[tomth]

I would agree when it comes to the most basic real-world skills, but even then you cannot prohibit it. When it comes to digital skills, no, you cannot expect everyone to understand it. Even when it comes to GUI tools. It's just not realistic.

[exe34]

ban the selling or providing of general purpose computing to children. we can already do it with alcohol and cigarettes.

any parents caught providing such things to their children go on a register and have mandatory courses on parenting.

[denkmoon]

Sounds like a great way to stunt development. Alcohol and cigarettes are unambiguously harmful to children. Computing is not so unambiguous, it has a lot of benefits. How many of us here would lead very different lives if we were treated that way?

[exe34]

did you miss the word "general"?

you can provide gimped versions. micro controllers, school laptops that don't go places they shouldn't go, gimmicky age checks on anything they can use outside of adult supervision.

[anthk]

Define 'gimped', microcontrollers are able to play NSFW games in Spanish/English for the Z-Machine interpreter. An ESP32 it's more than enough. A Game Boy it's more than enough, too. Ditto with 8/16 bit microcomputer out there. I can even run these games under FreeDOS. Good luck implementing accounts on that.

And the example it's I-0, (I-0.z5, Interstatal Zero) both in English and the faithfully Spanish translation done from the Spanish IF community. Both games are nearly 30 years old.

[exe34]

if a kid manages to play nsfw games on an esp32, he deserves to enjoy it.

[anthk]

A minor it's legally a kid even if some guy at 16 has nothing to do with an actual kid aged 10-11. The goverment shouldn't do what the ISPs should have been doing if 14yo get smartphones: locked down DNS' -no porn, no gambling, no violence, no AI-, and browser settings plus no permissions to install any software modulo a curated set for everyone at F-Droid.

With no smartphones until they hit 14-15 you don't need no stinky 1984 like laws; ISP would just comply with restricted DNS' per device and that's it. Ah, modern wireless networks such as the ones from town halls and the like? These should already have restricted DNS' for porn and the like.

Next, a PC it's a totally different device, you as a parent should be the accountable one and not the goverment. Your kids want to set a Minetest and some private server to play games and chat without groomers stalking them? teach them.

Enforcing computing stuff it's impossible, with libre software anything can be a general purpose computer. A PSP with a bluetooth keyboard, a PocketCHIP, any smartphone, even the mentioned Amiga FPGA computer, where can connect and use far more modern services than anything you would expect in 1994.

[tomth]

This could be an option with children under the age of 12. Maybe only let them use a computer or gaming console in the living room, or something like that.

[exe34]

that's exactly what I'm referring to, see my new post on this same sub thread.