http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-ways-to-shirk-responsibility-deceive-your-way-to-trust/

@PE

lol

I don't think anyone seriously considers it as a valid excuse.

Then why do they keep saying it? Do *they* think it's a valid excuse? Do they do it just so that we feel bad for them, even though they're dicks?

Oh hell no. I'm an asshole in real life too. I think most do it to try and convince themselves they aren't bad people. Admittedly, I'm more of an assmonkey here than in real life, but I can be one in real life as well.

Oh it's a good day for me to whoop somebody's ass.
It's a bad day so you better get off my back.
You might get cold cocked if you cross my path.
Cause it's a great day for me to whoop somebody's ass.

Don't worry, Draug, this thread isn't about you : )

I guess my real question is, haven't we gotten to the point where there's almost no tangible difference between on/offline?

We are reaching that poitn, which is why I try to tone down the rhettoric on occasion. But there is still a level of anonymity if you want it. With free email accounts for the taking from Google and Yahoo that can be used to register accounts on other sites that don't trace back to one's real identity, anonimity is still possible. I don't hind behind my nick as anyone can google Draugnar and find the real me, but others do.

People who claim to be different IRL are stuck in the 90s when people had a real identity and an online identity. Now, the two are one in the same. I find that people are bigger asshats on sites that allow a screen name that is not a real name.

@Draug

That's why I say "perceived" anonymity. You'd be surprised how many people use their real email with this site. If they don't, I'm sure most people don't go further than making a second email account. And, I'm sure no one goes further than setting up a proxy. But, give me a couple hours and I can find anyone's name/address even with a proxy server, so they really aren't hiding.

Using an excuse like that means you got your ass whooped online and try to save your dignity behind the smokescreen of real life. It means you don't have the balls to take the responsibility for the stuff your internet persona did. You either have a problem with controlling your temper, lack any sense of foresight to measure the impacts of what you might cause online or are just a regular idiot.

@uly - I claim the last one of those. :-)

@abgemacht - If they only access from public environments or using cell phones, you might find it a bit more difficult. With free wifi everywhere nowadays, you don't even have to warchalk to get online anonymously.

Yes, cell phones and public wifi makes things harder, but I'd suspect most people who offend you so bad you want to find them are living in their mom's basement, not travelling the world, logging in from starbucks.

Let's see, with the proxy here at work you could probably figure out where I worked, but I wonder if you could figure out who I was from it.

You already know who I am, but go ahead and take a shot and see what you can learn from this post. It'll be an interesting exercise.

No, I couldn't find out just by that. But, most people are lazy on the internet and it makes it easy to connect the dots.

You're easy because you freely state who you are, but a lot of people don't realize that things such as mailing lists can be easily acquired, which attach a name to an email.

You're not a regular idiot, Draug. You're a special boy ;)

Why, thank you, uly. Actually, I'm a bit of all three of your listings, especially when my meds are out of whack.

The symptoms are still much milder than krellin's even though his med works perfectly!

Well, I just have actually medical problems (fucked up thyroid and diabetes). I'm not the poster child for AA failures. :-)

I guess someone who served by the Corps doesn't even notice such inconveniences. Still, hope you get better treatment for it than Gladys in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJnZtcY5-Mk

Now *that* was totally fucking hillarious! And yeah, I've got better meds than Gladys, but levothyroxine, glyburide, metformin, and actos aren't gonna get you stoned, although they may put you in a low blood sugar coma and cause your thyroid to explode from overstimulation. :-)

Well, at least you don't have to engage in any extreme sports to test the limits of your body!

Everything is recorded in the modern world, but certain evidences are harder to track down than others. See my thread "On lying." for an exposition.

Ha! Moving is an extreme sport (sort of), but I wouldn't last 5 minutes on a soccer/football field, much less grinding a rail or shooting a half pipe.

I suspect that the putative freedom and anonymity of the Internet allows people to either be more truly themselves online (a scary thought, given some posts) or to try on various identities for fun.

The old rule is still the best: Pretend your spouse/grandma/mom/imam/authority figure you actually respect is watching whatever you type. Or, imagine that everything you've ever typed anywhere and not erased with a powerful magnet will be discovered by opposition researchers when you finally take the plunge and run for political office.

A great way to think of the forums is as conversation around the table while playing a boardgame. Even if you're being whupped in-game, you want to enjoy the social time and build relationships.

Ges +1 - especially "A great way to think of the forums is as conversation around the table while playing a boardgame. Even if you're being whupped in-game, you want to enjoy the social time and build relationships."

I talk a lot of shit online, but rarely is it mean-spirited. I'm much more aggressive online, but my personality isn't THAT different. And I have a funny story about being found online, but we'll wait just a moment on that.

I'll mention things that I've done in real life that are good, but never as a "I'm not really an asshole" measure. My best "I'm not really an asshole" measure is to say, "I'm sorry, I'm not really an asshole" when someone points out that I've greatly offended them.

So. My real life name is Mike Weaver, which is one of the most generic names you'll ever find. I was on a site once that, once I got moderator-ship, required me to change from my screenname to "Mike Weaver", and I resisted that at first until I realized something that made me understand it's not a big deal. Even then, many years ago, the internet had no anonymity. I had made the mistake of using my Real Work E-Mail to sign up for that site and didn't hide my e-mail (it was a small site at the time, like 20 members). I also used the number of my extension at work as the random number after my original screenname, since I was trying to use something pretty generic. An underage girl from that site started sending me naked pictures, unsolicited, at my work e-mail and also figured out how to call me when someone told her what the numbers after my name were. I managed to get it taken care of as "unsolicited" by the IT department and got her phone and e-mail blocked, but it caused a significant loss of face.

That's from my e-mail address and screenname.

Now, another friend of mine spent four months accidentally calling the wrong Mike Weavers in the phone book before finally getting my number. So. Finding me in real life with knowledge of my name and where I lived was harder than finding me on the internet.

So, Mike, how underage was "underage"? Was she 16 or 17? If so, I might be willing to risk the kiddie porn issues.

J/K of course. I only like my 16 year old girls naked in person, where I can't get arrested for it. Oh the irony. Have sex with a 16 year old in KY or OH and get hi fives fromyour friends (and disowned by your family) but take pictures of two 16 year old girls having lesbian sex and you go to the federal pen.

Sixteen. I dunno, I'd seen pictures of her clothed, and was not at all tempted to risk kiddie porn issues.

...

I mean, that's sick and wrong.

If somebody didn't want to sleep with the teenage girls, they wouldn't have to make laws against it.

LOL

OK, that does it. I'm making the Draugnar's Law: Any conversation on the internet that involves Draugnar will eventually lead to discussing having sex with 16 year olds.

But of course it will. Did you think otherwise?

But at least I didn't bring it up first this time. SacredDigits did (sort of).

Speaking of odd sex laws...

Contrary to what you'd expect, New York and California are the only states where you can legally marry your first cousin. But you have to be careful, because while other states have to recognize the marriage, they can still hit you for incest if first cousin fits their description.

Haha, overage.

...wait, I'm overage now...

@SD: I know it is your real name, but Mike Weaver would be a great moniker for a two-fisted detective in a series of novels. You could do the whole thing with weaving puns:

Book One: "Warp and Woof" -- Weaver uncovers a dogfighting circuit at Star Trek conventions.

Book Two: "Its Fleece was White as Snow" -- Weaver discovers that L. L. Bean is a front for cocaine smugglers.

I'm not making fun of your name. It is just so much more percussive and manly than my realspace name. All the best.

I'm not offended by being compared to a two fisted detective. LOL.

lol