without telling me you're a #boomer
Boomer? FFS, I don’t look that old in my profile pick, do I?
there are countries where people can get killed for what they say online, the First Amendment offers them no protection using real names on the internet for social was a mistake, the only people it benefits are influencers
As I said in the post, there are times and places for it. For most of us, IMO that is not the case, and we help bring about a state of affairs where it is the case by not standing up for our rights under our real names.
your post though?? “The anonymous handles, then, are soon-to-be-discarded relics of centralized platforms en route to a real public square, protected by the First Amendment and enforced by an unstoppable protocol.” I find this to be true and important, Freedom is “[t]he ability not to have an identity that one carries from sphere to sphere but, rather, to be able to slip in and adopt whatever values and norms are appropriate while retaining one’s identities in other domains[.]” (Elizabeth Anderson, American philosopher) This is much harder to do if you use your real name on social.
That’s an opinion, worth thinking about, but I would define it a bit differently. I like the idea of integrity in the literal sense where you are the same person publicly and privately. That’s freedom to me, not having to pander to the particular crowd du jour. It’ll make some people mad, but how can you be free if you need everyone not to be mad at you?
perhaps, but some people have different interest and share their values with different people for specific reasons public/private doesn’t scale on social and one dimensional public characters still seem to add value to the conversation, but not everyone wants to be rewarded for that financially by giving up their anonymity online encouraging people “to selectively reveal oneself to the world” also helps others maintain their privacy
>“First, a post with a real identity attached is inherently more credible because that person’s reputation will suffer if they are dishonest, lazy or simply a poor judge of what’s happening.” Tell that to Gigi. He’s got more credibility than you or I here and he’s a nym. That nym is it’s own identity with its own personality and reputation. I could describe more about Gigi, his worldview and his personality, than I could my neighbour and I have a degree of trust in him that his repeated correct actions have established where I’d sooner listen to him than my neighbour. This post seems like Boomer projection because it’s what you are comfortable with; you haven’t understood why many use nyms (you made false assumptions) probably because you’ve interacted with the internet very differently than people 5-10-20 years younger than you have.
First off, I’m not a boomer! FFS, does my picture make me look that old? And this really seems like nitpicking. That a post with an identity attached is inherently more credible is not counterfeited by the existence of certain highly credible nyms or not credible identified posters. It just means all things being equal, there is a credibility gain by using your real identity. Which is self-evidently true. And that is only one of the three arguments and not even the most important one.
I didn’t want to do the Reddit post dissection thing but I did disagree with the entirety of your article, I just picked on the first point as it was glaringly obvious. That you took the bait of my Boomer comment shows the value of NOT putting your face in a pfp. You gave something away whilst knowing nothing of me, you’re immediately at a disadvantage in that dynamic and I used it for a reaction and got it. That’s what I’m referring to in you not understanding how younger ppl interact online and are projecting. I could continue the troll here but it’s already illustrated my point so I’ll refrain and try to be kind. You can’t have it both ways claiming nyms lack credibility and then conceding highly credible individuals use nyms. I don’t know you from a bar of soap, this is our first interaction on #nostr - I could point to a hundred nyms who have a greater reputation than you and whose opinions are more credible than yours so where has your real name and picture gotten you other than trolled? Your second point is tied to the first - nyms have reputations. Just because you don’t ascribe credibility is meaningless - others do. And your most important point I did address with my point that you have false assumptions of why ppl use nyms. I reject your frame that I’m assuming the censors frame, that’s NOT why ppl use nyms. And not only am I not cedeing a right to free speech, your contention of that being an absolute right is myopically American - I’ve lived across the world and seen the spectrum of speech, you’ve applied your narrow lens and assumptions with little appreciation for what this looks like elsewhere and why nyms are useful generally whether it’s here or elsewhere.
Dude, I don’t give a shit if you’re mocking my photo because I picked that photo and I’m good with it. I stand by it.(I was just making a joke because I am not a boomer.) Just as I stand by the content of my posts with my name on it. You are neither at an advantage nor being kind. And you are nitpicking again! You know what I meant by identity conferring credibility, and that I’m not known on NOSTR or in the bitcoin space and many nyms are does not change that obvious fact. And you did not address my most important point which was to the extent you have fundamental rights (I don’t live in the US anymore BTW), you should exercise them, lest you lose them. I explicitly said anonymity is warranted in some cases, but I suspect for most of the nyms on NOSTR it’s fear of consequences of free speech. Which undermines the right itself.
Ok Boomer. If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry. - some guy with no credibility, reportedly
No need to take it personally! I don’t even know who you are!
