edunham

Yep, taking action to prevent oneself from coming to harm while also working toward a world in which the mechanism of harm doesn't happen are not mutually exclusive. A cyclist who campaigns for safer bike lanes and legislation against cars hitting bikes probably still wears a helmet.

Interesting feedback, since I was attempting to carefully avoid advocating for anyone to do anything. My target audience in offering examples/suggestions of anonymity techniques was the extremely non-technical friends and family who talk to me about having read my blog -- if the post sounded insightful to a technology professional, I would view it as having placed them in the lucky 10,000 for pieces of expected knowledge.

The post was written from a place of annoyance toward a specific and unfortunately not-yet-public set of proposals to bring about the safeties I lumped into the 4th group, while disregarding the benefits of the others. It sounds caricaturey because I was drawing a caricature to demonstrate the implausibility and fragility of such safety, and you have guessed my opinions of "social justice" accurately. My actions toward it are neutral or supportive because it beats the alternatives, but there's a good reason I usually leave my personal opinions out of technical content.

As to whether the problem of safety online is solved, ask the people who identify as victims of pretty much any technology-facilitated harm or scandal how they feel about the matter.

It sounds like you have a highly knowledgeable perspective on the physical/political safety side of things, and it'd make a fantastic post on your own blog!