Would data mining give someone a good impression of who you are?

If someone were to read your posts and try to get an idea of who you really are, how accurate of an impression would they get?

My opinion about how that would work in general is summarized in the thread linked to below.

Degrees of Separation Between an Internet Persona and a Real Person

When I'm reading someone's posts on this forum, I always think of it as being a sliver of their true self, at best.

In my case, data mining my post history would not give anyone an accurate view of who I am. For example, I've started 107 threads that are extant in the 2016 US Elections forum, but that's a topic I have no interest in discussing privately. There are lots of instances like that for me.

In fact, I am communicating privately with someone who reads this forum. Recently they were upset about something I wrote here. They thought I was a proponent of something that I'm not. In my case, reading my threads and posts would not give a person a good indication of who I really am. I am often trying to be humorous or sensationalistic in my writing on the forum. Sensationalism sells.

a reply to: Profusion

Good question. Any one care to make analysis of my ATS contributions to determine if they can correctly describe my persona.

a reply to: Profusion

Depends on the observer, subjectivity is at play. Psychologists and psychoatrists can spot disorders and potential disorders just from material people post that is for sure.

Everybody is full of disorders one way or another, the only issue is that some believe not.a reply to: OneGoal

Smile and the whole world smiles with you......

a reply to: Profusion

Data mining companies know everything about you.
It doesn't matter how many different email addresses or proxies you use, everything eventually leads back to you.

Unless you live in the woods with no human contact and no technology you can't hide from them.

a reply to: watchitburn

How does one make sense of contradictory information? I started a thread about such a situation:

If you're everything then aren't you nothing?

I was close to that person, and I was devoting a lot of time and energy to trying to figure them out. I realized it was pointless. I have no idea how data miners can figure out what is going on in such situations.

originally posted by: OneGoal
a reply to: Profusion

Psychologists and psychoatrists can spot disorders and potential disorders just from material people post that is for sure.

That is only if they believe that what they are reading here is absolutely true. Who would be that foolish? Please check out the thread linked to below, and give me your opinion.

The Internet as a Simulacrum of Life

We've probably all lived with people. Family members, significant others, roommates and so on. And despite constant exposure to these people, their true natures still remain something of a mystery.

People we know well, even intimately, can still surprise us. Often surprise us in truly shocking ways.

So if direct contact over long periods of time cannot reveal everything, surely data mining also can't.

a reply to: Profusion

It's not so much by what the content of your posts is by what you do, where you go and everything else.

They track your car, your debit/credit cards, ID cards, library cards, phone. Your medical and dental information everything. You can have everything off and use the tightest security but passive detection devices that are everywhere will still ping your stuff. They know what you do, what you watch, what websites you visit, what you spend money on. They use it to predict what you will like, where you will go, and what your reaction might be to a given product or adverting message. They compile all that information assign an identifying number to your "Consumer Profile" (that's what makes it legal, they don't provide your name) and sell it to advertising companies so they can better market to demographics.

They are probably not reading your anonymous posts on ATS, but the NSA does, maybe not read it, but they have it. And it's not unreasonable to assume the Govt has access to these "Consumer Profiles"

Again, it's not unreasonable to assume if the Govt. was so inclined they could apply the data compiled by their internet and phone snooping info collection to the data in your consumer profile to come up with a fairly accurate picture of your personality or psychology.

a reply to: Profusion

Think of everyone as having multiple personality order (as opposed to multiple personality disorder).

That is, we all have multiple personas, only we do not all create multiple identities to go along with differing personas.

Each persona is our will towards something - it is how we think our will should be towards said thing. It (our spirit/will) is personified (thought/conceived/bore, as into the soul/psyche/identity) by our measure of a thing's will.

To rephrase that, what we're doing is sort of playing one person whose roles differ in accordance with our will towards things, where our will is based on how we perceive the will of the thing we're interacting with.

e.g. We act out our admiral (respectful and reserved) persona when interacting with someone we perceive to be a admirable (elders and leaders for example) and we act out our adorable (cute and innocent) persona when interacting with someone we perceive to be adorable (babies, animals, romantic partners, etc.) Or we might be sarcastic with someone we perceive to be a falsely spirited: sarcastically, saying "yes, sir" to someone who acts high and mighty but we perceive to not be, or sarcastically acting adorable, saying (in a cutesy voice) "awe aren't you just so precious" when we want to mock someone who is being naive.

Our personas being our personification of our will in relation to another [thing]; even ourselves, as we are self-aware.

So, to answer: Your question yesterday was different. You asked if we could see what someone liked based on authored threads, and the answer was no (there is not enough information in authored threads alone.) But to answer this question: yes, with enough information, the right kind of information, you can get an impression of who someone is. But again, you need a lot of information on a whole range of different things.

Our words are the image of our awareness of our spirit. Son, Father, Holy Spirit.
I take in your words as images of your conception of your spirit.

See how it works now?

originally posted by: Tindalos2013
a reply to: Profusion

Good question. Any one care to make analysis of my ATS contributions to determine if they can correctly describe my persona.

You play the dark scribe around here, but I have no idea who you play outside of ATS. Maybe you fancy yourself a paradox, like a sophisticated rebel with a soft side. You're wayne from waynes world?



Just a guess, lol. No offense meant.

originally posted by: Bleeeeep

originally posted by: Tindalos2013
a reply to: Profusion

Good question. Any one care to make analysis of my ATS contributions to determine if they can correctly describe my persona.

You play the dark scribe around here, but I have no idea who you play outside of ATS. Maybe you fancy yourself a paradox, like a sophisticated rebel with a soft side. You're wayne from waynes world?

Just a guess, lol. No offense meant.

I'd say that was a fair summation. Outside of ATS, in the real world I am much of the same.

a reply to: Profusion
Just the fact the information is contradictory is a clue to something.

Its not hard to profile someone if you put the effort in.

The Mrs now and again visits a website that caters for more specialist ladies apparel and one woman ended up with a guy turning up at her door as she'd been telling people about her life generally such as only a mile from X or got a new red car etc they worked it out just on her posts...so do be aware that over loads of posts people can be tracked back. by subtle details.

Lets start with simple things....

I love the 2nd amendment as an American = American (could be anywhere in the world)
Was driving along X road and saw a UFO = we can say you were there at the time.
You post you like Y brand of pizza in a thread, only occurs in certain areas of the road.
Had a Tornado warning pop up yesterday...more details as we have a date to check back on.

Probably by now i'm at your town, you post you're a specialist in plumbing on some other thread so shouldn't be hard to find the 2-3 people in the town who are lets say plumbers

Then you post looking for advice on gearbox trouble of a specific type of vehicle and you have a picture on your website of you stood next to an identical vehicle and thus you are found.

Do me, do me!
Who am I, based on my threads and posts? a reply to: Bleeeeep

a reply to: Profusion

Yes and no. I am a private person by nature, but I do look up many things that are of interest to me. And I helped facebook better identify me by going into settings and customizing my interests so that they can better serve me with applicable ads and suggestions. I'm willing to work with them in order to see things like...book sales or some cool clothes or whatnot. I'm young, so I suppose that's why I think it makes sense.

But no, they can't possibly know me fully from just my online activity.