Hyperrealism

To be fair, at the time the mods could make anyone else a mod. That's why they did as a joke by temporarily making current reddit CEO Steve Huffman a mod of the sub. What is genuinely damning, is that they gave the moderator of that subreddit a custom avatar, and IRC would have voice conferences with him to coordinate the handling of it. Basically on a first name basis and friendly terms with him.

There has always been a big overlap between moderators and admins. It's likely some power mods are reddit staff. A few years back, reddit hired a new admin, who was formerly an adult moderator of /r/teenagers. It later turned out her father had tortured and raped a ten year old and her fiancé had tweeted about children having sex. On reddit she abused her position as admin to automatically censor any mention of this on reddit. This only came to light when the moderator of a national subreddit was automatically banned for sharing an article which mentioned her name in passing.

Obviously she was fired and reddit said she'd been improperly vetted, but given reddit's history with this kind of stuff, that seems unlikely.

Full article, I may have misremembered something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimee_Knight

Reddit used to be about communities and people. Now it’s about bots and defending pedophiles.

Reddit has always been full of people making excuses for or normalising pedophilia.

we’re all america, we all own this.

Not everyone on the internet is American. From a non-American perspective, it is good you point out that previous presidencies also have a death toll. Doesn't get much better if you go further back, either.

Not that chauvanism is a specifically American disease, but I can't help but think that American exceptionalism means that America is often in denial. Imagine having to explain naming a clothing store Banana Republic, to a survivor of the Guatamalan genocide.

Weirdly, it's actually quite reassuring from a non-American perspective. Trump's bad, but not exceptionally so.

Sure he's stabbing Europe and Ukraine in the back, but Bush and Obama helped cause and perpetuate a refugee crisis that seriously destabilized the EU and helped fuel the rise of the far right. Not as if Biden was particularly quick in delivering weapons to Ukraine either. Obama's reaction to the annexation of Crimea wasn't stellar either.

Sure, he'll probably invade Venezuela, but Maduro is no Allende, and the leader of Venezuela's opposition is no Pinochet.

Sure, he's tariffed South East Asia, but he's not going to start another war in Vietnam or bomb Laos.

Sure, he bombed Tehran, but it's not as if he overthrew the democratically elected government, and paved the way for the Islamic Revolution. That was Eisenhower.

Sure, Trump's supporting Netenyahu. But under Reagan the US arguably helped Iraq build chemical weapons, knowing that Saddam would use them against the Iranians and Kurds.

Sure, Trump's a racist who has a contentious relationship with African leaders, and is perpetuating the myth of a white genocide in South Africa. But it's not like he had Lumumba, the democratically elected leader of newly indepenent Congo murdered, that happened under Eisenhower. An assassination that would arguably ultimately result in the first and second Congo war, and the death of roughly 5 million people.

It should be reassuring for Americans too.

Sure, ICE is bad, but it's not like he's put 120,000 people in concentration camps like Roosevelt did. He hasn't deported up to 2 million Mexican and Mexican Americans either, like happened under Hoover. Not yet, at least.

Cheer up America. This is business as usual. This is America. Don't catch you slippin' now.

He is good at flooding the zone/firehosing/deadcatting. That's for sure.

Not a great way to run a country, not sure if it's always deliberate and/or pathological, but good for ratings and helped get him elected twice.

I do think he has declined mentally since the 80s. He's an old man, doesn't always look well, and appears increasingly erratic. Not a doctor though, so what do I know. I've grown cynical about his supposedly imminent demise, just like I've become cynical about his supposedly imminent jail sentence.

I don’t understand why we’re so willing to believe that the people who have completely taken over the United States of America with minimal effort have somehow done this while being literally stupid.

Overused, but might be Dunning Kruger. Less intelligent people, overestimating their own intelligence, and underestimating that of others. If so, it would explain why the same people who are certain Bush is a moron, are often unwilling to change their minds when presented with evidence to the contrary. That and it feels nice to think you're smarter than other people. Vanity is the Devil's favourite sin.

Not that I like Bush, just want to make that clear.

Also, Trump likely is stupid, from what I can tell. Although I have heard critics say he has or at one point had a measure of cunning, which certainly may be true given he won the presidency twice.

Not that this changes Trump being a dangerous man.

Nope. Saw him speaking off the cuff before he was a presidential nominee.

Relatively high SAT score. Score higher on his transcript than John Kerry. IRC scored relatively high on his air force qualifying test too.

He purposely dumbed down his language and it helped him get elected.

As opposed to Donald Trump, where at least one professor has said he's a moron.

To be clear, I'm not saying Bush was a good president. Quite the opposite. If anything him being relatively intelligent makes him more culpable for what happened.

Were you alive and old enough to remember GWB’s term? Or are you going entirely on second hand information?

Yes. I was studying political science at the time.

No, I am not going by second hand information. I'm going by how he spoke before Karl Rove told him to dumb it down.

Donald Trump went to Wharton

At least one of Donald Trump's professors has said he's an idiot. Not true for Bush, who scored relatively well on his SATs. IRC John Kerry's transcript scored lower than W Bush's. IRC Bush's air force qualifying test was also relatively high.

To be clear, I'm not saying he's a good president. If anything I'm saying stupidity isn't an excuse for what happened during his tenure.

Unable to connect.

Hug of death?

I always find it interesting how little the English speaking world knows about countries that aren't English speaking. I don't think people realise they're in a media bubble.

In this case, there are plenty of countries that have introduced digital ID, but you likely wouldn't know much about that if you consume only English language media. Predictably this article deals with hypotheticals or something that happened in another English speaking country, rather than mentioning what happened in countries with actual digital ID.

It reminds me of this British show I was watching about where they were building a house near the Thames. The builders and architect spent much of the time, fellating each other for inventing sub-optimal solutions for problems which have already been solved. So much time and money wasted because they refused to use google translate or email a Dutch architect. Unlike the Italians, the perfidious Dutch do actually speak English.

You could blame the language barrier, but in large part it's chauvinism. Unfortunately, pride often becomes before the fall. Such a wasted opportunity to not learn from mistakes made.

W. was the dumbest president the world had ever seen.

Went to Harvard and Yale. First president with an MBA. SAT score was good. His folksy act was just that. An act. He was told to dumb down his language by Karl Rove and others. There are videos of him speaking before he became a presidential nominee, and the difference is obvious.

Relatively intelligent man pretending to be stupid.

And to his credit, it worked. Got elected twice and to this day people are more likely to blame the Iraq war on evil mastermind Cheney. And unlike plenty of supposedly intelligent leaders, he's smart enough to keep a low profile now he's retired.

Oppan Gamgam style.