And it fails miserably.

If anything I find GenZ a lot more focused on explicit consent than GenX.

That's a good way to put it

In fact that's why nothing ever gets done to improve things in the EU/west, because we expect perfect outcome in every new change and we want potential risks to be zero before something new is implemented, so it's easier for leaders to just never do anything, never change anything, just sit and maintain the status quo while we go through managed decline complaining things keep slowly getting worse.

1. The cultural factor is rising expectations for children and their parents, costing both time and money;

2. The political/social factor is nanny states and academic institutions that the public expects to not only teach but raise their kids;

3. Technology. Especially the Internet, mobile devices, social media, and short form content. Technology distracts and isolates both kids and parents.

An example of the three factors at work is the all-too-common local news trope of ”Nosy neighbor calls CPS because the family next door lets their kids walk to school. Whole family traumatized as a result.”

I mean, I'll gladly send you 10k years back and have you tell me how it goes.

No it doesn't. That's just needlessly reductionist doomerist take with no argumentation to back that up.

Define failure and success of the system in this context.

Yes it does. If you're of the mindset that drives one to build a nanny state that is. My assumption is the mindset is that any amount of CSA is completely intolerable and that we must try to reach zero cases and there can be no other goal. If that's the framing then parenting alone fails miserably at it.

I think that's a terrible goal, because it leads to the nanny state.

Or is that where you want other people to end up while you peddle propagandist fairytales about failed parenting?

Of course I'm on your side here, there must be a healthy balance, which modern child micromanagement, and zealous survellance in general, are quite an opposite of. Saying this as someone who survived my happy 80-90-s childhood, roaming freely wherever we wanted with my friends, doing kid things many modern parents would be terrified of, like climbing various industrial structures, crashing on our bikes and sleds and whatnot. And still being an exemplary homeboy in the eyes of my parents and neghbours. Sure, some of my friends didn't make it through perfectly unscathed, some broke a bone or two, and I still have that scar from the sled blade, but that's the way of life.

One can't turn the world into a perfectly safe utopia without turning it into complete dystopia in the process. Education and culture is what makes it safe without such side effects.

And Germans and Europeans looked at that and thought the best place for her is leading the EU?!

Remind me again how she got elected in that position?

Because it seems like the entire EU population knew her being infamous for that, except for the few elites who appointed her there via "democratic process" to the head of the EU.

Also most of the EU population don’t know her for anything at all. I’d be surprised if more than 50% of Europeans could name her.

I am not against EU cooperation, mainly in external security and free market economy. But the system we have is not very democratic, and def not very representative of people. They act like demigods, elected by parliament with no real consequences of their actions.

I disagree. That's an executive power position for an entity that lacks sovereignty. Giving it the legitimacy of direct vote is highly problematic.

Start by giving more power to parliament.