Laura Fitton asked: “What one ‘rule’ would you make about the Internet?”, and in the thread that resulted, Robert replied that he’d eliminate anonymity.

What many bold souls overlook is that for a great many people - whether due to economic, social, political, or other realities in their lives - the only kind of truly free speech is anonymous speech.  Whether out of fear for their jobs, their relationships, or even their lives, they simply cannot take the risk of putting their names behind what they say.

We ought to consider dissidents, whistleblowers, addicts, and crime victims -  along with just plain chickenshits.

There’s been a lot of grousing lately about people hiding behind anonymity online and I think in many cases - such as some of the ruthless stalker freaks/trolls - the griping is warranted.  But thinking more broadly, not all of us have the ability to stomp our feet and yell from the rooftops (relatively) free of consequences.  While celebrating that, we must also realize it’s not a very common condition.

I think we should encourage everyone to speak up, whether they choose to sign their name or not.

EDIT: Most of the conversation about this piece is occurring here.

But these days, he’s making buildings sing.

But now for the really troubling data: the FDIC’s total insurance fund is less than $60 billion.  If IndyMac ends up costing $6 billion, that’s more than ten percent of the FDIC’s total insurance fund that’s been wiped out with a single collapse.

Yet, the FDIC “insures” more than eight thousand banks with about $7 trillion in deposits.  The top 150 banks have total assets of at least $20 billion each and deposits exceeding $2 billion each.

I just don’t see how this can end well.