I recognize that I'm in the minority here, but I actually thought that movie was excellent, and people are really shooting the messenger by attacking the movie instead of the culture it’s drawing attention to. Here's what I think the obvious message was (and more people would see it that way if they weren't so obsessed with virtue signaling and outrage culture): Adolescents (especially girls) who don't have much parental guidance while in the process of starting to explore things like dating and sexuality will form deeply confused ideas about what they see online and mimic it in an effort to act like 'grownups.' These young girls seeing depictions of slightly older women sexually objectifying themselves in a way that is very socially encouraged (as measured by likes) and even seeing it done/approved of in their pre-teen peers. Then they blindly mimic it because adolescents are obsessed with social approval and want to be treated like adults, but they so obviously don't understand the full context of what they're doing, the implications of those dance moves, and the potential social/emotional consequences of sexually objectifying oneself – this is very harmful to these young girls, and it’s tragic that they’re developing a lasting habit of sexualizing themselves for approval before they even really understand what sex is. I certainly could relate honestly – it made me quite sad to reflect on my experiences at that age and remember how confused my interpretations of sexual/adult content online was, and how mistaken I was for thinking that I should I mimic those things – I was largely spared from going down the Cuties path thanks to my social awkwardness and lack of coordination, but I think they perfectly captured the mindset and messages young girls are getting these days.

There's a lot of scenes where they do a nice job of juxtaposing demonstrations of their obvious naivety with their mimicry of really uncomfortable sexualizing behavior (that they clearly don't understand). I think the movie is also quite unambiguous in showing it’s wrong – there’s several instances where their inappropriate self-sexualizing behavior is paired with a normal healthy adult reacting with extreme discomfort, disgust, confusion, or instinct to stop/protect them. The only exception is a few obviously ‘pervy’ guys and a few audience members who somehow think the final dance scene is acceptable – this is meant to be disturbing; it isn’t approving of it, it’s just showing the consequences of allowing these girls to blindly mimic these things without parental guidance/support. If they portrayed these girls as having any meaningful awareness of what they’re doing (i.e. as just really sexual 11 year olds), didn’t consistently show ‘good’ adult role models disapproving in a caring/concerned way, or didn’t show the negative consequences/dangers of this behavior, I would see the movie as inappropriate and condemn it. But that’s so obviously not what they did.

I also appreciated the cultural aspect of it - the protagonist's friends all have an intuitive sense of what would be going "too far" even though they don't really understand the adult things that they're dabbling in and don't have much parental guidance, simply because they grew up in the culture. But the protagonist doesn't have that intuition because she was raised in a traditional/sheltered culture - so based on the things she's being exposed to and what is encouraged online, it seems very logical to her to expect a high level of approval for doing something like posting a picture of her vulva, since that’s a extreme extension of the stuff that’s already being encouraged. It just doesn’t work out that way for her because we’re decided to draw the line there even though we’re somehow culturally okay with these other inappropriate sexualizing behaviors.

I guess the most valid criticism I can think of related to the really uncomfortable sexualizing camera angles and the use of actual 11-year-old actors. I think there’s some validity to those criticisms, but I don’t think it comes anywhere close to justifying the level of hatred this movie has gotten. For what it’s worth, using those camera angles and actors with prominent childlike features is a fantastic way to drive home the point of how uncomfortable and inappropriate this is. If they didn’t have the camera angles or had slightly older girls, I don’t think it would have been enough to wake us up out of the mainstream cultural stupor of allowing and encouraging these behaviors. People probably would have just seen it as a movie about some girls dancing with some sexually suggestive undertones, and maybe a sex-positive feminism angle. Also, TicToc, YouTube, Facebook, etc. are rife with tens of thousands of videos of 11-year olds (and younger) doing these exact same dance moves, freely uploading it themselves, and getting approval (or at least no backlash) for doing so. So frankly Cuties isn’t even making those actors do anything that isn’t already accepted as normal. If you’re disturbed by that, then congratulations – you understood the point of the movie. And if that’s the case, then Cuties isn’t really the problem, our culture is. Is everyone who is boycotting Netflix for cuties also planning to boycott Facebook, TicToc, and YouTube? Are camera angles, slightly more sexual ‘dance’ moves, and slightly younger girls really the lines where it goes “too far”? Or could there be some other reason why this movie is provoking such an intense defensive reaction?

