Though if this is all irrelevant, why do you keep bringing it up multiple times only to drop out on everything?
Drop out? If you really want to go into it all, I suppose we could, although I see no reason to waste my time asking and listening to the explanations when in the end it will just come down to this: "Can you verify anything you say? If not, then I have no reason to consider it." What's the point when any comment anyone makes could just be another attempt to lure someone into a discussion that could be turned against them? If I were to get into a big debate with you about it, how do I know that discussion won't be held against me later in court or something like that? How do I know you aren't sitting around with people laughing at my responses to this right now? I have no idea why anyone specifically trolls people (maliciously) or what causes the associated amusement which I assume is the reward for doing so. Observationally though, the sport seems to be popular enough.
I bring it up because it's relevant to the explanation of why I prefer Skype over IRC (response to Minuend), and you kept questioning me about it after that. IRC has it's advantages too, for one thing you don't have to ask anyone to be added to the chat, you can just up and join. But let's be honest, can I ever type word in IRC now without thinking, "Who is adding that to their log," or, "Is that new person just one of the old trolls or are they actually a knew person? Is anything they've said to me over the past month even true?"
Fukyo said:
^Not that I'm particularly inclined to care what you have to say when you make comments like that. By the way, I never did get the long detailed explanation, replete with quotes and such, about how this is true. I would still like to hear it, but forgive me if I don't waste the time responding afterwards. This right now is already a huge waste of the morning.
Fukyo said:
Well, to make it clear I never claimed IRC is completely safe. I simply said it's not chock full of trolls. Sure there could be shady people on there, but neither of us knows that, a simple desire for privacy does not equate malicious intent. It's true IRC is an open community and anyone can join, but it's not as tragically dangerous as you present it. Users have an ignore feature at their disposal and if someone is harassing them they can go right to the server owners and bypass the channel operators if they are distrustful.
I never said not to use IRC, I still use it myself. Just that I do prefer skype for these reasons. As far as the owners though, who are they? Do they care? Can you trust them? How do I know they aren't reading my PMs too? How do I know they don't already have conflicting interests? I don't know any of these things.
Fukyo said:
But the point is that anyone could be reading this forum too y'know, just as they could what somebody says in the channel. Somebody could also save people's posts on this forum, anywhere really, if we're being honest the danger is literally everywhere.
Yes, I'm aware. I regret having been so open here in the past, but I never imagined I would attract any attention to myself either. As it is I often don't post things I would normally have said because it might reveal something about me. Even when I think something is "safe" I still have to wonder if it can be pieced together with some other piece of information I thought was safe at the time too. Oh well, my own fault for being naive in the past I suppose.
Point being that you really never know, and it doesn't take the majority of community being sleazy fucks to inspire enough distrust where you can't reasonably take anyone at face value, just enough that it isn't worth taking the risk. This is really part of why I'm such a misanthrope; do people really think this species will be able to sustain itself once technology gets to the point where a few people of mild intelligence can do things which affect the entire species globally? The only reason we even survive from day to day is because there are tangible boundaries on how much harm any one individual can wreck in a given amount of time.
I'd been meaning to read Schneier's new book
Liars and Outliers, as it seems to largely deal with these sorts of questions, but haven't managed the time yet. Hopefully this weekend/next week.