> It's worrying how often people assume that disagreement is necessarily inauthentic

I don't think the OP is assuming that, but it's not unreasonable to consider that lots of brand new accounts created to comment on cryptocurrency may not be authentic - primarily because they may have a vested interest to shill / be astroturfing.

No, account reliability tends to correlate with account age, but there's obviously no causation here.

However, it is a signal, and a fairly strong one, for authenticity.

To me, "authenticity" is somebody being able to express what they truly want to say, without having to worry too much about negative repercussions.

Somebody trying to build or maintain a certain reputation or a particular public image, for example, seems like a lack of authenticity to me.

I agree with you on this - I love being able to speak my mind without too much thought into building social credibility by having a comprehensive history of posts. It's an unnecessary barrier to attempt to require "credibility" to be able to contribute, most people here are in tech, and the quality of discussion is honestly pretty high compared to MANY other sites.

Implementing any barriers towards communication will incentivize people to be agreeable or not speak their full mind, if they have to reach a certain karma threshold or tie it to an easily traceable identity.

Moderation is pretty good here from my experience, and it's an excellent place to get information from others without worrying about the identity of whom you are engaging with. Honestly a breath of fresh air keeping it more old school than modern social media platforms.

And this mistaken idea is why people are able to buy and sell accounts for astroturfing.

> Doesn't mean they're bots.

I mean, that's what an account with the word "bot" in it created 4 days ago would say.

I've been playing the Fallout games lately, and the eyebots are kind of cute. See, there's another step on the road to doxxing.

This. I tend to create a new account every time I reach somewhere around 100 upvotes.

A secondary reason is that it helps to protect me from falling into the trap of caring about imaginary internet points.

The house always wins— true for casinos and distributors of imaginary internet points.

From the guidelines:

"Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to."

Sure, everyone would rather be anonymous given the chance, but it's not what this site was meant to be.

I find this rule strange. The only people on HN I’ve consciously remembered are dang and a few folks who are so combative and painful to discuss anything with I just try to avoid their posts altogether regardless of interest.

If I were still employed, I'd be a lot more careful about what I say here. I think in a generation or so, we'll either all use pseudonyms for everything, or the culture will be forced to be far more forgiving of our sins.

I like the theory that I heard on Wranglerstar a few days ago, that when Jesus gave his lecture about not casting stones... he wrote out the sins of those present in the sand, so that each person could see that he knew, and then he could cast that knowledge away.

In the future, everyone will see your foibles, and accept them.

OR

An Algorithm will use them to divide society by using hypocrisy as a wedge.

It would be a return to the norm. Parents used to warn teenagers not to give out any personal information online. Using someone's real name in a public online setting was considered gauche.

Maybe a generation or two of dredging up digital sins will get us there.

> An Algorithm will use them to divide society by using hypocrisy as a wedge.

Maybe I'm too naive to think this will never happen but people's opinions change over time: some get reinforced while others become irrelevant.

Well, you can make a new account every three months without having throwaways.