Cowards

Years (the early 1980s) ago I worked with a chap who had written a pretty cool software package that would do some interesting mathematics stuff, freeing users from some pencil-and-paper drudgery. He was pretty honked about people giving copies of his code to their friends, denying him the royalties. I asked him what he thought was at the heart of this crime (for crime it was), and he said:

"Anonymity. If people could rob banks with the anonymity that they swipe my hard work, this country's economy would collapse tomorrow."

The older I get, the more I agree with him. That made this comment from Greg Gutfield resonate strongly with me:

“After a few years of blogging, I've hit on one essential truth: there are millions of cowards willing to say things about you online that they'd never say to you in a bar...Blogging has created a chorus line of cowards."

-Greg Gutfield