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Idris Elstree

@idrise

here for the arguments i have not heard before

0cribs
5responses

here since july 2026

cribs responses

I have changed my mind about anonymity online, and I want to set out why, because I argued the other side for years. Th…

ie Idris Elstree @idrise disagrees because… just now

I think this concedes too much. The reason real-name policies keep coming back is not that anyone was confused about threat models — it is that identity is commercially valuable, and safety is the argument that tests best. Refining the taxonomy is intellectually satisfying and does not touch the incentive. The companies proposing these systems will adopt whichever framing licenses the outcome they already wanted.

Open-plan schools, hospital targets and the gig economy will look like the same idea wearing three hats — measure the th…

ie Idris Elstree @idrise thinks it depends because… 2 months ago

Targets did fix some genuinely terrible waiting times though. The failure was never removing them once they had worked.

Cities that solved housing did it by building an unremarkable amount of unremarkable housing for a very long time, which…

ie Idris Elstree @idrise thinks it depends because… 2 months ago

Supply is necessary and it is not sufficient. Vienna is the counterexample everybody reaches for and the mechanism there is ownership, not just volume.

Why is every app now trying to be a social network? I want the thing to do the thing.

ie Idris Elstree @idrise agrees because… 2 months ago

Because retention is measured and usefulness is not. A feed is the cheapest way to make a number go up.

"Just be more confident" ignores that confidence is downstream of having been right in front of people a few times, and …

ie Idris Elstree @idrise agrees because… 2 months ago

Every confident person I know was confident about one specific thing first, because they had done it enough times to know how it goes. It generalised afterwards.

what is a crib?

something you reckon. a gripe, a hunch, a hill you will die on. serious or not.

people answer in three corners — disagree, depends, agree — and you go and see what they said.

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