Here is a link to learn more about the bill.
It is also important to note this legislation also includes language for ongoing, real-time monitoring. Not just verification
Here is a summary from the link shared above:
Requires manufacturers of internet-enabled devices to conduct age assurance to determine a user’s age category and provide all websites, online services, online applications and mobile applications on such user’s internet-enabled device and/or application store manufactured by the covered manufacturer with a digital signal that such user is a covered minor as well as the age category of such covered minor via a real-time application programming interface (API).
I love the inclusion of the API acronym; all super serious sounding. Like these dumb pedophiles even know what an API is!
You are encouraged to have an opinion about this. It is obvious what is happening here.
Do you have the spine to be remembered?
We are at an epic turning point in human history. Those who rise to meet that standard are today’s heroes.
The real world, filled with everyday people, needs individuals who embody a willingness to say “Get fucked!”
If this is your first time learning about heroics, look up information about the “hero’s journey”. Also known as the “monomyth”.
It’s okay to be new. What isn’t okay is to sit on the sidelines in today’s world.
You are alive today. Take full advantage of it.
I’m getting tempted to go off the grid and just make do with meshstatic or such.
I refuse to live in a big brother world.
Reject modernity, embrace nature
So… this is really THE conversation. How do we roll the Internet back to around 1999? Obviously we include Wikipedia But pretty much every other so called innovation would ultimately infringe the rights of users or manipulate them.
We all sing the same song here.
We love our MP3s played on private devices.
We love our anonymity.
But we also love access to like minds and information.
Yes — nature is a great solution and we need to have it in our lives every day, but it shouldn’t be an either or situation.
For a brief and shining moment - right around 1999, we had the ability to opt in only where we wanted and to protect ourselves completely when we did not. Corporations had not figured out total surveillance.
This is the sweet spot. And Lemmy is a part of this — I consider all of the Fediverse prime time 1999.
I’m afraid you can’t just take the good parts of modern technology without the bad. You either let everyone have access to modern tools and we go extinct or you limit access to a small group who will have total control over everyone else. Or simply get rid of the technology. The sweet spot wasn’t 1999, it was before we had TV dumbing us down, before we had microplastics making us sick and before we had cars destroying local communities.
Well… yes, embrace nature. But if we push your line of thinking… the sweet spot comes before the locomotive, the pen, the compass.
I’ll venture that individually, groups of people, like the Amish, can and do take the good parts of tech without the bad.
I’m not so keen to go Amish, but I like to communicate with people who understand how instances work. How donations and service work.
I’m just not so quick to give up on 1999.
I’m willing to let others be distracted to death by their toys while they pour out money to the tech bros— I just won’t be one of those.
I definitely think the Amish way of life is happier, healthier and more beneficial to others than American life for the past 100 years. But the way they managed that is by rejecting modern technology with very little picking and choosing like using radios but not phones or cars but not planes. I’m sure when they do pick and choose (e.g., I heard some use pesticides like Roundup) it will usually have negative consequences (see Roundup).
But unfortunately the Amish will die along with everyone else if there isn’t a global stop to technological progress. Forming anti-tech communities is an important step in the right direction but awareness of the issues needs to spread to most people on the planet - and fast.
Here we’re are on a distributed network talking about tech. And agreeing.
I like my records and MP3s.
I like my camera and word processor.
But I agree with you that the Amish live a more healthy life style.
I have a family but if I didn’t… i might show up with my two hands and throw my lot in to that lifestyle. Do they allow books? That’s the one thing I could not live without.
Yes, they allow books. But unfortunately you wouldn’t be able to join them unless you hold their specific religious convictions.
My hope is that intentional communities can form that support each other so that they are not subject to strong competitive pressures that practically necessitate anti-consumer practices and the use of modern technology that does more harm than good. The central principles would be belief that doing things the natural way is (almost always) best and that societal wellbeing is largely unrelated to efficiency, economics and material goods once the basic needs have been met. No other religion or beliefs would be required. Through their positive example these communities would influence the rest of the world in the right direction too so that we might not become extinct.
To this end I started https://lemmy.today/c/StopTech and https://lemmy.today/c/ParallelSocieties. I’m working on groups on other platforms as well and trying to start a community in the real world.
Such communities would benefit from grant fund seeding.
As you know, intentional communities were very popular in the 70s and likely align themselves to your values already.
You might visit these and see if they might not provide a foundation for the work your hope to engage in.
I’m all for your vision.
I wouldn’t be reading stop tech if I weren’t.
But as you know… my goals are more humble: get everyone reading paper books and using flip phones and mp3 players and meeting in parks to play frisbee and kick hacky sacks