> They’re dancing in a sexually explicit fashion. You basically conceded this point when you agreed the dancing was meant to man the audience feel uncomfortable. Again: they are children, they legally cannot consent to sexually explicit activity. And while suggestive dancing with suggestive camera angles is certainly enough to meet that bar, I don’t know how you can possibly argue against the fact that one of the girls exposed her chest.
@Delta I don't think @m.miller ever coneded that it was meant to make the audience feel uncomfortable. I argued that, but I'm agreeing with you that they are dancing in a sexually suggestive way. As for exploitation, what do you think about the tens of thousands of videos uploaded by girls who are 11 (or younger) doing the exact same thing as the girls on Cuties? Those videos on TicToc, YouTube, etc. are generally seen as normal and socially acceptable, somehow people aren't calling for boycotting that. My point is the movie actually does a really nice job of clearly showing what is happening on these platforms and why it's bad, and it's stupid that everyone is getting upset about the movie instead of getting upset about the toxic culture that it's pointing to.

@Buddha I feel like the only who likes the movie and is against the sexualization of young girls, but for what it’s worth, that’s the whole point of the movie. There’s literally an interview where the woman who made it says that she was concerned about really young girls mimicking what they see online and wanted to draw attention to that happening. I’m starting to wonder if anyone here actually watched the movie lol

I think a noteworthy difference is the tens of thousands of videos of 11 year olds (and younger) uploading videos of themselves dancing just like this - somehow our society has decided that’s okay, based on the high levels of social approval these young women get for doing stuff like that. So, apparently on YouTube /TicToc, we’ve decided that this is fine. The same could not be said for rape. I personally think that’s incredibly fucked up that we have a culture that’s okay with 11 year olds uploading videos of themselves like this for social approval, and I appreciate Cuties for drawing attention to that and clearly showing the way that it’s harmful to them. I wish people would put half as much effort into being mad at this pervasive socially normal culture as they would put into virtue signaling about Cuties. I’m skeptical to think that people seriously care when they aren’t exactly about to start boycotting YouTube and TicTok or consider ways that they might be contributing to that culture.

> Is some movie that reflects kids involved in arts and culture activities that are controversial by other cultural expectations, somehow a bigger deal than that reality?
> @LokiV
Can you clarify your position here? I'm objecting to the broader culture that we have of teaching young girls to sexually objectify themselves at an age where they don't even really understand what they're doing. I'm also objecting to the way that adolescents who start to explore themselves and their sexuality without parental guidance will tend to end up adopting very confused and harmful ideas based on what they see online. I like Cuties because it's deliberately drawing attention to that culture and making a statement about how bad it is. I see the example you brought up as an examples of that culture - certainly it's more severe than most cases, but that girl is doing those things because of what she is seeing online in the absence of any oversight. Do you agree with that?

Also, I'm curious (and extremely skeptical) about a 12 year old girl acting as a sexual predator towards 18-20 year old men. Can you clarify how that works?

@Delta I'm glad I'm not the only one haha

The dancing is sexually suggestive but that's different than "sexually explicit." I would classify sexually explicit as engaging in sexual acts, which they didn't do.

But here's some clarification on that definition:


"For purposes of subsection 8(B) [1] of this section, “sexually explicit conduct” means—
(i)graphic sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, or lascivious simulated sexual intercourse where the genitals, breast, or pubic area of any person is exhibited;
(ii)graphic or lascivious simulated;
(I)bestiality;
(II)masturbation; or
(III)sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
(iii)graphic or simulated lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;"

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2256

I don't know how to use discord, so I didn't intentionally try to send a message and I'm not sure what happened 😛

That awkward moment when the president of the United States tells the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" instead of condemning them when prompted with the easiest fucking softball in the history of politics. Proud Boys are currently celebrating on social media, and echoing that they are "standing by."

