I have changed my mind about anonymity online, and I want to set out why, because I argued the other side for years. The case I used to make was straightforward. Anonymity protects the vulnerable — whistleblowers, people in hostile countries, anyone whose opinion could cost them a job. Real-name policies were introduced by companies with a commercial interest in identity, and they were sold with a safety argument that the evidence never really supported. All of that is still true and I have not stopped believing any of it. What changed is that I stopped treating anonymity as one thing. There is anonymity from the state, anonymity from your employer, anonymity from other users, and anonymity from the platform itself. These are four different properties. A system can give you the first three and none of the fourth, and for almost everyone that combination is what they actually want. The mistake I was making was arguing about a slider when the real question was who each end of it protects you from. Once I separated them, most of the disagreements I had been having turned out to be people defending different columns of the same table.

I miss being unreachable and I am aware I could simply turn the phone off, and I am also aware that I will not.

Anyone else notice that every "wellness" thing at work is something that would be unnecessary if the job were slightly less bad?

I have never regretted spending money on a good mattress or decent shoes. Almost everything else I have regretted.

Local elections are the only ones where your vote plainly matters and they have the lowest turnout, which I cannot square with anything.

Half the arguments I have with my partner are about the same four things and we have never once finished one. I am not sure that is a problem, which is new.

The most useful thing I was ever taught about science is that a result with no error bars is a story.

Ask anyone whether they want the truth from their doctor and they say yes, then go to pieces the moment a doctor is actually blunt with them.

Getting a GP appointment has become a competitive sport and the people who are worst at sport are the ones who need it most.

Music got worse when it got easy to make — not the songs, the filter. When a studio cost real money somebody had to believe in you before you got in the room.

Being late is a decision that your time is worth more than mine. There is no version of it that isn't that, however pleasantly it gets phrased.

Weather forecasting got quietly, enormously better and nobody noticed because we only remember the times it was wrong.

Most people who say they want honest feedback want accurate praise, and the two are easy to confuse until the feedback is actually negative. You can watch the switch happen in real time: the request is sincere, and then the first genuine criticism arrives and the next twenty minutes are spent supplying context.

Cricket is the only sport where you can go for lunch, come back, and nothing has happened, and that is a feature.

T20 made Test cricket better, not worse, and the people who say otherwise have not watched a fourth innings run chase lately.

Nostalgia for early internet culture ignores that it was small, homogeneous and mostly male, and that almost everything people miss about it was a property of being small. Two hundred people can hold a norm in their heads without writing it down. Nothing about that survives contact with two million.

Honestly think the four-day week debate is mostly people who already have autonomy arguing about the calendar, while everyone in a warehouse gets nothing out of either version.

Health advice aimed at women is still mostly either about being thinner or about having children, and it is genuinely strange how little else there is.

Live music is the one thing that has actually got better, and it is because everything else got worse. Nobody can make money from a recording any more so they all have to be able to play.

Cities keep building cycle lanes that stop. Just end, mid-road, and you are in traffic. What is the point of ninety percent of a cycle lane?

Buying a house is the only serious purchase where you bid against a number nobody will show you, and everyone has agreed to find this normal.

Being poor is expensive and nobody tells you until you are in it. Cheap shoes twice a year, the meter that costs more per unit, the deposit you cannot save because you are paying someone else's mortgage.

My handwriting has become genuinely illegible and I only found out because I had to fill in a form in front of somebody.