When we design our identities from scratch

As pseudonyms become more verifiable, they become more valuable. Increasingly, pseudonyms in web3 can verify inventory (money, digital goods) and history (proof of attendance, transactions, content creation). As we do work for organizations and communities under our pseudonyms, they become more valuable.

In 2000, Robert Putnam wrote an influential, chart-filled book called Bowling Alone about the dramatic decrease in social capital in the US from ~1970-2000. He distinguishes “bonding” (exclusive) social capital and “bridging” (inclusive) social capital. Multiple pseudonyms will allow us to be part of different communities that don’t seem consistent... See more

Individuals will be able to perform valuable knowledge work, even collaborative knowledge work, without exposing our physical appearances, as we increasingly work through multiplayer, web-based productivity and creative tools. Deepfake technology, allowing you to synthetically generate human-seeming video or audio, is increasingly commoditized. I a... See more

Where photos still represent most of us on social media today, they don’t have to. Kids are already happy to run around in Roblox as a boxy pumpkin with a rabbit as a hat, or in Fortnite in their Moisty Merman skin. Millions of adults have replaced their twitter profile pics with NFTs denoting an appreciation for pixel art or membership in cyberpun... See more

Just as Instagram’s rise amplified the world’s obsession with physical aesthetics, avatars that abstract our physical selves can decrease it. A focus on our physical appearances is arbitrary: does it matter that I am attractive? That you are? Why? How is the conversation we have different if I mask my gender, age, ethnicity, shape?

In a presentation first given in 2019, Balaji described the potential for a pseudonymous economy – populated by persistent, non-real names that can accrue reputation, or as he terms it, “social wealth.” Fundamentally, he argues that pseudonymity will give individuals the ability to protect their social wealth, which is today vulnerable to canceling... See more

I believe we are going to see the opposite of the context collapse of the internet today. I call it identity dispersion, where individuals control the creation, separation and unification of their multiple online selves.

Why was that pseudonymous presence on the internet better? Social media platforms have made all of us minor celebrities, and celebrity is an unpleasant thing. Celebrity psychology is fundamentally anxious, burdening us with constant performance, self-consciousness and self-censorship.

Perhaps it’s just nostalgia, but despite having “little to hide,” I recall a better way to use the internet. My interest in the internet as a kid was entirely exploratory, rather than performative. Bored out of my suburban small-town mind, I wanted to play Starcraft and learn random things and chat on IRC with new people around the world who shared... See more