I used to. When I returned after learning/deciding that the moderation policy was probably not as toxic as I thought, I stopped. TL;DR: “Man is least himself when he speaks in his own person. Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” (EDIT: see also)
Reasons why the pseud was useful:
LessWrong was, and to a lesser degree still is, unfashionable, and my name is rare. Posts under my name are likely to be prominent Google results for my name, most relevantly for recruiters.
Being aggressive when a situation calls for it is scarier when your actions reflect irrevocably on you rather than on your pseudonymous reputation. A pseudonym can be abandoned, shedding any mistrust and grudges at the cost of also shedding any trust and friendships you had accrued; a real name cannot. (As an example of those coexisting, my primary Tumblr pseud is known to be blunt and confrontational, but this also gained me the trust to be invited to be a beta reader for someone’s serial novel when the author wanted honest criticism. I could shed the former, at the cost of the latter.)
Multiple pseudonyms can be used in different places or for different purposes. For example, if I was Eliezer when he wrote the “letter from David Monroe” in 2016, and I was writing it on LW rather than FB, I might have created a new account DavidMonroe and posted it with that. A non-hypothetical example is that I have kept an ancient pseudonym active specifically for engaging in certain fandoms SJ loves to hate on, and less commonly for when I want to really let loose on someone I consider a bad actor. The ‘right to be sued’ is valuable but the ability to act outside it is, too.
(EDIT: When I wrote this comment my LW username was <FirstName><LastName>. For some of the reasons mentioned here, I have since gotten my account’s name changed to <FragmentOfLastName> to make it less Googleable.)
I used to. When I returned after learning/deciding that the moderation policy was probably not as toxic as I thought, I stopped. TL;DR: “Man is least himself when he speaks in his own person. Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” (EDIT: see also)
Reasons why the pseud was useful:
LessWrong was, and to a lesser degree still is, unfashionable, and my name is rare. Posts under my name are likely to be prominent Google results for my name, most relevantly for recruiters.
Being aggressive when a situation calls for it is scarier when your actions reflect irrevocably on you rather than on your pseudonymous reputation. A pseudonym can be abandoned, shedding any mistrust and grudges at the cost of also shedding any trust and friendships you had accrued; a real name cannot. (As an example of those coexisting, my primary Tumblr pseud is known to be blunt and confrontational, but this also gained me the trust to be invited to be a beta reader for someone’s serial novel when the author wanted honest criticism. I could shed the former, at the cost of the latter.)
Multiple pseudonyms can be used in different places or for different purposes. For example, if I was Eliezer when he wrote the “letter from David Monroe” in 2016, and I was writing it on LW rather than FB, I might have created a new account DavidMonroe and posted it with that. A non-hypothetical example is that I have kept an ancient pseudonym active specifically for engaging in certain fandoms SJ loves to hate on, and less commonly for when I want to really let loose on someone I consider a bad actor. The ‘right to be sued’ is valuable but the ability to act outside it is, too.
(EDIT: When I wrote this comment my LW username was <FirstName><LastName>. For some of the reasons mentioned here, I have since gotten my account’s name changed to <FragmentOfLastName> to make it less Googleable.)