From Wikipedia:

The Proud Boys is a far-right[4][5][6][7][8] and neo-fascist[9][10][11][12] organization that admits only men as members and promotes and engages in political violence.[2][13][14][15] It is based in the United States and has a presence in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.[16][17] The group was started as a joke in the far-right Taki's Magazine[18] in 2016 by Vice Media co-founder and former commentator Gavin McInnes, taking its name from the song "Proud of Your Boy" from the Disney film Aladdin.[19][20] The Proud Boys emerged as part of the alt-right, but McInnes began distancing himself from the alt-right in early 2017, saying the alt-right's focus is race while his focus is what he defines as "Western values". This re-branding effort intensified after the Unite the Right rally.[21][22]

The group believes men—especially white men—and Western culture are under siege; their views have elements of the white genocide conspiracy theory.[23][24][25] Officially, the group rejects white supremacy, although members have participated in multiple racist events and events centered around anti-left violence, with a former member organizing the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.[26] The organization glorifies violence[27][28][29][30] and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has called it an "alt-right fight club".[26][31][32]

Cite some evidence against the popular belief that they're racist and heavily associated with white supremists then

That's a nice youtube video. Do you trust the FBI? they classify proud boys as "an extremist group with ties to white supremacy" and have noted that they have played a role in escalating violence in protests e.g. in Charlottesville. They do clarify that they aren't meaning to classify the entire group that way, but it's not exactly like they're totally "misunderstood" whne people are associating them with white supremacy

Also, this was specifically in the context of the moderator + Biden trying to get Trump to condemn white supremacy in general. Proud Boys was offered as an example, but he coulnd't even just say "white supremacy is bad"

Ok well formal FBI disagree with your friend

Yup - it's actually been shown to be quite accurate. I will accept any kind of more official documentation showing what PB is actually about if you can provide it (random youtube vidoes don't count)

but even if we allow PB to not be a quite supremacy group, it's pretty bad that the president of the United States is telling far riht extremists groups to "stand by" instead of condemning them instead of stopping the violence

Like this erally ist' working in favor of group

I'll accept personal testimony as evidence - what do you think they're about?

I need to go to bed - I should probably stop getting myself all riled up arguing with strangers on Internet - perhaps we can talk more about it later.

@Malachi Do you think that the only source of value is the labor of the workers? For example, the person who came up with the idea, person who figured out how to implement it's production in an efficient way, person who organizes distribution, figures out how to direct the company, etc.? I guess what I'm getting at is who is and is not contributing "value" in your schema here? I would say that folks are organizing workers in a way that allows the business to exist profitably is adding considerable value.

I'm comfortable with the definition of whatever someone is willing to pay for it for now.

I see. How would you like to define use value for the purposes of this conversation?

I think I see - you're saying that there's some kind of "usefulness" or practicality, consideration, i.e. a fancy painting might have an insane exchange value, but it's "use value" is likely to be quite low.

Is that right?

I'd also like clarification

Sure, but in your folk example above, if it truly was the ony fork in existence, someone clever would come up with some alternative to meet the same need. That's something I think capitalism actually does pretty well.

you're saying making x amount of profit relative to paying workers y? CEOs who make 10000x what the lower workers make?

I should get back to work to haha

>
> https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/maine-democrat-sara-gideon-killed-bills-outlawing-female-genital-mutilation/
> @tom

It seems like this article is disingenuous. It looks like at the time, FGM was already illegal under federal law and there was no evidence that it was happening in the state of Maine - so it seems like it would be redundant to have another law specifically making it illegal in Maine. Democrats were particularly opposed to a line in the bill which made it a felony to knowingly consent to fgm of a minor - they were concerned that immigrants coming from other countries, who had consented to fgm in those countries prior to moving to the United States, would poentially be persecuted in the United States. Perhaps you think they should be, but the article you posted doesn't really engage with the actual issues when it makes the lazy assertion that Democrats were arbitrarily opposed to it due to "racism." Given the context (no legitimate reason for having an extra law, vulnerabilites to immigrants), I frankly do think it was worth questioning the motives for the folks trying to get that law passed ,and whether or not it was related to racism or a desire to seem more hostile to immigrants who come from countries where fgm is routinely performed. https://apnews.com/article/a3f7fab597724dd4bbe32de03cc8f753

I've got to hop off, but thank you everyone for the nice conversation.

