Milan Kundera observes in Life is Elsewhere that adolescence is the time we try on different masks as we walk across the stage. It's a great quote; I have it written down but not here. Sherry Turkle wrote a whole book on the phenomenon back in '95; she's a developmental psychologist who got deep into "computers" and how we interact with them back in 1984. Her point was that adolescents and young adults put on personas, as documented by Erik Erickson and others, but that doing so on the Internet allows people to have a much lower entry and exit cost than ever before which makes the relationships that much more tenuous.

Jaron Lanier talks about the difference between anonymity and pseudonymity in You are Not a Gadget but he doesn't really get into the disconnects we all feel between pseudonymity and identity. I think these two issues are the biggest source of friction communities like Hubski face: young adults attaching and detaching from pseudonyms while also attempting to determine their identity, and old fucks who are as committed to their pseudonyms as they are to their brand of toothpaste who don't suffer people with no skin in the game.

Back in the heyday of Reddit, five different "power users" were the same person. He got a job, aged out, and that was that.

I'm well aware that I'm the elephant in the room here. To me, the issue is that ideas should be put forth to be defended or debated in order to refine thinking and persuade others to your cause. To others, the issue is that ideas should be put forth to reinforce your self-esteem as people agree with them. I mean, that's Facebook in a nutshell - like my post or unfollow me. And under that paradigm - the paradigm of "engagement" - it's difficult to develop a culture of disagreement. It's difficult to create a space where someone else can be wrong but not your enemy. And so very, very many ideas on the Internet these days are deadly. Your right to bear arms kills black people. Simple as that. Your libertarian worldview creates poverty. Simple as that. And many of our dearly departed didn't like having their favorite ideas challenged.

Not sorry.