So it's not alarmist then. It's an accurate take.

You didn't answer the question though.

Do you think democracy in the US is the same today as it was 8 years ago?

And do you think that if Trump wins the election, democracy in the US will be the same 4 years from now as it is today?

Considering that Taiwan has been de facto an independent country for a long time, its easy to see why "forever maintaining the status quo" is the best choice for most people.

Declaring independence from China when they are already functionally independent from China would just be kicking a hornet's nest. The outcome of a war with China would end in either a bloody defeat in which their country would be leveled and their freedoms taken away, or a bloody victory resulting in... the current status quo, just with lots of dead people.

So why would your average citizen desire anything but the status quo? They're already a free country, this question is just asking them if they'd like a war for the fun of it, or their freedoms taken away.

I agree Reddit is toxic. I’d argue reddit actually stopped being Reddit around 2016. But it’s posts like this that clog it all up and are partially why it is the way it is today.

I gotta agree with this. The toxicity in any reddit thread increases dramatically when the poster pre-emptively complains about all the toxicity they expect to receive. Whereas when you just ask straight without going into a whole speech about comment quality, you get much better replies. Particularly because it's hijacking your own thread; changing it from whatever question you wanted to ask into an analysis of the comments.

Not interested in American opinion regrading this one

Kind of shitty to assume that all Americans have the same opinion, no?

These are the guys who have been auto-fellating over a second civil war for the past 15 years, and they're worried about it now??

If something as vague as "release everyone" or "release all Palestinians in Israeli jails" or whatever is one of their actual demands, it's unfortunate, because it makes it sound more like they're not serious and are just making impossible demands that they know will not/can not be met as an excuse to continue fighting but to give off the appearance of working for peace. Just as if "the eradication of the Israeli state" were one of their demands. But I can't really accuse them of that yet since I haven't seen an actual list of demands and we're both just speculating at this stage.

The leopards are going to have their bellies full of face meat this election season...

but we'd all live.

This is actually not the case.

But you, yes, your privileged ass probably will live and be fine. Plenty of other people will be much worse off or even dead under Trump. So feel good and pat yourself about supporting Trump instead of voting for a better world, but spare the rest of us your privileged arrogance.

Oh man, what a defense!

"Your honor, if I was the murderer, why would I have been at the scene of the crime, holding the murder weapon in my hand? I mean, that would be too obvious!"

This is the worst "both sides" argument I have ever seen.

Likewise, the melodrama is what killed it for me.

There are a lot of bad trek episodes scattered across every series. Bad episodes isn't the issue with Discovery. The issue is that, throughout all of trek, the crew has come together and stuck with each other through thick and thin. If there ever is inter-crew strife, it's solved in generally one or two episodes (except for major plot/story themes like the Maquis, or Seven being a Borg).

Discovery, on the other hand, is a show where the crew was constantly backstabbing, betraying, lying, and being all around bad towards each other. There was no finding solace among the crew in a world filled with strife -- the world was strife, and the crew was also strife. And whenever the inter-crew issues seemed like they could finally be resolved, some new stupid issue was shoehorned in. It was unbearable to watch because of the forced melodrama.