The name I use here is one have used before and can be easily trace to me. I don't think at the moment I have much too fear in using my real name but I have grow fond of this handle. I don't think using our real names is important since objectivism as an idea is more important than putting our names to it.

About a year ago I was somewhat involved in fighting a law here in California. Thousands of us were trading facts and research via facebook. IMMEDIATELY after the net neutrality act was signed (may have been a coincidence) we noticed that websites we were referencing that had data that supported our cause literally started disappearing from the web. It happened about a dozen times over about ten days. Then, somebody pointed out information on the websites for St. Jude and John's Hopkins. I commented on a Friday that they can't get rid of those because people would really notice (huge sites). By noon they next day they were both heavily edited (altering the info we had referenced). I share this here as an example of just how frail our privacy is and how frail this source of into (the web) is. My only regret is that facebook uses your name. It all caused me to really evaluate...

Adding...this is why I am very open about my desire to never conflict with our government. I'm all about going Galt. I'll make Ghandi look like Mike Tyson.

There are a lot of very real reasons to use pseudonyms here. With the way things are these days if someone were to say something here that pissed off some regressive social justice warrior, and they were to act on it that would be a problem. The sad fact is we now live in a world where the media and in plenty of cases the law would protect them. So, when evil is being practiced in the open it is the good who need to go underground. We are the philosophical pirates. As for me, I use my real name. Accurately finding me past that is just hard enough to prevent most folks from actually knowing where to throw the brick.

Oddly enough, I use my real name on most sites. But I'm starting to move away from the practice because it's dangerous. Here it's initials-only because spelling it out would likely convince a few, very loud, people that I'm here to troll, which I'm not.

The admins know.

I honestly can claim this as my real name - a predominant nickname, anyway. I've carried this handle since about 1985 (long story involving a mobile earthquake of drunken excess that ended in a broken table at the Ft. Sam Houston NCO Club) and have used it as my name in my blog and a gazillion other online forums. All my old service buddies still call me Animal. Most of my non-service friends call me Animal.

A while back someone asked me, "do people call you Animal in real life?" I replied, "Hell, my wife calls me Animal."

I did not mean "pure religious Objectivism", I meant that pure Objectivism would be a closed philosophical system and thus be taken as a religion. I did not intend to be malicious.

Avatar names became popular long before there was a Gulch. It's all part of the game. What's tragic is when ideas crawl out of individual minds and into fists. That phenomenon accounts for all the bloodshed through all of history. Learning caution is as old as the chameleon's disguise.

Why do ideas and the values they encapsulate turn into conflict? Why do magnets repel?

As for pseudonyms being non-Objectivist, that is an unfounded claim. Ayn Rand was not her given name, either. She also stated that we're not bound to honesty towards hold-up men. Open forums are not secure. Even password-protected sites are porous. Caution rules. People we get to know closely and learn to trust are treasures indeed.

I show my real name in the member section and use it generally for business reasons. I am trying to sell my puzzles and appreciate helpful publicity.

Thank you, Dr. Z for a sense of humor and "getting it."

The word "supposed" is like the word "try" in this case. Either do or don't.
Yes, it would be a promotion, but not as funny.

Oh no, and look, I left the commas off the appositive in the last post. I'll go with Freudian. God knows what I was thinking about.

Dr. Zarkov is the name of a character in the Flash Gordon series of comic strips, serial movies and a major film with Queen providing the background music. He was Flash's scientific, brainy but somewhat ditzy friend.
I should have indicated three or left out one.

It was a Freudian slip, Thor. Your premises rest on solid ground.

David the play pretend dino DOES like to finger food dip fried chicken gizzards into something spicy.

Now-a-days, employers can demand to check you social media posts. As much as I don't have a problem with my posts, they might.
Further, if you use your real name, the can just search for your posts without your permission.
Where I work there is a push for us to add "social media sweeps" for physicians by insurance companies. Not always their post, but patients posts/comment on physicians.
There are a few of us resisting that.
We are fast becoming a society of "socially anti-social" people.

Had to take a Tum just reading about
this! Burp!

A fried dino (great) lizard gizzard dipped just so into horseradish ist ein yummy.
Tastes kinda like the chicken kind.

Vs. lizards??

You said "both" and then listed three. That makes one of you a redundancy. So which of you is Nader?

Who's Flash? You mean Trash? That was The Herb Plan for can 7734.

That would be a promotion. But you're not supposed to stop caring past the expected.

One thing trump has done and that is to encourage us all to be ourselves and forget political correctness. Now I say what I think

I've already lived longer than I expected.
It reminds me of a person who was having a tough time in the military. A friend cautioned him that he'd get a demotion. His reply was, "I'm already a private. What can they do, demote me to a civilian?"

He's the guy who wants to protect you from auto manufacturers.
So...what IS your relation to Flash?

Allosaur has nothing against vegans.
They are delicious.

I don't have an issue with revealing my real name, especially because I do not post a lot, I'm polite when I do, and I have nothing to hide, besides. That is just my opinion and I don't blame anyone for not sharing their true identities.

Out of respect for Dale Arden, I decline to answer.