People who are paranoid often seem too concerned that somehow, someway, someone is going to find out who they really are, and use that against them. It hinders free conversation, and is often a surprise to those who are a bit less paranoid.
I got an email from a person telling me to leave her son alone. WTF? I responded and asked her what she ment, and who her son was? She was less than friendly and threatened to call the FBI on me. I told her to go ahead, and gave her the 800 hot line number.
The point being, if just friendly emails back and forth to someone you'll never meet, talking about things like computer games and music can promote such fear, and yes, hatred, then why bother going on line? This lady formed an opinion of me because I like SEIV, and her son does as well. It took a lot of typing to get it through to this lady that her kid is safe, and that there is nothing wrong with talking about how to make a god damned ship set for Space Empires.
I guess I am just peeved because I did not expect to get yelled at for helping someone. Being a littled paranoid is a good thing, but to freak out everytime someone calling him self ATROCITIES sends your kid an email, well that is just over paranoid IMHO.
[ 01 May 2002: Message edited by: Atrocities ]