I just don't want every boring comment I'd make coming up in a search engine for my name.. Always hated Facebook for their real name policy. Tagging everything online to your real name plus something like Google glass etc sounds hellish to me.
Best objection I’ve heard!
Just read at least to the 50%, and my only thought is that even when 80%+ of accounts are anonymous the general feeling is way better here than on Twitter where sometimes it seems to become a Battle Royale. Personally here on Nostr the only thing I have found is support, nothing else, and this from other accounts that are anonymous. I think the main thing here is that here is no incentive to say stupid things, or write for clout in the sense of generating polemic in any way as if the first people don't find you post appealing they won't like or zap you, there is also nothing like a "For you" tab, which means no biased algorithms, the closest thing is the trending filter on Primal where you find the most liked posts which tend to be pretty useful or nice personal posts like pics of food, family, or projects, and the comments are nothing more than "good vibes" or constructive criticism. In Twitter for one of these pics or posts you get a couple of likes, some troll talking crap about anything on the picture, or basically no one gives a damn about it.
I think there’s a lot of support because people share a lot of political and world views here. But post about how anonymity should be discouraged on a protocol with 80% nyms, and people get pissed! That’s okay — just reminded me a lot more of Twitter than at any time before posting it.
I got so many questions after reading this. *encourage whom? History is full of meaninful writings and art released under pseudonyms for a reason. Would you *encourage Satoshi to write white paper under his "real" identity? What are you even referring by "real" identity? If I want to identified as 21seasons, is that somehow less "real" than my other names/identities? Isn't it up to everyone to decide what's real and what name they identify themselves by?
If you’re asking about Satoshi you didn’t read the post.
Even though I disagree, I always like a good LOTR analogy. Just because you post under a nym doesn't mean there is no cost. Whether it is a nym or true name you can lose reputation. It takes time and is hard to build reputation and you can burn that in an instant. That reputation is valuable psychologically, socially, and/or monetarily. There are many nyms that are more credible and trustworthy to me (because they have been around so long and proven themselves) than some people who post using their true identities (either because they are new or have shown themselves to be dishonest/wrong all the time.) You also don't have to choose. You can have your true name and multiple nyms that are unconnected and use those nyms to freely speak and work out more controversial or even dangerous topics depending where you are from. While I agree with you that free speech and being yourself "should" be normal and the honest and upright "should" always be able to post as themselves, that is not the reality of the world we live in. I don't think we will ever live in that world. We can only get closer and farther. Anonymity helps offset the asymmetric advantage that the powerful and corrupt have. Like you said, Frodo uses the ring to hide from powerful foes many times where he would've been captured or killed. He even uses it for good on occasion. The ring is just a tool. It is not good or bad. The person is the one that uses it for good or bad. That's how I look at it. You can always disassociate from the bad faith and troll nyms by muting. But I found it isn't really an issue in my experience.
I do find it courageous when someone chooses to put their true identity's reputation on the line for something controversial or dangerous that they believe in since they can't run away from that.
Yes, he uses ring when necessary, but the ring exerts a pull and a temptation on him (and everyone else) that will lead to abuse which is why Gandalf refuses it, and why only the humblest creatures (hobbits) were suited to carry out of the task of destroying it. Gandalf’s character wouldn’t have survived the task without “becoming like the dark lord himself” as he admits.
Stop using substack it’s lame sauce
Sort of agree though the platform makes it easy for me. What do you suggest?
You’re here already my friend.
haven’t found the right client to post with links and italics, etc.
There’s got to be one I would think.
Was messing around with Habla, but couldn’t really figure it out, though I didn’t devote much time to it.
If you’re looking for long form content, there’s a nostr client called https://habla.news and it’s awesome. Also went through your article, your take about nyms being harder to maintain with AI is interesting, also when you accept the weirdness that comes with nyms, nostr becomes even more fun, even if it’s for a short while as you pointed out 🤙 I’m all for nostr profiles with real names, and we’re seeing more of those as the protocol is growing.
It's always about choice. YOUR choice. You should always have the option of maximum privacy, or not. For a specific activity. In the final analysis it's about personal liberty. We can never tolerate the situation we have today with so-called #covid #vaccines. We can never tolerate invasive medical or government interventions being forced on healthy uninfected, non-contagious individuals. As a condition of exercising their FULL! human rights (work, school, play, travel etc). Every ethical medical expert will tell you that you don't vaccinate people to protect other people. That's unethical, criminal and Stupid! Look what they did to you. Mass murdered Millions of YOU!..💀👺👹🍆😠