This just so shocking. Truly nobody could have seen this coming - I mean, he was so careful at those huge indoor rallies with his thousands of supporters, many of whom reject masks and think the coronavirus is a liberal hoax

This aged well.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1311895075610337286

> @Katelyn he literally never said coronavirus is a liberal hoax. He said much of the news around coronavirus is a hoax, and it is. He said a lot of the news around how he’s dealt with coronavirus is a hoax, and it is.
>
> And you’re just proving his point.
@JPMcGlone Sure, you're right that he was saying about the media coverage of it, not coronavirus itself. But the implication was that the media is lying or exaggerating about covid, when they were actually reporting it accurately while he was telling egrious lies downplaying it. This made a lot of his followers not take it seriously, and a considerable chunk of the right wing does (or at least did) believe that the coronavirus was a conspiracy, and he certainly wasn't helping that cause. He has continued to spread misinformation about covid, which has created confusion (especially during the critical early stages). He has created a moronic cultural war about wearing masks, one of the few things on our power to control the spread with extensive evidence for its efficacy even coming from his own administration - he's gone back and forth on masks, but even in that clip of the debate, he's mocking and shaming people for taking precautions when any respectable leader would be encouraging that. He's continued to host large rallies where many of his supporters don't wear masks.

We do need peope to start taking this seriously so that another 100k Americans don't fucking die. Trump supporters are a major source of people flouting mask mandates / social distancing measures and propagating misinformation. I think this is the only thing that *might* change their behavior at this point. I don't wish ill upon him in the sense that I wish we could have achieved people taking it seriously through some other means, but if this is the way it has to be then so be it.

Donald Trump is literally the biggest source of covid misinofrmation: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/evanega-et-al-coronavirus-misinformation-submitted-07-23-20-1/080839ac0c22bca8/full.pdf

> @Katelyn
>
> Says the NYT
Says expert researchers at Cornell University.

> Also you do realize that Trump has experts right. Give me one instance when Trump went against Fauci
@JPMcGlone
Here's an instance: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/11/fauci-trump-coronavirus/

> @kaizen The only section I remember on this was Trump saying "I have a mask right here, (I wear it when I need to)" and refering to Biden's mask as "ridiculous, the biggest mask youve ever seen"
@drenath
Fine, but you have to at least acknowledge that Trump has been extremely inconsistent on masks in spite of the fact that all of the scientific evidence points towards them being an important tool. Literally two weeks ago: "A lot of people say that masks aren't good..." and then describes waiters touching their masks and then touching plates. "A lot of people said don't wear masks." "The concept of masks is good but you're constantly touching it. There's a lot of peopel who don't think masks are good."
See: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/trumps-abc-news-town-hall-trump-responds-question-73036468

Those statements are why this was coming up in the debate. Any leader with a basic level of competence would be promoting things that help people stay safe and get covid under control. Instead he chose focus on mocking Biden for wearing a mask - literally the exact opposite of what he should be doing. Now, his own irresponsibility has directly put other people at risk, including, Biden who was near him at the debates even though Trump was aware that he may have been exposed.

Also, there's no evidence for his comments - this notion that touching your face with a mask on is somehow spreading covid. He's literally just making that up.

@drenath What do you think about the fact that the president of the United States is an untrustworthy source of information on matters about basic health and safety? If you support him, how do you reconcile that?

But he undeniably has a lot of power and influence - people listen to the things he says, and he's very aware of that and abusing that power. It would be one thing if he just said "Idk, I'm not a doctor. You should listen to Fauchi." But that's not what he's doing. Do you think that this shows good leadership?

Do you support him?

Personally no. It sort of seems like the Trump was thinking Sanders was going to win and didn't bother to change his oppo prep. It doesn't seem like a real argument to me - it seems like they just have much else to criticize about Biden because he has such a great reputation for being moderate and working acrosss the isle.

Is there any evidence to suggest this?

I mean, if this is even what a majority of Democrats wanted, why Biden overwhelmingly win the primaries, especially after all the other moderate candidates dropped out?

He is an somewhat awkward situation with calling out violence, and I wish he would do it more too. But leftists I know really hate both Biden and Harris. I'm not sure what level of organization you think this is happening on, but leftists certainly aren't aware of that plan.

Sort of. It seems to be mixed amongst folks on the far left. There's some that are "Bernie or Busters" and others who are saying that they're willing to bite the bullet and unethusiastically vote for Biden because they see Trump as actively dangerous to out democracy (and I agree with them on that).

FWIW, I think Biden does a much better job an uneviocably denouncing violence on the left, compared to Trump who fumbles with denouncing the Proud Boys and other right wint millitia groups. And I can understand why he isn't really aiming to launch in to talking about violence when an overwhelming majority of those protests were peaceful and for an important cause. Drawing attention to a few bad actors that are inevitable with protests on that large of a scale seems like it would be very harmful to the movement without much benefit.

