[HN Gopher] You are not your name (2015)
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You are not your name (2015)
Author : bobbiechen
Score : 42 points
Date : 2022-03-07 05:17 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lingerandlook.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lingerandlook.com)
| verisimi wrote:
| Its actually illegal to use your legal name.
|
| If you look at your birth certificate, it will say something like
| 'not to be used for id'.
|
| So, what is the thing that we all use the birth certificate for?
|
| We are actually committing fraud to use the birth certificate.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is a confusing comment: your birth name is _on_ your birth
| certificate, but it isn 't the same _thing as_ your birth
| certificate. Even if it were illegal to "use your birth
| certificate" (for what?), why in the world would it be illegal
| to use your name?
|
| Also, for the record: my birth certificate doesn't say anything
| like that on it. My social security card does, however. But
| that doesn't actually make it illegal to use as an ID.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Ha ha... made me look
| technothrasher wrote:
| I thought this was going to be the sovereign citizen attempt to
| avoid the court system.
| causi wrote:
| I'm not sure this article has any real meaning besides being a
| strained excuse to string a bunch of interesting tidbits
| together. Names mean different things to different people. Your
| name is your label. It's through your words and deeds you
| determine what meaning that label has.
|
| _So when someone asks, "Who are you," don't tell them "Bud
| Baker," or "Larry Watterworth," or even your legal name. Tell
| them who you really are, and if they stick around, then tell them
| your human label._
|
| I don't know if this is symbolic advice or just naive advice.
| That's obviously not a practical course of action.
| SllX wrote:
| "My name is my name!" --Marlo Stanfield
| imdvayn wrote:
| The terminology used and author conclusions are questionable
| but the idea the article presents (using a pseudonym or
| 'pseudopseudonym' that is like a more concise version of your
| name) is a solid approach to marketing yourself and making a
| more significant impression on others is true. People have been
| aware of this since Positioning was first published in the 80s.
|
| Whether or not you want to is up to you, but for someone like
| me I'd prefer not to use my whole unique and cumbersome name.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| do articles have to have real meaning to be worthy of writing?
| the arts and philosophy are rarely a dry instruction booklet to
| do X, Y and Z.
| phdelightful wrote:
| Doubly so because when someone says "who are you," usually they
| mean "what's your name?"
| subpixel wrote:
| I changed my name when I got married but kept my pre-marriage
| name professionally and I can't recommend the strategy more
| highly.
|
| I have multiple numbers and emails so I can be who I want with a
| given audience.
|
| Having recently relocated I decide whom to let on to my work
| name. For everyone else it's as if I have almost no no digital
| presence, which is frankly a relief.
| phdelightful wrote:
| I'm a new parent, so I just got to (had to?) name someone for the
| first time. In my jurisdiction you actually have quite a while
| before you have to make that choice, but you do eventually need
| to make it. It speaks to lots of point in this essay:
|
| My son certainly doesn't know his name yet, but it's how everyone
| addresses him. So it is definitely not an integral part of his
| identity, at least as he experiences it.
|
| The name doesn't have any meaning for me nor my wife. It is
| normal enough to be familiar, stands out enough to not disappear,
| is nice to abbreviate, sounds pleasing to our ears. But it also
| has nothing to do with him or his ancestry at all, except it's
| ethnically congruous I guess.
|
| So my son is not at all his name, probably for the only time in
| his life. It is a bit odd.
| ftlio wrote:
| I went through this as well and kept throwing out "Sharper
| Image" as a name, one for the homage to the Simpsons' "Max
| Power", and two because it'd be hard not to confront that name
| as "not my identity". It's hardly even the identity of the
| products distributed by the now defunct company.
|
| Thankfully I would never get my way on this. My first born's
| name fits the criteria you listed almost exactly. The idea of
| naming them after an older family member is growing on me for
| similar reasons - it's fun to say "oh you're just like Grandpa
| <name> in this way, but not in this other way" I guess.
| Supermancho wrote:
| When I was 12 I selected an online name. Many people refer to me
| by that name and have nearly forgotten my real name (my last name
| for sure). Over high school, I had many names and developed a
| full-blown alias. This disturbed my father at the time.
|
| A couple people I know live by these new names that we chose,
| even at work where they use their alias everywhere but on their
| taxes/employment record.
| fouc wrote:
| > even at work where they use their alias everywhere but on
| their taxes/employment record.
|
| I basically do this, but it was by accident. I think it's a
| nice idea to have this kind of separation.
| _dain_ wrote:
| This could have been far more common but Facebook snuffed it
| out with their maniacal insistence that everyone use their
| "real" name online.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Around 2015 I worked with someone who used a "handle" for most
| things. It was their GitHub username and their "@" in Slack.
|
| I remember thinking it was interesting how I had developed
| something of a disconnect between "the person" and "the
| person's communications". It was almost (but not quite) like
| they were completely different identities to me.
| kodah wrote:
| This article is incredibly low quality and I don't say that
| lightly.
|
| I agree that names don't mean much. This username is linked to a
| single GitHub account. The pseudonym I write under is entirely
| made up. I have no interest in brand recognition or getting hired
| because people recognize my name. In many ways, I think
| provenance is a cancer to the proliferation and building of truly
| _good ideas_. Instead, I 'd rather people focus on the ideas I've
| presented and debate those - they, with hope, will live on a lot
| longer than my name will.
|
| Lastly, since it brought up Jane Fonda and characterized her
| involvement in the war as a "visit":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Fonda#Visit_to_Hanoi
|
| Jane Fonda actively participated in the propagation of propaganda
| for her own entertainment and brand. She's quite well known in
| most veteran circles for calling people who had visible signs of
| torture and abuse "hypocrites and liars and pawns" when they told
| their stories, then tried to walk that back to, "I'm quite sure
| that there were incidents of torture ... but the pilots who were
| saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was
| systematic, I believe that's a lie." History now shows us it
| _was_ systemic and that Jane Fonda is simply an awful person.
| scarmig wrote:
| The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the
| fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists
| because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can
| forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once
| you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.
| Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a
| word with him?
| teddyh wrote:
| I wrote here 7 months ago:
|
| "Other people use your name, not you, so the name belongs to
| other people. Render unto Caesar, etc.
|
| Your name refers to, not your identity (whatever that is), but
| _the idea of you in the heads of other people._ "
|
| -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28008263
| bregma wrote:
| The map is not the territory. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
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