Digital persona

Here’s an HN comment that sort of well phrases my own thoughts on learning more about those individuals who publish material and with whom we can interact, yet their true identity remains anonymous. I think myself, along with others, find it natural to want to know the true human identity of these individuals, perhaps because it’s so familiar. Maybe also (and this may be virtually the same point) for comparison’s sake; we want to know more so we can more easily see how we ourselves relate to these individuals, how their circumstances enable their output, etc. But the aforementioned Hacker News comment sums up the sort of guilt I feel when I find myself thinking about who, say Gwern, is; why can’t I just associate them to that identity? The content that person produces is effectively bound under a new, separate identity entirely. So in some ways it feels guilty to want to know more about this person that takes great care to remain behind a name/identity (and I should just associate the output with that identity), while at the same time it feels disingenuous to not care about or assign credit to the real, human identity behind the scenes. I suppose the question of what real identity means comes into play here.

The comment also mentions that there’s really no point in knowing more about the person; doing so only gives more of an opportunity to judge them. This is a fair point, but I suppose also the reason I (and others) care to begin with. That is, to better understand that person and their situation and see how much we ourselves can relate.