Also, the violence on right vs left are not equivalent. I'm not familiar with any left wing millitia groups who are organized, collecting weapons, and actively talking about "race wars", "succession", etc.

They're certainly contributing to violence, no?

Do you think that vilgilante citizens need to take it into their own hands?

You and I might be on too different planes of reality to really have a constructive discussion here.

Can you be more specific about left wing militia groups that are organized and arming themselves in the same way that right wing ones are?

Do you think that those are similar threats? For example, the FBI listed right wing militia groups as a potential threat to national security, but they did not list any leftist "groups" like antifa. Do you agree?

Can you cite a source? I've got a few that I can deliver shortly.

Why do you think so?

That's not a source supporting your "probably in the triple digits" claim.

There's also a major difference in how both sides are responding. The mother of the kid who drove that 17 year old to that protest where he killed 2
innocent people got a standing ovation at a GOP event. Do you think that's appropraite? That seems like it's encouraging senseless violence in a pretty mainstream way.

Here's some delivery on the empirical evidence I promised. Here's a key plot for discussion:

Full report from the US Senate: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Testimony-Braniff-2019-09-25.pdf

@drenath Isn't that true for leftists too though?

I don't have a problem with the word leftist.

Ok, cite some empirical evidenece. @brucebruce

Do you think that it matters that the left doesn't really have organized groups gathering weapons in a coordinated way like the right does?

But it looks like you're citing there is mostly vegans and eco-activists. Not exactly antifa terrorizing the streets.

In fact, I don't see a single "left" organization listed there that isn't enviromental or vegan.

But you have no basis for your beliefs then.

@drenath that table @brucebruce screenshotted though, shows entirely eco-activists and vegans. Do you think that those groups are equally dangerous as say, white supremacist groups listed there?

> nowhere close. the death toll from left-type riot activity is probably in the triple digits. right wing, one?
@drenath
it sems like you were making claims though.

@ThePangburn Do you think it's ever justified to relieved by someone's death, i.e. in cases where someone is doing something very bad and their death results in positive effects because they're no longer able to do bad things? One can prefer that those positive effects would have come about in some other way, but that doesn't change the fact tnat relief is a very sensible reaction to the end of something terrible. I'm not particularly interested in arguing whether or not Trump meets the standard of badness to relieved about his death - I'm curious if you think that it's possible to have that feeling in a way that isn't "morally bankrupt."

> The absolute refusal to admit that trans individuals have an unfortunate disconnect with reality which causes a mental disorder is amazing to see
@BobbyMack Are you sure that it's a total disconnect? We don't really understand much about why they're like that. But for example, if you tweak certain hormones in female mice, they'll start to hump other female mice in a manner similar to male mice, and I can kind of see how that sort of thing could give rise to a feeling like they're "supposed" to have a penis and would feel much more comfortable with one. Certainly we don't know all the specifics of how this may work in humans, but it lends some credibility to the notion there could be some biological mechanism which would cause a biological female to feel like they are "supposed" to have a penis and may relate conventional male bodies/psychology more.

There's other evidence for this being a legitimate biological phenomenon in humans too. Identical twins raised in different environments a more often both transgender than fraternal twins, which suggests a genetic component. Certain structures in the brain that tend to be sexually dimorphic are much more similar to a transgendered "prefered" gender than their born sex, i.e. parts of a transgendered women's brain which much more closely resemble cisgendered women than they do cisgendered men.

So I'm not sure it's fair to characterize transgendered people as completely delusional and mentally unwell, which lends some credibility to the idea that many of their mental health problems could be related to discrmination and lack of access to SRS treatment (especially given how considerable the discirimination they face often is). I'd also be curious what @ola @Malachi and @JPMcGlone think about this.

I made it to level 11. I also kept trying to beat Ola, but after several tries couldn't beat 11.

What did you get @BobbyMack ? I can see this being the sort of thing that you’re freakishly good at.

I don't really have to join but any thoughts on:
1. Obesity is a larger global problem than hunger/starvation. What does that suggest about how we should allocate attention/resources? (edit: it looks like there's many more overweight people than hungry people, but slightly fewer obese people than starving people).

