## Splitting into digital personalities ### Splitting into digital personalities One of [[Nassim Taleb]]'s quirks is picking up fights with intellectuals on twitter. I strongly remember the fights he used to pick up with [[Steven Pinker]] and the whole argument on why IQ scores are majorly an intellectual swindle. [Living Bimodal lives](Living%20Bimodal%20lives.md) <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">More evidence that Pinker <a href="https://twitter.com/sapinker?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@sapinker</a> is a charlatan. I pointed out technical flaw: responds by shifting focus/demonizing the messenger. <br><br>So far Pinker NEVER answered our querry. He turned down an invitation by the Nobel Foundation to respond. <br>Charlatan!<a href="https://t.co/SArf9fagPy">https://t.co/SArf9fagPy</a> <a href="https://t.co/Sx82fiGtIw">https://t.co/Sx82fiGtIw</a></p>&mdash; Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) <a href="https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/969212699824590848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 1, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> I have also seen Venkatesh Rao use his twitter account (@vgr) with a disclaimer in bio deeming it '_controversial with inflammatory content expected_'. This makes me think about possible such use cases of social media accounts. What if one uses twitter to just pick up fights with people? And be radical and inflammatory in nature? And come to Instagram to share creative artsy stuff. Then use Linkedin to extract bullet points out of one's resume only to sugarcoat it with hashtags to share it across. Then you have reddit where you are all anonymous and in stealth mode (Remember the quote? — _Give a guy a mask and he will tell you the truth_) My conclusion is that we are essentially splitting our personality into various alter egos. One for Twitter/Instagram/Linkedin/Tik Tok etc. We are being different versions of ourselves across different social media handles and in essence, splitting our personality into various chunks digitally, each with its own unique traits. ![[Superforecasting.png]] As Philip Tetlock puts it, there are two kinds of people: hedgehogs and foxes. The foxes are of the generalist kind; synthesizing information from multiple fronts and bringing them all together. In some cases, even this might become a bit overwhelming. In these cases, it makes sense to create new alter-egos altogether which cater to specific needs. With one of my alter egos let loose, I'm now inspired to use my twitter handle for picking up fights. Oops.