Having seen all of Musks/Tesla lies, failure to deliver, etc etc etc
and having been in a Tesla car, its a big no thinks from me, I will take the hyper loop.....

Doing something badly is still a good start.
It will rapidly make tech companies come up with the solution that meets your goals as well as keeping kids safe.

99% of my online lief is already being exploited by big tech.
Browser finger printing
Tracking pixels
AI looking at grammar, spelling, vocabulary, location, time of post, etc etc etc etc etc
The use of "Colour" vs Color" already narrows down where people live, as does language.
They also link data bought/stolen to you.
Spending habits, what you buy, where you buy it from
Where your cellphone goes to, they then link it to other peoples info, are you regularly in the same place etc etc etc.
If you have a public profile, it WILL be linked to your "private" information
VPNs are not safe, they data gather too
All that does in the end is hide you IP, they still have all the other methods of data matching you
Anything people who contact you is used to validate who you are, if you are in photos, birthday wishes, member of the family dies, EVERYTHING, and Musk also has all you government linked information too now.

You have the illusion of privacy while having none.
Article 8 only applies in the EU, and US companies have been caught time and time again of breaching those rules

There IS a technological solution that protects personal information while also giving age validation. Not perfect I agree, just like the check box on porn sites that you tick to say you are over 18, but they can be made more secure than that.

Parental control over the computer that requires birth date information, held locally and encrypted. That data linked to a face/finger print allows a secure token to be generated to say "Yes" or "No" to a secure validation request from a web site. No personal information is stored off site.

Unfetted big tech has cause massive harms to society, and there needs to be massive pushback.
Cyber bullying, Nudifying of kids, porn sites that give an incredibly distorted ideology about sex, in particular the degradation of women/girls, leading to increases in self deletion. I KNOW victims and how damaged they are, one who has been married for 20 years.... her husband has never seen her naked all because of a "hidden cam" when she was 12 by someone the family trusted.

Doing nothing will not force tech to find a sane solution where both privacy/protection are met, and every day this continues there are more and more victims being made.
Those damaged kids will one day be in charge of your life.
already 1/3 of girls experience some form of SA, gRape, Being flashed, groped, spied on, etc etc etc
about 1/9 boys also suffer the same abuse.

As an adult, you chose what you see and do, abused kids had ZERO fks given about them.
You can not demand "safety" for yourself until after safety of kids is made first.

It's weird then that the USA is one of the worst countries to raise children. In fact based on social metrics the USA is just not a great place at all.

The problem with the USA is it is unwilling to try anything, for example gun control. Most other countries do have gun control and the results speak for themselves, much lower deaths and guns are NOT the biggest killer of children, unlike the USA.
Yeah you get the same BS, the USA is different, we have our rights, etc etc etc, but put bluntly the USA simply accepts the problems as being unsolvable and is an acceptable outcome so they can keep their precious guns.

Your story about someone magazine out available for the child. Strawman.. The covers on many porn mags is highly graphic, so by entering the store kids are exposed to porn. Stopping at the door is a far superior solution. Never mind the fact that some of the clientele would take advantage of the kids in the store.

In NZ, to get a gun you need to have a gun licence. To get a licence the police will do a background check, mental health checks, you must go through gun handling training course, and it includes asking neighbours, ex partners, etc etc if you should be allowed a gun.. There significant restrictions on what firearms you are allowed. If you say you want a gun for "self defence" you will be forever denied a licence. The gun must be in a locked cabinet, the bolt and ammunition must be in a seperate locked cupboard. Police can come and inspect at will. The licences require renewal, etc etc etc etc
Severe restrictions on handguns, limited to gun club members for shooting events only.
But people still have guns, mostly for pest eradication / hunting, though target shooting also exists.
AND... we have significant less gun crime, per 100,000
US gun deaths 4.42 per 100k, Australia 0.09 per 100k, and NZ is lower than Australia.
But the USA is convinced their way is the only way... blah blah blah.

US violence crime has remained about the same since 2011 with variations slightly higher and lower.
I would expect gun crime to rise in the USA due to financial issues and greater poverty.

US laws do not apply to the external world, so the anti-discrimination bit is a straw man , never mind that discrimination is alive and well in the USA anyway.

