Well that’s literally what these laws are requiring. You can speculate on future laws, but you can imagine innumerable horrible futures. It’s important to stay grounded and not get lost in the dooming. And I see nothing wrong with an optional feature that lets you set an age on a child’s account. As long as it’s something I control, then that’s actually giving me more control over my hardware, not less.

Yes, there will be people pushing for more invasive methods. But those are the laws you should oppose. Not these. People tend to think in binaries. And they tend to lump everything called “digital id” into one bucket devoid of nuance or discernment.

If anything, lumping all digital id into one bucket without any nuance only helps the opponents of privacy. Simply giving the parents the option to enter an age is a perfectly reasonable policy. If you oppose that because you cannot recognize nuance and consider all id laws equivalent, then you’re hurting your side. People see you appealing to privacy when opposing something that reasonable people will not see as a violation of privacy. Again, we’re taking OS-level controls that actually give you more control over the machine.

You risk a “boy who cried wolf” scenario. You turn everyone against you fighting something that really isn’t an invasion of privacy. Then when someone does actually try to pass a law mandating facial recognition be built into apps, people will ignore you as they already consider you an irrational radical.

But that’s literally what these systems are. There is more than one form of age verification. The type we’re discussing here literally is just “enter your name in a box.” It’s important not to muddy the waters. If you don’t know what you’re opposing and choosing your battles carefully, you can’t effectively fight infringement on privacy. And I really don’t see anything wrong with a law that just says, “every OS needs to have a feature that lets parents self-report age on a child’s account.”

Yes, there are other forms of digital id laws. But we’re talking specifically about OS-level ones. This literally just be a more effective parental control, giving people more control over their own PCs, not less.

Again, try to focus on what specifically we are talking about, not similar-sounding but unrelated technologies.

I don’t really get this. Why is it such a big deal if your OS has setting where you enter your age, and the OS then sends that to websites? Face scanning or demanding uploads of photo IDs is an immense privacy violation. But simply having your OS have a setting you can use where you provide a number, a number that you’re completely free to alter or report whatever value you want? I really don’t see the issue with this.

This seems like a pretty easy way to give parents some control over their kid’s online activities while also not infringing on privacy. The parents can set up the OS and give an account to their kids that lists their ages as under 18. If they want their kids to access the web without restrictions, they simply don’t have to create an under 18 account on the computer. And even if your OS has to report an age to access a website, if it’s all based on self-reporting, you can just self-report a false age.

We tend to think in binaries, as this is convenient. We tend to view all digital age verification as horrible and equally horrible. But this? Just giving parents a way to give their kids a minors-only account, and have websites respect that OS-level flag? This is nothing like bills that require uploading face scans or photo IDs.

Sure you can speculate a slippery slope. But that is a fallacy for a reason. It tends to wash out all nuance and make you conclude everything is absolute evil forever.

That’s just a consequence of shitty bathroom design. In civilized places, bathroom stalls have actual walls and doors that go to the floor and ceiling.

So? They need to be oppressed. I think we should start talking a hell of a lot more about overtly stripping the rights from religious freaks and TERFs. Oppression is a tool of politics, and we’ve been unilaterally disarming ourselves for far too long.

We’re currently in a one-sided war. The bigots can tirelessly work to strip the rights of everyone else, and they can sit comfortably knowing that no one will ever come after their rights and their liberties. After all, good liberals like yourself don’t want to get their hands dirty, and they hem and haw and, cluck and peck at the ground, saying “wait, wait, we can’t stoop to their level. They go low, we go high!” Then they maintain the moral high ground while the lives of vulnerable minorities are destroyed one piece at a time.

Fuck that. Here’s an idea. Let’s declare conservative churches as inappropriate for children. Kids shouldn’t be exposed to the filth that’s in the Bible after all. There’s murder, bestiality, genocide, incest, and any number of disgusting things in that book. Maybe by law you should have to be 18 to read it. No more baptism for anyone under the age of 18. Hell, let’s not even allow kids in churches until age 16.

Or here’s an idea. Let’s declare denying your kid gender-affirming care to be legally child abuse. Frankly, this isn’t even a stretch. I want to see liberals pushing to take queer children out of the homes of religious bigots. There should be a form where kids can go online, out themselves as a queer kid living in a bigoted home, and have child protective services immediately come and find them a supportive place to live. Bigots don’t deserve to be parents.

Or how about we pass a law that says trans people can sue cis people who make them uncomfortable in bathrooms. Do you harass a trans person or confront them about being in the “right” bathroom? That trans person should be able to sue you for an absurd some plus attorneys fees for a violation of their rights.

We need to start stripping absolutely every right we can from these animals. This is the only way we will ever see the right stop trying to take away everyone else’s rights. Rights are meant to be a peace treaty - you let me live my life and I’ll let you live yours. The problem is right now, conservatives are fucking over everyone else’s lives, but no one is fucking with conservatives. I want them to feel the fear of their victims. Only then is there any hope of actually declaring a cease fire and ending this game of attacking rights of all sorts.

Is dehumanization a tool of oppression? You’re fucking right it is. And we have some people that are in dire need of oppression. Conservative Christians love to masturbate about being “oppressed.” It’s about damn time they learned what real oppression felt like.

They don’t feel. They’re not even human. They’re animals.

Congress can already directly overturn Supreme Court rulings via either jurisdiction stripping or by expanding the size of the court.