this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Conspiracy brain.
Read the debate about age-verification in the places where it's been implemented.
Yeah it's for deanonymizing your online activity so they can sell it to data brokers, who will then sell it to anyone who can pay. Anyone, including ad agencies, fascist governments, law enforcement, religious extremists, people who hate you for existing, etc. It's not theoretical it's right there in the open. Maybe the literal people taking your ID won't do anything to you directly, maybe, but the data about you they sell without a second thought will be bought by people who will and do.
No it isn't. No Labour MP (for example) put forward that argument in favour of it when it was implemented in the UK. The law in the UK is popular, because porn use among children is seen as a problem.
Oops I fed a troll. Imagine anyone not telling the whole truth! Heavens to betsy, the inhumanity!
I understand this argument with US politicians, and especially the Republicans, who can all be assumed to be in the pocket of big business, but I don't think you've gone through any of the UK politicians in support of this to see what their business connections are, never mind the majority of them. For example, pulling the first MP I found speaking in favour of age verification on Hansard, what makes you think Iqbal Mohamed is in this for the benefit of data brokers? (He's not a Labour MP, I should say) Have you ever heard of him before today? What about Lewis Atkinson, who also supports age verification? His job before politics was in the NHS.
There is this extreme cognitive dissonance about this debate, where people are unable to deny the obvious truth that, unlike us, most people are in favour of age-verification regulations, yet insist that this simply does not feature in the motivations of politicians in implementing such regulations.
I'm not a troll. I'm not naïve. But I am also not so idiotically cynical as to believe that the motivations of politicians are wholly based on servitude to business, wholly divorced from the motivations of the general public even when those motivations align.
The law does nothing but push adults and underage users to unregulated platforms. They (the general public and the politicians) don't understand the internet. You don't understand the internet if you think this accomplishes anything. The only way for children to be safe on the internet is by educating their parents.
This is binary thinking and is false. The law does do something by putting up an obstacle to seeing porn. Hundreds of thousands of children are seeing porn by accident, way before they are ready, not because they're horny little teenagers. Yes, those who are highly motivated will find it, but you should not be this absolute.
The cost of this law in privacy violation is not worth the benefit it brings to children. But it still does bring a benefit, and you're unlikely to convince anyone if you can't see where they're coming from on that.
If you think it's a benefit, pushing everyone to use less moderated platforms then sure. You clearly don't understand the internet. If you click a link and are exprected to show a video with your ID and face visible, what do you do? I say it is extremely dangerous and criminal for a government to demand this from their citizens. So many people will have their identity stolen, I guarantee it, it's already happening and will get much worse. https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/25-percent-of-kids-will-face-identity-theft-before-turning-18-age-verification-laws-will-make-this-worse/
This isn't really about the internet; it's about human psychology. If you make something more difficult, fewer people will do it. Especially people who are doing it by accident. Kids aren't going out and accidentally downloading a VPN client.
I made it clear that I don't think it's a benefit overall
Ever applied for a bank account online? I am certainly used to handing over identifiable information. I do it carefully.
Yes, this is the Chilling effect, and it's not a good thing. You don't need a VPN to watch porn online without ID verification, not even in the UK. I'm sure the great UK firewall will come eventually tho.
Yes, I went to my local post office and showed them my ID, I'd never send my ID and face over video. This applies only to banks, what if a porn site asks you (and you want to visit it)? If you don't want to do it, your freedom is taken away from you.
Even if you assume that the politicians aren't being intentionally evil, in the best case they are acting from a position of negligent ignorance. It doesn't really matter what their reasons are for supporting this, or what they intend for it to accomplish, the reality is that these kinds of laws will be used for the things I said. Someone should have told them that. Someone likely did tell them that. They decided, in the best possible case, that protecting children from seeing naked people or swear words is worth the dystopian surveillance of the general population. They're fucking wrong and this kind of legislation only shows how ignorant and/or complicit they are. Maybe you could think like one fucking step beyond the political talking points to the real effects this will have.
I think their motivations do matter. In part because they're the motivations of the general public in support of this, so it is those opinions that need to be swayed.
The strategy is completely different if this came about due to payoffs by big tech versus if it has real grassroots support!
Imagine Keir Stamer telling the whole truth …