But here is the real issue. We know doing nothing does not work.
So give a solution, tell us all how it can be done.
How would you protect children from exploitation, from harmful goods and services.

Parental responsibility ?
Education ?

50% of parents are below average , so that's not an option, unless all you want it to be just someone to point a finger at and blame them.
50% of adults are not computer literate (and that's generous, I would say 70%) , so that's not going to work either
Many parents are working 2-3 jobs and dont have time, its either work or starve, US support services suck badly.

Education ?
The US can not even get sex education done properly. They are as hell dont teach "No means No", and they are taking away a woman's right to bodily autonomy.
Many topic require time for children to learn other things first. We dont tach 5 years olds calculus , but we do start with simple addition. So teaching kids critical thinking to where they can comprehend it is probably around the age of 14-18, again it's a complex subject and takes time to teach.
Meantime you have the likes of Faux News spewing blatant lies at them in their homes, as well as evangelical churches, etc etc etc so their chances of learning are severely hampered in the USA anyway.

And the US school system sucks badly too.

But feel free to give a solution that will work.

Bottom line is like everything, you make a start and then refine it over time, that seems to have worked for most things in life.
I dont expect anything to be perfect, heck for something it will require societal changes to take place too, and that takes time,
I propose do something, its a start, and once it has started making incremental changes becomes easier.
What's the saying "The longest journey starts with the first step"

And one last thing, the USA is not the best, the world does not want to be like the USA so the usual myopic us centric ideology is not going to work here either.

The internet is more closely aligned to the road, and web sites are the stores.
Anyone can walk along the road, but to enter some stores, proof age is required.

I am sure IRL there are stores that will sell what ever to children, not their kids so why should they care, lets blame the parents.
I am sure IRL there are stores and adults that will sell what ever to children for "favours"

And to be honest the USA does not care about children, they are someone else's fault.
This probably explains why the USA has more prisoners than any other, about 1% of the adult population is behind bars (at tax payers expense)
This also explains the levels of violent crime in the USA, and as for school shootings "Thoughts and prayers , I want my guns"
But in civilised countries we DO protect our kids, prevention being cheaper than cure.
If stores dont want to obey OUR laws, then lock their doors against us then expect criminal actions
You already have no privacy on the internet, so having a form of age validation (can be on the device, just like face/fingerprints are) with no additional loss of privacy. Web sites that have no "adult" content, eg most stores, dont need it, anyone can enter, they can even "rope off" the adult sections of that store if no age validation is made.

Just as you do not care about harms to children , most parents don't care about your loss of perceived privacy.
If you are too ashamed of what you are doing to validate your age, perhaps you should not be doing it

Huh...to enter a weed store in SanFran, I still has to give age ID to the security guard at the door even though I am WAY older than that.

And try and remember, US laws end at the US boarder, and 96% of the worlds population lives outside the USA.

US kids have much more to worry about in the USA than porn mags, its being shot in school that maters most, and the USA will not do anything rational about that either.

Why does it need to do that ?
I have Face ID for my banking, medical records, password manager, etc. all stored on my machine.

Set up each user with their DOB as part of the accounts creating, and face/fingerprint ID as a required validation for age sensitive information, web site sends a query and the local machine can just say "No".
Sites that do NOT need age validation don't need to ask, or where there is mixed media (Netflix) then to access the R rated material in that site again needs age verification where as the rest does not.

This then brings some parental responsibility into the mix when they set up user accounts on the home machine. Yes some will lie, some will not care and just have one profile, etc etc, buy the MAJORITY will work. Those that teach kids how to get around it are the same kind of people who buy alcohol/weed/etc for minors IRL.

ROTFLMAO.
50% of parents are below average
50% of parents are below. average in IT knowledge

And much of this is coming from people who had to program their VCR for their parents because it was too hard for them.

Kids have exactly ONE chance of growing up and being good citizens. Those same kids in 20-30 years are the ones who will be in charge of your pensions.

You need ID IRL to enter porn, alcohol, tobacco, weed, etc etc etc stores, can someone please explain why the same materials should NOT be age restricted on line.

Your entire life online is being tracked, recorded, cross matched, etc etc etc, bought and sold, etc etc, using cookies, hidden pixels, browser finger printing etc etc etc and Social media will be using grammar, spelling, vocabulary, time of day , who you char with (who may already be compromised) and cross that with the people they chat to IRL.

