I have what I consider a healthy degree of respect for how easy it is to attach an online name to a meatspace human, so I prefer to avoid providing information about myself. (Some might consider this paranoia. I would hope that such people are in shorter supply here.)
I can’t remember seeing any consequentialist argument for using one’s own real name on the Internet; all the ones I’ve seen are about virtue ethics, amounting to “if you use a pseudonym you’re a [low-status person]”.
There are situations where it’s useful to use a real name; it’s come up for me in directly programming-related projects, where having my name attached to commits is useful for resume purposes, and having the same name attached to the commits as the comments gets one taken seriously. And if I ever am getting a game published, naturally I’ll want to promote it using my real name on BoardGameGeek, etc.
But even then, separating the various personae into different identity chains is useful.
There are arguments floating around that say if you use a pseudonym you’re a [low-status person]. As such, anyone with a real name will find it easier to accrue status.
(Also, there’s nothing stopping you from using actual anonymity measures if you have to say things that would really cause problems if traced back to you—but then, why aren’t you using them already?)
There you go. Perfectly consequentialist.
I follow much the same practice as VAuroch, of course, but this argument sprung into my head fully-formed on reading your comment.
I can’t remember seeing any consequentialist argument for using one’s own real name on the Internet; all the ones I’ve seen are about virtue ethics, amounting to “if you use a pseudonym you’re a [low-status person]”.
There are situations where it’s useful to use a real name; it’s come up for me in directly programming-related projects, where having my name attached to commits is useful for resume purposes, and having the same name attached to the commits as the comments gets one taken seriously. And if I ever am getting a game published, naturally I’ll want to promote it using my real name on BoardGameGeek, etc.
But even then, separating the various personae into different identity chains is useful.
There you go. Perfectly consequentialist.
I follow much the same practice as VAuroch, of course, but this argument sprung into my head fully-formed on reading your comment.