Anonymity is Powerful
It’s amazing how much of a role anonymity plays in the world. People act very differently when their identity is hidden or when the identity of others are hidden.
There are a ton of examples of this from people in tinted windows driving more dangerously to kids misbehaving on Halloween because their costumes make them feel less responsible for their actions. However, there are a few examples I’ve decided to concentrate on.
The first is what we eat. Those of us who are not vegetarians will buy meat in the store, cook it, and enjoy eating it. Let’s throw in a twist now. Would you buy chicken if the package had a photo of the chicken when it was alive? How about if the package had the chicken’s name on it?
How about we include a list of it’s favorite bands or sports it liked? Obviously, this is far-fetched for a chicken, but suddenly it would seem sick to eat this. The chicken is no longer an anonymous bunch of meat. If there were ever a law to include information like this on all packages of chicken, it would put them all out of business.
One problem I have is how people sympathize mostly with living things that have brains. A carrot is a living thing, but I’ve never seen someone against the killing of carrots. Why not? Because it doesn’t have enough similarities with us humans? It’s tough to see where we should draw the line.
Another example is the Internet. People will often do things they would never have the courage to do in real life when they’re online. They might be playing a video game and say ethnic slurs because they don’t know anyone and they know no one knows them. It’s a perfect anonymous situation. (Want a great example? Check out my comments section sometime)
As I said, there are plenty of other examples, so keep an eye out for them. I strongly believe that if driving were less anonymous, we would have a lot less reckless drivers on the road. Notice how people are a lot more careful when they walk? That’s not an accident.
3 years ago