NO laws are perfect, so saying "kids will get around this" as a reason not to do anything is stupid, you may as well;l say murder should be legal because people find away to get around that law too.

IF this becomes the norm, then tech companies will put in a LOT of effort to make age verification simple, and safe while not having to store personal details on their machines. "Necessity is the mother of invention".
99% of people are not whistle blowers, nor need secrecy .
If you are too embarrassed to have the porn etc you watch known and associated with you.... perhaps that's a you problem.

" it's looking like violent crime in 2025 finally returned to pre BLM levels."

Tells me all I need to know about you...

Renewables and batteries are the way NZ can go.
Modernising much of the existing generating system will help too.
This oil shock will boost public transport, where I live we already have electric buses.
Road will give way to rail for spending, a thought that terrifies oil industry execs.
If we get rid of Comalco our aluminium smelter we would have another 20% of power for our national grid to use, this buys us time to make other structural changes (more wind/solar, upgraded hydro and thermal, increased insulation in houses, energy efficient appliances).
That elephant is likely many decades away , and perhaps we will then have safer micro reactors by then.
Oil in some sort of (vegetable oils) will be used in agriculture because of high workloads, but that may change too.

As for "private" industry being better....ROTFLMAO, they will use shell companies etc etc etc to make sure that they get the profits, but loses will be met by the tax payers. US industry in 3rd world countries have an appalling history of safety violations, destruction of the environment , and rapidly withdrawn leaving an expensive mess behind.

In one of the Australian mines their BIG trucks are electric, the empty truck goes up the hill on battery power, a loaded one comes down and generates electricity, the excess is put into the grid, clever, no fuel costs and it makes them money by selling the power.

You are NOT fine.
If you had a functional government and law system trump would have been behind bars, and Epstein would have been life behind bars the first time, not released so he could continue.
Trump is stealing tax payers dollars as fast as he can, so are his family. Insider trading is rife in your representatives at all levels.
The Supreme Court is just as corrupt, as are many of the judges and other Presidential appointments.

Things are NOT going to go back to normal once Trump goes.
"Once bitten twice shy" applies, and the EU has enough clout to tell the USA to F off, more so now because other countries have shifted towards the EU for trade etc.

The EU is not as arrogant, ignorant, entitled, racist, bigoted, sexist, violent, and militant as the USA. Religion plays a MUCH smaller part, and some countries religion is almost gone, yet they have far better societies than the USA does. The world is far better to look to them for leadership than the USA.

Peak USA has been and gone, but because the USA is so inward looking they can not see how the world has shifted. The still believe that once Trump goes it will all go back to the way it was, and it won't.
China and the EU will overtake the USA as the most wealthy countries with higher GDPs and better quality of life.

The US needs to stop thinking with it guns/bombs,

They have been doing with for over 100 years and we are tired of it We DON'T want to be Americanised , our languages, culture, art, music food, etc etc etc are all different and all of equal value to each other, no one is better than any others.


US laws and jurisdiction end at the US boarder, not where ever you think you can make a country submit and make US corporations rich. The USA is in effect the school bully taking other peoples lunch money.

And seperate religion permanently from Government, your "god" is the root of most of your evil. The rest is ignorance, arrogance, entitlement.

Enough is enough.

2028 is way too late. That closing the door after the horses have bolted.

The damage is done, the USA PROVED it was a real threat to other countries sovereignty, culture, freedom, democracy, finances.

I hope that the EU excels and becomes an alternative to US media/businesses for the rest of the world to use too.

Trump will be seen as the president who willed the USA..... and the people willingly allowed him to do it. There were various off ramps the US could have taken (impeachment /removal from office, the 25th, etc etc)and they chose not to. So now it gets to live with the consequences....FAFO.

It will be interesting to see if any US companies shift entirely to the EU so they get access to the world, rather than just the 4% that is the USA. The inevitable contraction is the US economy, the backlash against the USA and firms, will make this an attractive option.

Too much history of AI just data grabbing to feed the AI.

Then do the later, require web sites to identify you.

No, it is real, it happens.
But I guess so long as you can access pRon you dont care.