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Comment by lefstathiou | Hacker News Reader

True Story: the guy who leads our sales team is a super star named John (legal name). He’s fearless, organized, focused, determined “and Canadian” as he would say.

Any way, while he was a rising junior his GF came to the office one day and I heard her call him Jake (nowhere in his name legal name). I asked “who the hell is Jake?” to which she replied “oh, that’s what we call John back home”. I looked at him and he said “John likes to make cold calls, Jake doesn’t”.

It works...

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I'm reminded of the bit in Silicon Valley where Jared turns into Ed Chambers. Of course that was a pretty dramatic character swing, but I had no idea that this was a real thing people did.

Ed Chambers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnug6i5SkQQ

The way he totally transforms on the spot into a cackling jerk in the kitchen scene is so great, Zack Woods was such an incredible talent on that show.

100% works too. Making people wait builds up expectations.

What, John liked cold calls so much that he had to invent alter ego Jake, who didn't like cold calls, in order to get a girlfriend?

It's often the other way around... Many times, salespeople use different names on the phone than in real life.

I always assumed it was to make it more difficult for me to hunt down and kill cold callers.

This is funny, but I think the real insidious reason is that it takes away the "saying your name" psychological advantage.

What's insidious about that, exactly?

It's deception to an utter randomer, as well as to yourself.

You really need to be careful with lying to yourself like that. Being a whole integrated person who doesn't have to remember who he is and what lies he's told comes in handy.

Yes, but aren't there notorious liars that are doing pretty well in life?

If you measure "doing well in life" by money and power, yes.

If you measure by being a decent and content person, I'd have to say no.

What if I want to sell them something back?

Every good magician knows that True Names hold great power!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name

The story made explicit references to how John us the character‘s legal name and jake isn’t.

How does that affect what I wrote?

Actually, that's not exactly what the story contained. It said that John was the legal name, but it didn't say that Jake wasn't the legal name. That happens all the time, John Jake Johnson, for example.

> I heard her call him Jake (nowhere in his name legal name)

Thanks! I had missed that.

Few people in my family use their first and second name in different contexts (family/friends/work). Reasons probably vary. For my mum it just started that way when she was a kid. Family used her second name and when she started working people knew her by her first name.

Some people don't use any part of their legal names at all with their friends and family.

I used to have some extended family who all went by nicknames unrelated to their legal names. It was a cultural thing.

That partly explains a perplexing issue I have with my students.

For example, let's say a student named Fred Smith emails me, but then signs his name as "Alex Harrison." And his self-selected email address is alexrogers@school.edu. I'm not sure if it's a trend or a culture thing to use multiple names and last names, but it gets a bit confusing at times.

Same here. Its fairly common in the north east of England and parts of Scotland to be known by your nickname.

Both my sons have a couple of nicknames each, which come out depending on the situation. They're 3 & 6 now and are both called wee man by way of greeting. The youngest is now getting called Mac because his nickname is MacMonkey McBean. Names evolve over time.

I ended up doing this, more or less for the same reason. I've found it kind of useful though, as I'm terrible at remembering names and faces, so if someone calls out to me the name they use gives me a clue where I know them from.

It’s a bit like in gmail, where you can add a + and it allows you to spot spam mail. So, if someone calls you John+firstjob, you know where they’ve known you.

I'm curious, does this still work? Since GMail is likely the largest email provider in the world, I would have expected spammers to simply filter out the `+.*` by now.

What advantage would spammers get from trying to hide the provenance of a bought/rented/stolen list? If it was a really profitable scam like crypto phishing, having the modifiers might even be an advantage because they could target the templates more effectively.

Well, if the ones who sell email addresses to spammers filter out the `+`, there’s a larger chance they can continue to do so without getting caught or exposed?

Perhaps it was not to get a girlfriend, but to keep one and nurture a meaningful relationship?

My dad does the same thing. "Bill" (his real name) hates social settings, yoga, and emotions. "Fred" (his alter ego) is more than happy to try out any of those things. Just don't ask John.

It certainly works pretty well for him. At the local gym he even had a Jake/John moment where everyone knew him as Fred and not Bill and got confused when my mom tried to reach them about something.

Lots of people named John choose to use another name. 'John' is common enough that having to negotiation which John on a team or group of friends uses the name is a common problem. I prefer to either use 'Jack' (a common alternate form of John, similar to Richard/Dick), or simply my last name by itself. I've also seen many Johns use their middle name, or 'John [LastName]' pronounced almost as a single word. Back home my family calls me by my middle name, since my father, grandfather and cousin are also named John.

Initials seem pretty common around here, I've known a few Johns who go by JW JP JK etc. Never gave it much thought but after your comment I realise they are all Johns!

Actually, dissociation of character is a trait that is rewarded.

Although people will claim they want kind-hearted people as lovers, they also very often conveniently ignore what they do for work, and how cruel they have to be, and the partners happily enjoy the shared money (or respect they have from the world). Lovers surely know it: hard to claim Che Guevarra’s wife, Stalin’s wife or Pablo Escobar’s wife didn’t know anything about drug dealings, but it shows that what people actually fall for are people who are nice... with them, and ruthless to the outside of the family.

So the John/Jake dissociation is unfortunately a road to success. I say unfortunately because it brings swathes of problems: John doesn’t mind having less ethics than Jake; wives who suddenly are dumped find themselves on the outer side of the fence, at risk, and very close to a very brutal human; and the last unfortunate corollary is that violent humans who can dissociate (and be someone else in private) reproduce easily from generation to generation. Hitler, Stalin, Che, Saddam Hussein have wives and Salah Abdeslam (the French terrorist, as famously any other mass killer) receives love letters, while people who won’t reproduce include Beaudelaire, Newton, Tesla, the Wright brothers or Alan Turing.

