> It is clearly _possible_

Is it?

I don't think it is.

I truly don't believe that there's any possible way to verify someone's age without collecting ID from them.

many countries already have a working system mostly integrated, so yes, i would say it is possible.

the government should issue physical tokens that are sold wherever you can buy booze or smokes. when you login to a service that needs age verification, you type in the code from your age token.

its pretty cheap, its low-tech, we are already accepting of showing id to a store clerk privacy-wise, we generally trust the enforcement mechanisms around smoking/drinking already, it would be easy to expand existing laws to accommodate selling them/punishing misuse.

It's possible to (cryptpgraphically verifiably) split up the age verification and the knowledge of what the verification is for.

It would seem like a naive solution would be some arrangement where Discord would ask for a proof-of-age from an official service ran by the State (which issues your ID)

Well you could have government-run cryptographically signed tokens. They're already in the business of holding ID data (i.e. they don't need to collect it and this wouldn't increase the attack surface).

But assuming it has to be a private solution, you could do the same thing but make it a non-profit. Then at least _new_ services you wish to use don't need to collect your ID.