> It's damn hard to interact with the world without the internet these days. Want to coordinate with someone? Internet. Want to see when a store is open? Internet. Want to do your homework? Internet (sometimes; hello Google Classroom). Want to see what's playing at the cinema? Internet, mostly.

Sure, yeah it can be. But I guess the point I was trying to go for is that once upon a time ago, we did just fine without the internet. We managed to do all those things without the internet. Imagine what would happen today if we removed everyone from the internet and said "Welcome back to the 1980's"

People would lose their collective shit. Most wouldn't have a clue how to do anything. Heck, it took me a week to get used to having a flip phone again when I did that to myself for a bit to see how I would handle it without a smart phone at least.

> Age makes a difference, of course. But high school aged kids are going to be hard to keep off the internet.

I think this part is where many of us seem to have some sort of disagreement on what is or is not a kid. I do not see teenagers as 'kids'. Sure, I'll call them 'kid' now and then just to razz them, cause teenagers hate it; but otherwise I actually see them as adolescents. I.E. Synonym basically for teenager. It is at this point that I would have less issue with them being on the internet, though with maybe some sort of restrictions in place to help ensure that the... uhm... less intelligent ones... are protected from themselves and others.

> Kids only internet isn't really feasible, even Yahoo killed Yahooligans, which used to live on its own cookie free domain to protect the privacy of kids.

Oh yeah... I forgot about Yahooligans. Okay, fair point.

> Anyway, some of the predators are kids too, so that doesn't really solve the issue.

Yeah... Not much you can do about that except catch them in the act and try to fix the problem before they become adult predators...

> There's also the issue that it's probably easier for an adult to impersonate a child to get access than for a child to impersonate an adult to get access... but that's not hard either.

This is why I was saying in my edit that there are potential loopholes if you even allow the parents onto the "kidternet"

> The Internet is a dangerous place, but it's also an important place to be. As children get older, we (parents, community, etc) need to teach them how to spot and avoid the dangers. Just like we do with other dangerous and important places.

Agreed. I just wish the government would stop trying to use red herring type things (is it a red herring, not sure.) to try to inject themselves further into our lives to control us all under a ruse of protecting children we all know they actually give zero shits about.

If they did, then my original point about kids being restricted from the internet would have been made law long ago. Governments may seem incompetent, but that's just part of their bag of parlor tricks. (IMHO)

Anyways, I'm gonna go play some games now. I need to relax again, lol. Dealing with a case of oral thrush induced by marijuana edibles, and stress. (The marijuana was to help the stress, but now I can't have the marijuana...)

Here's a link to help prove the concept of my condition.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32857052/