The Jake/John dissociative trait is very interesting.

That... was not the point GP was making, at least not how I see it. And it is doubtful if dictators use / have used different personas, or they simply behaved differently towards close ones (for some time at least).

> Che Guevarra’s wife, Stalin’s wife or Pablo Escobar’s wife

Comparing Che Guevarra and Pablo is totally unfair. Che was a true inspiration, born in a rich family, became a doctor and yet sacrificed his life and fought for what he thought would make the society just. On the other hand Pablo is just a gangster who did not care outside of his family.

Why would you respect someone for sacrificing and fighting for what they think is just? Osama Bin Laden wasn't too different either. Many Islamic terrorists were engineers before sacrificing their careers and fighting for what they believed in. You're right that they are true inspirations to others, but you seem to imply that's a good thing. Gangsters are obviously also a true inspiration to others (hence glamorization of gangster life) but not really good for society.

I suspect that what you really mean is Guevara fought for what you think is just. But that's a weaker statement.

> I suspect that what you really mean is Guevara fought for what you think is just. But that's a weaker statement.

You might have mistaken me as a supporter of communism. I don't support communism. Osama Bin Laden exploited the religion for his personal gain. His goal is to become the caliph which is roughly equivalent to being the single military leader for entier Islam as said in the quoran. He did not bother about the people or had any ideology of his own.

Che did not exploit religion. He is an atheist, was supporter of women rights, he understood the value of education and setup schools for his young troops even during the guerrilla warfare. He knew he will not be the leader of cuba and Fidel Castro would be the leader of the country and yet he fought for what he thought would make the society just.

Che thought deeply, was highly intelligent and had the balls to sacrifice his life for what he thought would make the society better.

Gangsters are one who have balls to do violent things but do not care about society.

And yet, he became a mass murderer that you apparently idolize.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but you don't have an excuse.

There is a documentary about the people killed who had found to be guilty and they did not find a single evidence where some one is executed wrongly.

Now i will state my reasons why Che is an inspiration. First of all I am not an American or from the Latin country and i do not support Communism. I like Che because of his analytical thinking and hacker like personal traits. I read his book "Guerrilla Warfare"[1] and based on the title i expected the first page must preach about moral values or self righteous, but was very much surprised to find the explanation on the necessary conditions that must exist to start a revolution and goes on to describe how many core members are required, their preferred age and should not be married. He asks to treat the captured enemy nicely and does not make any false pretense of being noble about it. He is direct in pointing out that it is in their self interest. His arguments were logical and rational.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Warfare_(book)

That's are pretty complicated boundary between good and bad you've defined there. Political ideology is OK but not religious ideology? Being a 2nd in command is OK but not a national leader?

> Political ideology is OK but not religious ideology? Right. Religious ideology is without a doubt is exploitation. Political ideology that does not involve religion is probably coming out of good intentions.

> Being a 2nd in command is OK but not a national leader? The point is he is not after power and did not try to become 2nd in command either. He left the minister position he had given after the war and left to another country to start a revolution where he was killed. So looking all these facts he actions must be coming from the noble intentions.

If Guevara did everything the same but instead of Marxism, he was fighting to exterminate the blacks out of a genuine belief that it was a noble cause which would help people, would you still describe him in the same positive way?

You already said you don't like communism, and I guess you don't like ethnic genocide either. So that wouldn't be a distinguishing factor.

> If Guevara did everything the same but instead of Marxism, he was fighting to exterminate the blacks out of a genuine belief that it was a noble cause which would help people, would you still describe him in the same positive way?

I don't see anything noble about genocide.

But we've established that it's not based on you personally believing the goal is noble. It's the belief of the person fighting for it that matters.

Che straight up had people tortured and executed at La Cabaña.

Pablo Escobar, like modern day cartels in Mexico, gave away lots of money to local communities. He built hundreds of houses for the poor. It’s mostly ego, and buying good will, but there’s definitely a component wherein the government has failed these communities and the Narcos step up.

We have little evidence that they used the dissociation trick. But I think it is not really required anyway. Most of us don't need it to get by with our daily lives. And it's far too simple to demonize the villains just by saying they used this trick. It is simply part of human nature to have empathy for those that we consider our own, and to be cruel to the rest. Similarly, to be able to silence our cognitive dissonance when we find out that the people around us and the system we live in have dark sides to them.

It's a thing that some people like different names for work and personal life. I knew a guy like that and it was jarring being around him at home.

My take: he had worked with such cretins before, I think he didn't really want to associate his favorite name with them.

I am similar. At Uni I had a gregarious circle of friends and got a nickname that "everyone" used including my now wife.

Out of Uni, in the workplace I am legal-name - no more, no less. I don't want work bullshit to taint what I associate with friends and good times.

In further adult life, you get my legal-name until I know you well enough that we're social and you overhear my nickname.

It also means legal-name is more disciplined, whereas nickname is not...

My wife knows when to use which one. :-P

It's useful for customer support too. Some places all use fake names for personal safety but it also lets people say what needs to be said more confidently.

My name is.. my name is... my name is <chika chika> Slim Shady

Edit: Don't know why the downvotes. Maybe the song 'all-solo-founders-please-stand-up' does not relate to as many of us as I thought.

Probably because this kind of comment fits better on reddit than here.

The more nuanced version of the same comment would've been to point out that it's no co-oindence that rappers commonly choose an alter ego (not just a pseudonym, but a character with different mannerisms and traits) under which to perform. On top of that, Eminem used an alter-alter-ego, Slim Shady, for his most egregious lyrics, and conversely used his birth name to lend realism and humility to the songs that were (or alleged to be) honest about his real life details.

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