I started writing a reply about my childhood. But then I realized I would be sharing more than I'm comfortable sharing in public, I don't even feel comfortable creating a throwaway account to discuss this stuff.
Not the person you’re responding to, but I’m careful with what I share with people.
I once had someone share something rather personal, followed up with a comment that they suspected I’ve had similar experiences.
The reason? The language and phrases I use when referencing parents. Nothing negative per se, but the way in which I refer to them (example: my mother) and others. I was giving away more than I realized.
Which wasn’t so much of a concern in this context, but I’m more away of it now around people I don’t know especially.
(This comment actually puts me a little outside of my normal personal opsec, but I’m going to let it stand here)
Even something as simple as a single word can give away absurd amounts of information about us.
I used to be ashamed of my nationality and actively tried to hide it. I was very successful at it too, never had a single person identify me... Until I tried playing an MMORPG I used to play when I was a kid and was still learning English. Long story short, I misspelled the name of an item because of my childhood memories. Turns out that mistake was very specific to people of my country.
I once had my nationality "leak" just by the specific addition I chose when ordering a specific hamburger-like dish at a food-stall. Something akin to choosing to put mustard on a hot-dog kind of situation. The person looked at me, knew, got confused as I had a perfectly neutral and non-native accent, and then just had to ask to confirm their suspicion.
Yeah I think about this a lot. How much unspoken personal trauma lurks beneath anger online. When someone is angry at something anything could be a root cause but it isnt appropriate for onlookers to speculate or authors to be too open about, so it passes unnoticed. I feel all that tends to be absorbed in a two-steps-removed way through sensationalist headlines and related screeds and we don't think about the origins. Of course I can only speculate if this is true so it is no wonder we don't. The old adage is "their anger is about them not you" but although I lean towards this explanation it sounds like a necessary assumption sometimes.
I saw a comment from a foster parent that said we would find a cure for cancer before we find a cure for childhood trauma.
just because the internet datamining bots don't care doesn't mean they won't create hyper-accurate portraits of your personal life, that can and likely will be sold, hacked, or leaked.
you have 0 reason to think they'll respect your life, and less reason to help them make money off of your misery. at least with a throwaway and some marginal protections like a VPN and browser fingerprint obfuscation you can feel mostly secure.
Maybe for you, or others: But I have some past stuff that applies to the ACE score, and absolutely no-one knows about it. Not my spouse, family, previous partners, friends, psychiatrist, counselors, and my children certainly never will. I'll very likely take it to my grave.
I also went through the exact same thought process, then I thought I could at least share my ACE score, and yeah, no. I noticed that the OP is using a throwaway account as well.
