[FUPQ-14] Establish a private life
Day 3,742, 06:56
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Pfenix Quinn
The Free University of Phoenix Quinn is a service of the Socialist Freedom Party, a free-wheeling internationalist party that fully supports free-thinking, social solidarity and promotes an open-ended charro culture based on a surf-punk-soul kind of mariachi music combined with practicing tango in the streets.
This is Lecture Number 14 of a 20-part series on Combating Tyranny. It's proudly derived from Tim Snyder's NY Times bestseller ON TYRANNY, adapted to our New World situation by R.F. Williams, who mostly just plods along in the game without direction or purpose, probably because he is bored, but at least manages to publish this stuff every once in a while.
Para traducir este lío es más dificil que cagar en un frasquito, pero podéis encontrar unos traducciones al español de estas conferencias en VANGUARDIA SOCIALISTA.
Establish a private life.
Nasty rulers (and the worst kind of internet trolls) will use what they know about you to push you around.
Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that posting in the game or on the internet, even in personal messages or email, is basically skywriting.
Develop means of personal exchange. Tyrants seek out the hook on which to hang you. Try to avoid getting hooked.
We are free insofar as we exercise control over what people know about us, and in what circumstances they come to know it. At its core, totalitarianism encourages erasure of the difference between private and public life.
The theft, discussion or publication of personal communications tears at a basic foundation of human rights. Whoever can pierce our privacy can humiliate us and disrupt our relationships.
Removing words from their historical moment and dropping them into another is an act of falsification. Encouraging mindless indulgence of salacious interest in other people's affairs puts us on a hairy slide towards authoritarianism.
An appetite for secrets is dangerously political.
A totalizing politics seeks to remove normal barriers between public and private in order to draw the body politic away from normal political intercourse and towards an obsession with conspiracy theories. It seeks to seduce with the notion of hidden realities and dark conspiracies that explain everything.
This mechanism works when what is revealed turns out to be of no actual importance. The revelation becomes the story. A complete distraction from actual politics is the goal of this kind of anti-politics.
Consider how good fashion or sports journalists work. They don't obsess endlessly about the fact that models are changing clothes back stage or that athletes are naked when they shower in the locker room. Such private matters are completely irrelevant to the story.
So, don't let political writers get away with it.
When tyrants and their flunkies stir up interest in matters of doubtful relevance, they are seeking to get us to participate in the demolition of the political order, to devolve our societies into a mob.
Securing your own privacy is an important bulwark against such manipulations, as is collective support for organizations who support and promote basic human rights and decency.
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At the end of this lecture series, completely arbritrary and made-up but totally awesome degrees and titles will be promulgated based on responses provided in the comment sections. Participation counts. Indicate attendance by leaving a comment or endorsing the article. Higher honors will be awarded according to the degree of critical thinking, mindfulness and humor exhibited by responders.
Examples of questions you might want to privately ponder in response to this lecture:
* How does one find the line, in-game or in the real world, between genuine investigative journalism and exposure vs. so-called political writing that is basically just promoting conspiracy theories?
* What are good ways for a players to protect their personal privacy when playing a game like eRepublik?
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Examples of questions you might want to privately ponder in response to this lecture:
* How does one find the line, in-game or in the real world, between genuine investigative journalism and exposure vs. so-called political writing that is basically just promoting conspiracy theories?
* What are good ways for a players to protect their personal privacy when playing a game like eRepublik?
This is interesting, but brits are far too socialist to have even a remotely similar understanding or cognition when thinking of such things. OH BRITAIN.
PS: As someone with first hand experience of dealing with VPN companies, please do not assume that your information is stored completely anonymously. Most of these companies are still subject to the same freedom of information (UK) warrant (US) requests as other cellular providers and software vendors. The difference is, they don't publish how many requests they receive, grant or reject.
V!!
So, what are you wearing?
Scratch that. Wrong chatroom.
What kind of information might be at risk?
The class clown, over here.
These questions are always tricky. Many of us want to connect with others online, especially in a game that is largely social, but, as noted, there are inherent risks in sharing information with people on the other side of the screen. Some of us, especially those who started here less savvy about how people behave online, have been pretty open about ourselves from the beginning. Many of us have formed relationships that extend to RL with people we met in-game. Others take calculated risks about what the reveal about themselves. It all depends on a lot of factors. There is a high chance that trolls will ferret out at least some of your personal information if you have put it out there at any time. This may or may not be an effective tool to use against you, depending largely on your level of maturity and your own sense of personal safety. I have had RL information divulged in a public way by political opponents in the past, and have had RL threats made against me, but they did not affect me in the same way that it would affect a young player who lives nearer the people making the threats or who had more potentially damaging information revealed (for instance, gay players who are out in game but not in their RL communities). The information that is revealed in game is usually irrelevant, particularly as there is such a large element of role playing. It is, however, distracting, just as it is in RL politics, and shifts the focus from the misbehavior of the one revealing it to the trumped up scandals of the people being targeted, with clear RL parallels here. Ultimately, be careful what you share and with whom you share it, and realize that there may be unanticipated consequences if the people you share with prove untrustworthy, but also realize that sharing and making friends is one of the great benefits of this game. Choose wisely.
Well said.
How can a eRep player protect themselves?
Don't get involved in the political side of the game (don't stick ya neck out)
or simply, don't reveal personal information. I'm one of eUK's most visible players, yet very few bar those I trust implicitly know my real name, less of those know my full name and none of them know my address or have me added on any form of social media. When you link accounts, IE, same name, same email etc etc you are leaving a trail that can easily be followed.
End of the day, you are playing a game where stabbing people in the back and fucking em over is the norm. Be smart.
Always realize that people can find you on the internet and after that in real life. Best protection is to make a lot of contacts in real life and be really friendly to most people (to the ones you dislike or you are afraid of you can act friendly). Real life friendly contacts can protect you (I once was saved against being beaten up by a gang because one of them recognized me as the one that has helped him a lot to fix his bike when he was young). Many people in my street do know me and will (and have) protect me against ill doers.
As important it is to build up real life contacts, I know it can be very difficult and maybe almost impossible when you are without friends. The same way works for me on the internet. Revealing as less as possible information about who you are, but as much as possible revealing of information how you think might bring you friends. Don't think they are friends after some short time. You may be lovers (and after the love is over hate can come), but friendship takes a real long time. Be patient, take your time and never try to take advantage on the short run.
About real and fake information, read a lot of books, not only from people you like their opinions, but also from people with different views. Maybe wisdom to recognize truth or lie is gained even smaller than real friends.