Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (57087)	9/6/2002 7:19:31 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

A person named Joe may appear differently in his capacity as employee from how he appears in his capacity as husband or baseball coach. One may be aggressive while the other is sweet. People who know Joe in one capacity only might not recognize him in another capacity. But those are people who interact with the 3D Joe. The virtual Joe can, if he wants to, present himself as a college professor instead of a fry cook in McDonald's, as a college football star instead of a failed little league baseball coach, as a virile single guy in his 20s on the make instead of as a balding 50s plus guy married for 35 years to the same woman. On SI, a person is free to create themselves however they want to be. They can create themselves as mean (I still recall the "old" X writing "I revel in meanness,") when in 3D they are sweet, they can present themselves as former reponsible government officials when in reality they have been housewives all their lives and never worked outside the house a day in their lives . . . This can't be sustained in 3D. But it can here. I have an image in my mind of the "real" you based on things you have said and posted. But one thing I'm sure of is that in reality you are very, very different from the impression I have created. In what ways I don't know, but that you are different I am quite sure.

To: Lane3 who wrote (57087)	9/6/2002 8:41:05 PM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 82486

You make excellent points, Karen. Yet your arguments make the implicit assumption that posters on SI are essentially truthful -- that while they may only be revealing certain sides of the their personalities, that which is revealed is an honest and dependable representation of the actual person. But we know that just isn't so in all cases. We had our own example on SI with Jonathan Lebed, who posed for years as an investor, a board member of at least one corporation, who spoke of his business connections, who described his family's involvement in one company that he was touting. All these representations were carried out masterfully, but were totally untrue. Jonathan was a 15-year-old boy operating a computer in his bedroom. Another case that made the papers was also a 15-year old, who managed to get himself hired by one of the legal advice web sites, posing as an attorney, and who became one of the most highly rated (by users) "lawyers" on the site. So we know there are poseurs, charlatans, and connivers out there. We know it has happened on SI, and we have no idea how common it is. We know from stories concerning the dating pages or sites that misrepresentations of personal backgrounds are more the norm than the exception. We know that on SI we have had quite a few cases of people posting (or should I say posing) under more than one alias. Chat lines like this one are a relatively new phenomenon. There are yet no studies (to my knowledge) to explore the question of how people behave on them, how truthful they are, what different motives there may be that cause them to be here. We know that there are Walter Mitty's in this world who enjoy posing as someone they are not, often by constructing very different and complex alternate personalities. I think it is a commendable act of good faith to go with the belief that what you see here, alias or not, is the real person, albeit not fully fleshed out. Some others of us may be inclined to be cynical and skeptical about taking what we read here at face value insofar as it reflects the true person behind the alias. The latter of us may be imagining something that does not exist, but we are not without foundation in our caution.