Gwern answers 'Ask gwern: Who are you?'
pastee.org
pastee.org
Gwern, thanks for the humble reply and all your writings. Maybe one day we will be able to celebrate your talent as part of your identity.
Sure they can, and millions of us are. If people couldn’t be, Facebook wouldn’t exist.
”When people on the Internet cross the line”
That’s not a given. I never hide my identity and it has only worked out positive for me. There are assholes online and offline, I sure as hell won’t let any of them limit what I say or do.
For most people, posting under their real identity doesn't really get them in trouble. I'm talking about posters who discuss controversial topics publicly- not only is it so easy for someone to send in anonymous hate emails, but now they can anonymously harass the poster in real life by calling up their boss or family members, after a few clicks of research on the Internet.
It makes me wonder in what form this kind of "hateful" harassment (say, one step below actual hate crimes) existed in the days without Internet.
I don’t hide any Facebook content from visitors who aren’t friends, because I don’t trust Facebook to keep my information private anyways. I’m sure I'm not the only one.
“I'm talking about posters who discuss controversial topics publicly”
No, you were generalizing, making it seem that everyone has to hide their real name online.
“makes me wonder in what form this kind of "hateful" harassment [...] existed in the days without Internet”
All the examples you already mentioned (snail mail, phone calls), it’s nothing new. If someone wants to make your life unpleasant, there have always been ways to do so.
You don't trust Facebook to keep your information private, and your response is to share the content you add with the world?
That confuses me.
Part of the reason HN is successful is pseudonymity.
I think it's more of where you choose to be outspoken. On Facebook you can post updates on important life things, things no one cares about, or even touchy subjects without much fear of being harassed. On places like Reddit, or deeper down into 4chan, or other sites that are known for their 'lynching' it gets riskier to be so 'outspoken' with your real identity because there are larger quantities of people that you don't know that are way off from your personal network thus making the possibilites well endless.
When it's an accepted peer to peer network it's different from either a 'real' user to anonymous user or anon user to anon user. The more anonymous people are, the more brave they become but as soon as their real identity is attached, things don't get quite so serious, at least not in the main factions of social media. The Wizard in Oz is a good example of how you can hide behind a figure or 'name' but when the curtain is peeled back, it turns out you're not much better or different than anyone else.
edit: added some more to hopefully make my point more clear.
Before the Internet it would've been a lot more difficult to read all these dissenting opinions/discussions but also harder for a person to commit harassment. My entire point is that the Internet is a double edged sword (But im sure we all know that already). That said, the pros do outweigh the cons :).
> Maybe one day we will be able to celebrate your talent as part of your identity
What on earth are you talking about, the content speaks for itself, that is his identity along with his name Gwern, there is nothing stopping your from having a conversation with him. There are no barriers in your way, go ahead and celebrate.
Though I also because I'm
When I started editing Wikipedia as a registered Wikipedian a few years ago, I soon discovered that many articles there on related topics are compiled in complete ignorance of the best sources on those topics. To do something about that, I have been compiling a bibliography in Wikipedia user space on IQ and human intelligence,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige...
and I encourage you to look there for recommendations of up-to-date reliable secondary sources. (I am updating that bibliography as I do more research, so there may be new entries added there fairly soon.) It would be interesting to see what new paths your writings will take after more digestion of the previous literature on our shared topic of interest.
Another friendly comment is that many of your readers are glad to see your statistical approach to some of the issues you write about. I too like well writings that apply statistical analysis to data once they are gathered. I like even better writings that apply statistics to examine whether data are adequate to the task of answering the question posed by a researcher, as statistics is the science of data,
http://statland.org/MyPapers/MAAFIXED.PDF
and what I have found out by participating in the University of Minnesota's journal club in behavior genetics with leading researchers on that subject is that many findings on human behavior now need to be reexamined as statistically astute psychology researchers reexamine the quality of data in old studies. Being aware of issues of validity of inference
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz
and how researchers can fool themselves
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf
is even more important than applying statistical manipulations to a data set after the data set is gathered. In their best use, statistics can help show which data sets need to be reexamined to make sure that a study inference is really warranted by data.
I already know of that page, actually. I have been compiling citations for a while on 3 topics I'd like to write more about (the relationship of IQ & Big Five Conscientiousness, practical real-world correlates of IQ, and the net economic value of IQ points on the margin) and found a link to it. I don't think any of the entries proved helpful because I'm looking at such niche topics that I generally have to go to the original papers just to start.
> I like even better writings that apply statistics to examine whether data are adequate to the task of answering the question posed by a researcher, as statistics is the science of data,
A topic of considerably interest to myself, as well: I compile my own thoughts in http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#flaws-in-mainstream-science-a... but I'll take a look at your links.
> many findings on human behavior now need to be reexamined as statistically astute psychology researchers reexamine the quality of data in old studies.
True enough, but there's a lot of limits to this sort of thing: GIGO. For many psych studies, I think the same thing I do in arguments about the genetics of IQ: "why are we still arguing over this? there is no more meat on these bones. We know how to resolve these questions, we have the technology (to either replicate the experiments or look directly at the genetics), so why can't we just do it‽"
tokenadult, do you have an Ed.D or Ph.D in Education? Or maybe something related to Social Work?
Did you know that this communication style, which you use rather consistently in your HN posts, and which is prevalent in the education community, is poorly-received rather outside that community?
Not saying your style is wrong, just that is extremely grating outside the Ed world. It sits in the uncanny valley of faux-familiarity, and as such it breeds mistrust.
FWIW you did seem to have it a bit more together than some of the folks there. And you are clearly more productive than a lot of Less Wrongers. All I meant in my last comment was that you didn't seem like an international figure of mystery or anything.
Gwern is a popular analyst of the Silk Road, the infamous anonymous marketplace on the Tor network.
I understand that Google is very touchy about people talking about ad revenue.
(Another acquaintance then pointed out to me that I am apparently a Famous Person now and lots of Googlers read Hacker News, so I always have the option of getting real customer service that way... which doesn't make me too happy - you shouldn't have to be that rare geek who frequents one particular niche site to get problems with Google fixed!)