I feel genuinely conflicted: On the one hand I get the "authoritarian overreach heebie-jeebies", that I think a lot of people on HN probably share. On the other hand I'd also really like the West to harden its election processes from election interference by its adversaries (e.g. Russia) - and shoring up dysinfo on e.g. Facebook by requiring users to prove their identity with a government ID is one of the only ways to truly effectively combat this at its source (fact-checking just can't keep up with a firehose of dysinformation). Ideally I'd want "real id requirements" to be limited " partake in public discourse" (mainly Facebook and Twitter). But the slippery slop argument just feels pretty strong here too - once a mechanism like this is in place, its use will only ever expand, and it's much easier for a new government to commit overreach if it's already there and just needs expanding. And of course all this "think of the children" nonsense needs to stop.