“Expression is pointless in an anonymous society”
And today we are taking an even less grammatically correct alternative direction, thanks to my good friend Mike. In a jestful converse about the importance of expression in the online community - the surprising importance of expression - for me - the blog has helped me more than it has my visitors. To me, that was surprising, I am actually one of those people who always saw blogs as “vanity blogs”.
Seriously though, what a great statement “Expression is pointless in an anonymous society”. I am actually quite sad that I did not come up with such a bold statement myself. This is one for the quote books! goddamn! Not because it is factually correct of course, but because there is a very real source of my friends inspiration in saying what he did. It (ironically) tells us more about Mike’s expression than him starting a blog.. and I think Mike will find that interesting, when it occurs to him. Actually he’s a smart guy, he probably has worked it out already.
I went on to tell my friend was so right, in that - expression was meant to be pointless in a society that was meant to be anonymous.
I established with my learned colleague that the idea of MAC and IP addresses, router tables, and log files was to , very much so, keep track of users online. I went on to express how over 99% of the population is IN FACT not anonymous and a proprotion of that 99% is not even aware of it.
I feel that the internet was meant to be anonymous, but ended up being abused, and often followed by intrinsically open systems - a closing occurs, of major proportion. Something I like to call the atypical and expected over-reaction compensation - in an attempt to “re-align/re-balance” the anonymous system that fails due to something specific like “anonymous fraud” can only result in a flip-flop like reaction of concern and intimidation. Usually, as with most matters those who suffer from the lack of an anonymous system are more likely to be in the majority , than not, and even more likely to be innocent of any targeted crime.
It’s important to note that in recent surveys a totally shocking number of people admit to or have broken the law in some way online. To me, thats actually not shocking… anonymous systems become abused, and eventualy become un-anonymous - much like - secure systems can only become less secure over time, fact. As is the cycle of most items.
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