📣 Public Service Announcement: You can be whoever you want to be on the interwebs.
You can be whoever you want to be on the interwebs.
It is a super exciting and a little bit terrifying time to be on the internet. According to a 2015 article, it is estimated that 3.2 billion people are using the internet, and that was an article from nearly 3 years ago. Over 75% of people in the United States are using the internet in one way or another. I think you would find it quite difficult to find someone without any trace of a digital footprint. My 8 year old twins have email addresses (thank you elementary school) and my 13 year old's friends send my Facebook friend requests, which I in turn politely ignore. The Blockchain and Steemit may not be mainstream yet, but I think it is exceedingly rare to find someone who hasn't heard of Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter.
Do you know who you are in Cahoots with?!?!?
Without causing anyone to be overly paranoid, you truly can be whoever you want to be on the internet. I just wanted to get your brains going, I do not spend a ton of time letting this get my blood pressure up. Some of my closest friends these days are boys who live in London and New York, but for me, they live on the internet. I tell them about my biggest fears, my happiest days and any random or interesting things I want to. What qualifies a friendship is a personal opinon. I may never "actually" meet any of you. Several of you have impacted me in a way that earns you a label other than "random internet person". I try to stay true to who I am on the blockchain, Discord, and every where else on the interwebs.
That being said consider this:
couldn't any of us be a fat, smelly 57 something living somewhere in parts unknown in his mother's basement?!?!?!
I apologize to anyone named Travis ahead of time, but that is what I am calling my fictitious (though realistic) shyster in parts unknown. Say Travis can be any of you (editorially), hey, Travis can even be me (I am not Travis by the way, all Krista with a K). Travis is just waiting for a person to give up highly (or possibly just somewhat) personal info that leads to him doing something, shyster-y, illegal, maybe just creepy or gross, but possibly deadly. I am a person who is stupid amounts of positive, so I assume that most people I meet are good humans. I have met some awful people, so I know that ALL people are not. @ CryptoKing93576 (with any luck that is no ones handle) who says his name is Dave a 27 year old from Connecticut, could absolutely be a 13 year old girl named Vanessa from small town Michigan. Good old Gary could be somewhere masturbating to your avatar, and any random @ userunknown could be trying to access your personal keys literally right now.
There are people everywhere hiding behind screens spewing hate, and being awful humans.
Is there even a line any more?
There really isn't.
We are currently living in a world where people pretend to have cancer, where about 500 children are killed by their parents every year, people torture animals (and other humans), people tell people to go kill themselves (and sometimes those people listen).
There are truly monsters hiding among us, and there is no reason to believe that some of them are not hiding right on the interwebs, pretending to be a gorgeous, perky 20 something.
This is not a conspiracy theory nor an attempt to scare you!
I am sure that that most of you are not Travis or CryptoKing93576, but a few percent of you may be.
and shit people do shit things.
Stay Safe, Be Aware!
Come Visit me in Whaleshares Discord:
I'd LOVE to meet you!
All the Love,
Sources:
https://pixabay.com/
http://time.com/money/3896219/internet-users-worldwide/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users
https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/health/filicide-parents-killing-kids-stats-trnd/index.html
A great post Krista which should hopefully get people questioning more about who they are talking to and what information they are sharing. The internet and the blockchain are amazing life enhancing tools, but as we know they can be used for sinister purposes.
I have to say most of my internet friends have turned out to be great people who I would love to meet in person one day. Sure you can meet genuine friends in the digital arena, maybe meet more than in 'real life', but there is always an added consideration that who you are speaking to may just not be the person you think you have got to know. But do you know what I could say that same thing for people I have met in the physical world.
You can actually learn a lot from the social aspect of the digital experience and apply that to the physical world. I can honestly say I wish I had more friends in the physical world who were more like my friends in the digital world.
I find it much easier to meet people digitally, this is partially due to the area I live in, but I think that it is also due to the fact that people are more receptive to friendship and possibly less guarded about being themselves...you can get the real and the fake of everyone on the internet I suppose. I am pleased to have met you my dear friend.
Likewise my friend, it has been an absolute pleasure meeting the krazy woman from Michigan!
Krista you bring up some good points! You must trust but verify because there is good and bad everywhere in the world... even on Steemit.
Yep... the Interwebs be a KrAzy place for sure. That is part of Dan's issue with wanting radical transparency for Crypto/DApps associated with EOSIO. Not everyone wants that, or total hiding, hopefully a middle ground is coming.
Well... a middle ground "option".
If the majority like that option... then that's what will become most popular.
I think there will continue to be different options, for different people, and/or different applications.
Some stuff will want 100% transparency. Some stuff will want 100% privacy. Some stuff will be "middle ground" like you speak of... it all depends on people, apps, and which fork of EOS we're referring to...
i like that middle ground idea, but I am not afraid to be who I am openly, as long as everyone else is as well.
I am not Travis.
But instead of this:
...likewise...
couldn't any of us be a psycho girl that is on acid and all fried on other heavy drugs, that just finished killing her boyfriend a week ago, and he's stinking up the place while she's typing on steem?
(I suppose that's 1 level worse than Travis)
I get the point of your post, yes, it is true. Anyone can be really anyone.
However the safety of the entire internet between people makes it easier to handle. That's why I like to remain private. I don't want any psycho people wanting to come visit me. :)
When I turn off my computer for the day, I prefer it to stay off. :)
Any of us could be Travis or this Judy you speak of as well. I would like to think that you are safely tucked away in parts unknown, and I hope that my parts partially unknown location is safe for me as well. I hope the psychos all meet up together and leave us regular krazy folks alone.
"And real people do real things."
I clearly understand your message @krazykrista. It's krazy that the internet that brought us good and exciting things also leave room for us to be who we wish to pretend to be without anyone knowing we are only pretending.
I have also built a network of best friends on the internet in the last 2 years than I have built in real life my entire life. (How does that sound?)
The most important thing to me is that I know who I am and I'm sure that if I deceive the world of who I am, I can't deceive myself of my own identity. Well maybe I can, but I know I won't.
i have more friends through steemit than i do in real life also, again it isnt anything I have spent a ton of time thinking about, but I do think it is something we all need to remember.
what is it Cahoots!!!!!!
Google says:
ca·hoots
kəˈho͞ots/Submit
nouninformal
colluding or conspiring together secretly.
"the area is dominated by guerrillas in cahoots with drug traffickers"
synonyms: in league, colluding, in collusion, conspiring, collaborating, hand in glove, in bed
"it turned out that the commissioner was in cahoots with at least two of the managers"
I just think of it as people you hang out with though.
:-)
thanks for sharing! i will start following your exciting posts! Checkout my posts as well