Position:Home>Philosophy> If Your Social Security Number was Your name ...?

That would SUCK!. And we are approaching that, due to the Internet and computers, with all these passwords and user names and code numbers!. Question: In the "old days", you could only impersonate someone for a while pretending to be so-and-so, and then people only had names and physical appearance to go by!. Nowadays, "identity theft" is all-too-common, because we have all these ID numbers!. It's easier to impersonate someone NOW, with all these password safeguards, than it ever used to be!. WHY do we put up with this!?

Arthur Clarke (2001) had a good idea!. Our names would combine a name, like "Juvegna", with his or her birth date, which can never be changed, like Juvegna 9-18-1985!. No one else born on that date would be allowed that name!. Other Juvegnas could exist, but with different birth dates!. In a workplace or social setting, people could make nicknames if there were two or more "Juvegnas", but it ought to be so EASY to make a new kind of name (not the same old Mike, John, Sue and Mary), that we would not NEED a ton of ID and social security numbers to identify us!. ONE number/name, for life!.
I favor that!. I'll run for president based on that!.
Vote for me, Jim 12-10-1949!. :-}Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Instead of all those Johns and Johnny's, there would be alot of Sixes out there!. The Romans used to name all their women by the family's last name so if your Family was the Julian's you would have three sister Julia's!. Sometimes the boys got named by the order they were born, Sextus, Quintus and even Octavian were very common names!. (people had alot more kids back then!.)Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Those who are insecure would complain constantly about being "just a number" while those of us who are secure in themselves wouldn't care one way or the other!. We would know that we would be recognized for our accomplishments no matter what we are called!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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a rose by any other name!.

if through generations it became the norm, therefore part of our culture and we didn't know any better, we would accept it!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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"Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it!. We are twenty-one years old!. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall!. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: "There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers!." But we cannot change our bones nor our body!.

"We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the Students!. It was not that the learning was too hard for us!. It was that the learning was too easy!. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick!. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them!. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked upon us!.

"We looked upon Union 5-3992, who were a pale boy with only half a brain, and we tried to say and do as they did!.!.!.

"International 4-8818 are different!. They are a tall, strong youth and their eyes are like fireflies, for there is laughter in their eyes!. We cannot look upon International 4-8818 and not smile in answer!.

"Liberty 5-3000 !. !. !. Liberty five-three thousand !. !. !. Liberty 5-3000 !. !. !. !.

" We wish to write this name!. We wish to speak it, but we dare not speak it above a whisper!. For men are forbidden to take notice of women, and women are forbidden to take notice of men!. But we think of one among women, they whose name is Liberty 5-3000, and we think of no others!.

"We do not think of them as Liberty 5-3000 any longer!. We have given them a name in our thoughts!. We call them the Golden One!. But it is a sin to give men names which distinguish them from other men!. Yet we call them the Golden One, for they are not like the others!. The Golden One are not like the others!.

"There is some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which had been!. And this is the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear!. But sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men find that word!. They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or cut into the fragments of ancient stones!. But when they speak it they are put to death!. There is no crime punished by death in this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word!.

"It was when I read the first of the books I found in my house that I saw the word "I!." And when I understood this word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears!. I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind!.

"And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride!.
This god, this one word:
"I!."
Ayn Rand; "Anthem"


The beauty of the world "I" will not be found in a civilization that forces the use of numbers, because before you know it, "I" will become "We," and "We" has no individuality, no freedom, no soul!.

"The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it!. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages!."
ibidWww@QuestionHome@Com

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