Most people are in favor of solving world hunger, poverty, the wars and climate change. Until you hand them the bill. Likewise most people will not agree with age verification when actually implemented.

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wobfan 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This doesn't make it untrue, instead it just confirms it (I know you didn't say or mean to disprove it, just wanted to add my thoughts here).

People make dumb decisions and don't think about possible outcomes twice, or even once. But (unfortunately, in this case) this is a core principle in a democracy. People may be lied to, or at least they are fearmongered into thinking that age verification is needed and encryption needs to be weakened because they thing they have nothing to hide, but if in the end they elect the people that are pro-age-verification, it's perfectly democratic.

IMO the media (including, most importantly, social media) is the problem, not the politicians and/or the democracy or whatever. They all play their part, sure, but it's how people are influenced by the current state of media what's driving all these populistic forces.

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leonvoss 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It requires reason to understand the consequences of your decisions. Reason is something democracies have a shortage of. Thus, democracies structurally suffer from issues like this.

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Ajedi32 19 hours ago | parent [-]

It worked great for the last several hundred years. The problem is that as government keeps expanding to control more and more of our lives, every decision it makes it necessarily imposes on everyone, whether they agree with that decision or not.

E.g. In a country of 100M people, if 60% agree with a bill and it becomes law, the country has imposed that law on 40M people against their will. That's just as true in a dictatorship as it is in a democracy. The more areas of our lives government involves itself in, the bigger this problem becomes.

	▲	DangitBobby 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Whether it's federal, state, or local, you're going to see laws imposed on the 40% of people who don't agree with it. From what I've seen it's the federal legislature that is interested in protecting my rights and the state and local legislatures that want to infringe on my rights. The governments we are under have never been particularly hands off.
	▲	betaby 18 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> It worked great for the last several hundred years. No, it did not. > E.g. In a country of 100M people, if 60% agree with a bill and it becomes law That's not how that law was adopted.