If you post something in your real name, your colleagues WILL find it out and your boss WILL read it and your neighbors WILL scrutinize it no matter how woke your post may read. There WILL be consequences from being pointed at to losing your job and pension.
People using real names for app reviews, online comments, those are completely insane to me. Including shorthands like “John D.” Unless you are paid to do so that is.
He also goes into detail in this podcast about the benefits of writing with your real name too: https://player.fm/series/north-star-podcast/patrick-mckenzie...
Funnily enough, he also lives in japan!
for example, double-blind peer review.
> [2:] to isolate yourself from online mobs
If we're talking about common, I'll add:
3: to normalize anonymity so that people in groups 1 and 2 stand out less, have less peer pressure to compromise themselves, and so that attackers have to spend more resources than if they could focus their attacks on the few people they actually want to target (compare HTTPS Everywhere and other "Encrypt all the things!" efforts).
* blogging from an oppressive regime
* to isolate yourself from online mobs
If you write something controversial these days, sometimes it catches a wider audience and you can find yourself under a lot of attention. A minority of those poeple will not be nice, and may send death threats or worse. Your experience is a tiny fraction of what this can be like. Being anonymous takes out some of the sting.
I can't think of a better illustration of the latter than https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/04/last-us-2-voice-actor-shares-....