2. Starvation is mostly a distribution problem rather than a production problem. Any ideas for how to deal with the distribution problem, especially in countries with leaders who are preventing aid from getting to their citiznes?

On production: all I mean is that we produce 1.5x the amount of food we would need to feed everyone globally.

@Malachi I think there's an important distinction between wishing for someone's death and observing that someone's death has positive consequences (but preferring that those positive effects come about in some other way). And if someone is doing something sufficiently bad, and *their death is the only way to stop it*, I think it would actually be wrong **not** to want their death.

To take an extreme example (not trying to argue that Trump meets this standard), if killing Hitler were the only way to stop the holocaust, then I think it would be wrong to not want him to die - based on the way I set up the hypothetical situation, not wanting Hitler's death is implicitly equivalent to wanting the holocaust to continue, since those things are inextricably linked. So I don't think someone can categorically say that it's always wrong to wish for someone's death.

Note that in the way I set up my hypothetical, Hitler dying would guarantee that the holocaust would stop. I'm not saying that's necessarily true - I'm using a thought experiment to elucidate some of the underlying theoretical moral principles.

Technically you're still using a utilitarian framework if you're claiming the existence of Israel is a net benefit

Let's simplify this

Let's say that there's some evil dictator named Bitler who was responsible for the horrible torture and death of millions of people. We happened to have the information that if we killed Bitler, then this horrible tortue and killing would stop. Would it be wrong to want to kill Bitler, assuming killing Bitler were the only way to stop him?

Life isn't a videogame.

Sure, but say that we weren't able to intervene and get him those medications.

That's true too, but I'm not sure it's helping your argument.

Yes. I think it would evil not to.

From a utilitarian standpoint, that would be the right thing to do. I'm not a 1000% committed utilitarian, but in this case it does seem like it would be worth it.

I agree that B(H)itler did what he did because of his delusions, but those can very hard to talk people out of once they're committed to the path of large scale genocide.

@Homeschool dropout Yes and no I think. Sure, B(hilter) was reflective of larger scale probelms, but they also can actively add fuel to the fire. To switch to a more straightforward example with Trump (not saying he's like Hitler), Trump is the biggest source of misinformation about covid (this has been shown empirically, I can provide the study if you want). This misinformation has caused people to take it less seriously. He also actively encouraged states to open too early (can provide empirical evidence for this too), and has started a moronic culture war about masks, which is the one major thing we know to be helping prevent the spread. If we had literally anyone else as president right now, say, Bush, Obama, Romney, etc., we would not have misinformation spreading this much. Sure, there's always going to be idiots and people wanting to make up conspiracies, but it would be significantly attenuated if it weren't the POTUS saying these things and actively undermining health experts in his own administration. So in this case, it seems like Trump is largely creating this situation which probably wouldn't have happened under the any other administration.

I'm not saying Trump and Hitler are anywhere near the same, but I'm much more familiar with the situation with Trump than I am with Hitler. And I think it's not unreasonable to extrapolate that orgnized hatred is a lot more dangerous than unorganized hatred, and removing that organizing figure could make it considerably harder for them to get a foothold and act on their hatred.

Right, but then why is Trump saying these things? You can say folks shouldn't trust him all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people do, and they're getting really bad information that is causing them to make bad decisions. If Trump wasn't contradicting his own public health experts, those people probably wouldn't be believing falsehoods that Trump is making up.

And honestly, the way people are arguing that we shouldn't trust the president to make accurate statements about a health and safety during a pandemic just shows how pathetically low we've gotten.

These are not respectable standards to have for the president of the United States.

Yeah no kidding. But to bring it back to the point, bad things are not always some inevitable larger societal phenomenon. In this case, it seems like it's mostly Trump who is doing this, and many of the other leaders we could plausibly have had at this time would not have created this situation.

They're trying, but Trump has been doing his best to convince people not trust the media too.

But in the case of Trump, people didn't really have beliefs about masks, social distancing, etc. beforehand. If Trump had said that masks are great and we should all social distance, his crazy supporters would probably think that too.

Of course not. I already voted for Biden lol

Lol yeah I'd vote for Chris Wallace actually

@Yussuki ₪ Do you not think that Biden would do those things too, or do you just prefer someone familiar who has already delivered tangible results (and who therefore seems more reliable)?