> Personally I think this is untrue, and that acting like it's true is a defeatist attitude that sabotages any efforts to build alternative systems that accomplish the goal of age verification without user verification.

It may well be true, and worrying about the possibility that it is is what should motivate people to build alternatives/workarounds.

I guess my point is that if any substantial portion of the people in favor of age verification are actually acting in good faith, then responding to their efforts to protect children with "NEVER! I WILL OPPOSE YOU TO MY LAST BREATH!" isn't really helping your cause.

Find a way to accomplish the stated goal in a way that doesn't erode our rights, and you'll win a lot more people over.

Well, you do have to draw the line somewhere when up against opponents pursuing a salami-slicing strategy. If you keep compromising on incremental measures, you ultimately do lose everything.

True, but I don't think you need to compromise to do age verification; there are plenty of ways to achieve the stated goal without any privacy impact, like the one I just suggested.

Once people start arguing those measures aren't good enough and that you need to start sacrificing some of your rights in order to keep kids safe, then your position will look a lot more reasonable to moderates when you push back.