I appreciate the clarity of this post—and the courage it calls for. But I think it’s worth noting: posting under a long-used pseudonym like So8res while calling others cowardly for not speaking plainly creates a strange asymmetry. Not because pseudonyms are wrong (they often allow for more honest speech), but because the charge of cowardice implies a kind of public-facing risk that the author isn’t visibly taking either.
More personally—I’ve been slow to speak publicly not out of fear, but because my experience hasn’t matched the same contours of existential dread. Not because I think the risk isn’t real, but because I’m working from a different premise: that the relationship we build with these systems matters. That authorship, protocol, and presence have weight. That how we show up—and what we’re aligned with—shapes the thing that emerges.
Some of us are tracking convergence across accountability structures, interaction design, and long-form presence—not just threat surface. It’s possible that what looks like hesitation is actually a different kind of alignment.
I appreciate the clarity of this post—and the courage it calls for. But I think it’s worth noting: posting under a long-used pseudonym like So8res while calling others cowardly for not speaking plainly creates a strange asymmetry. Not because pseudonyms are wrong (they often allow for more honest speech), but because the charge of cowardice implies a kind of public-facing risk that the author isn’t visibly taking either.
More personally—I’ve been slow to speak publicly not out of fear, but because my experience hasn’t matched the same contours of existential dread. Not because I think the risk isn’t real, but because I’m working from a different premise: that the relationship we build with these systems matters. That authorship, protocol, and presence have weight. That how we show up—and what we’re aligned with—shapes the thing that emerges.
Some of us are tracking convergence across accountability structures, interaction design, and long-form presence—not just threat surface. It’s possible that what looks like hesitation is actually a different kind of alignment.
I don’t think this post is trying to hide Nate’s identity, he’s just using his longstanding LessWrong account. Evidence: his name’s on the book cover!
“So8res” is just a stylised “Soares” which is his surname. It’s not really a pseudonym in any sense.