Fear and Loathing in Cyberspace

First and most importantly, listen to this

Now that we're on the same page emotionally...I'm scared.  Scared of all of this crap.  I've got a bunch of varied ideas for projects to create, as I mentioned, but I worry about them coming back to haunt me.  In the age of the Internet what gets posted lasts forever pretty much.  Most people feel a sense of liberation from the sense of pseudo-anonymity on Ye Oldde Tubes, but it's a false sense of security.  If someone wants to find out who you are and find out where you live and any of your personal info, well it's not going to be hard if they have the skills. 

It really worries me, I want to be able to speak my mind or be adventurous with comedy and maybe push the limits here and there.  I've been on stage doing improv before and have slipped into the "just act/speak" mode where there is almost no filter holding me back and have thankfully managed to not get myself in trouble.  I'm a big fan of blasphemy.  I think that sacred cows are meant to be slaughtered-on occasion.  Some of my personal heroes are people like Richard Dawkins, Matt and Trey from South Park, magicians Penn & Teller, PZ Meyers, and George Carlin.  All people who aren't afraid to say things that bring some color to the face.  I like to think of myself as a scientist, in the same way I think of myself as a philosopher.  Everyone on Earth is both those things to some extent, just how much they decide to examine the physical and metaphysical nature of the Universe varies. 

Of course freedom isn't free

...but I don't want to be the next Salman Rushdie or Giordanno Bruno.  Then again I doubt any of the (if I'm lucky) 20 or so people who visit this site a week care enough to come after me for my dumb jokes and poorly thought out essays.  However, my identity is forever linked to these words and they could come back to haunt me.  I don't think I'd ever run for public office so I'm not worried about that but any kind of comment that in the future might not be so polite could be a potential disaster for me.  Or what if my efforts pay off in the future and my "media empire" starts to get popular, more people start reading and BAM! I become the target of some internet vigilante campaign? 

Derp, you dun goofed.

Now, I freely admit that I often go to a worst case scenario.  In fact, if I were to name my strongest skill I would say it's the ability to instantly find flaws in any idea, plan, experimental design, or person- especially if said flaw/catastrophe is beyond the laws of probability in our ordered, natural universe.  Give me a topic and a few minutes and I'll give you a horrific and complicated breakdown of how it will explode and destroy all life on Earth.

But of course, all life is risky.  You could die any time and you need to not live in fear or you'll never really live at all.  Trying to stay true to that every day is pretty damn hard but I'm trying. 

In the end, all that matters is knowing this: