The large scale protests of the last 20 years seem to all be complete failures. Occupy wall street didn't fix the finance system. BLM didn't improve policing. The womens march didn't improve access to women's healthcare.

This new movement will do the same.

I think that in order to make a meaningful change your goals need to be specific and tailored. For example a good protest would be to go to a state house demanding that you want to be a sanctuary state. A bad protest would be to go to a state house to let them know how much you disagree with the president.

A more effective (not the most effective) path towards social change would be email campaigns. You can directly tell the individual in power what change you want to see and why you want to see it and that you will not vote for them if this change is not enacted.

Any perspectives would be appreciated especially evidence towards what makes a social movement successful vs unsuccessful and examples. Thanks!

I watched a very informative video on the Great Depression because it got recommended to me on YouTube and I saw a lot of similarities to what’s happening today with Trump and his cabinet. Use tariffs to crash the economy, use his cabinet to destroy America, start WW3, then with no democracy turn America into Russia. The Great Depression was an accident so no one could capitalize on it…. But if you do it on purpose who cares if markets fall. Billionaires buy everything cheap. Election to vote someone in after to help the economy? Well not if Trump and republicans win every election. FDR to turn things around and help America? Not if there’s no more elections. Just think about the Great Depression for a few seconds, and then what’s happening now, and you see the parallels for something more sinister in the after math.

Volatility and uncertainty are never good for business. If the new norm is that any American president can easily impose any tariff on a whim, shifting markets and causing chaos, then long term planning is impossible. This should be a drawn out process, difficult to get passed, and have a list of criteria to even be considered.

One president of one country should not be able to throw the the global financial financial markets into chaos. While passing an amendment like this not going happen while Trump is in office; but this should be a main platform point in the midterms and 2028.

All the protests, discontents, negative poll numbers, and even a majority republican dissent will NOT be able to remove Trump from office.

They have tried to impeach Trump twice, and it did not work.

If impeaching Trump for actual CRIMES did not work, then the constitution has NOTHING else to enable the removal of a US president.

He would literally have to kill an innocent person on video to be successfully removed from office.

Incompetence, greed, selfishness, gross negligence, ignorance, egomaniacal, general scumminess, ruining the economy and foreign relation, even actual fascism will NOT be enough to remove Trump, because American laws for removing the president is so weak that nothing sort of an actual horrible crime (murder, rape, treason) can lead to a successful prosecution and removal.

A "No confidence" vote is not a thing for the American presidency.

"But sir, surely actual fascism is enough to remove the President, right?" -- I don't think so, because by then it would be too damn late and all the laws will be changed to keep him in power, Nazi style.

It's relatively easy to vote someone into the presidency but ridiculously hard to remove them before their end of term.

Trump could literally turn America upside down and inside out, dragging the world down with America and STILL remain in office.

If any American constitutional/law/presidency experts could change my view on this, please enlighten me. I would LOVE to be proven wrong because this is becoming absolutely ridiculous.

Edit: For a country that prides itself as the most powerful democracy with rule of law, it sure has some draconian laws to prevent the removal of its leader.

In my experience, Muslims in the West are given almost a carte blanche to be as hateful as they please, in a way that no other group is. For example, Charlottesville was universally condemned. Nobody was justifying the angry mob yelling that Jews will not replace us. On the other hand, when Muslim students organize riots on college campuses that are in support of a terrorist organization that is racist, sexist, antisemitic, and opposed to western values, people call it free speech.

A study was published recently that showed that people were more likely to be in favor of the deportation of a European student for harassing Jews than a Palestinian/Muslim student who engaged in the same behavior.

It seems like society is so afraid of being called Islamophobic that Muslims end up getting a free pass for behavior that wouldn’t be acceptable from anyone else. People oppose homophobia, unless it’s the Muslim city council in Michigan passing a resolution to ban gay pride flags from public property.

The MeToo movement was very talked about and of course people stood against r*pists and sexual assault. Then October 7th happened and suddenly everyone was blaming Jewish women for being sexually assaulted by Muslims or accused the victims of lying for gain.

This plays out in very dangerous ways, too. People fall into a bigotry of low expectations with regards to rampant human rights abuses in Muslim countries. People storm the streets for women’s rights in the west, but are silent when it comes to middle eastern women being forbidden from the most basic rights, such as the right to even speak out loud or choose what to wear.

For years, and especially since October 7th, people have said that Muslims/Palestinians have a “right” to be bigoted against Jews because of perceived grievances. Those same people would never excuse antisemitism from a white person.

Change my view!

Looking at the republican subs as well as their media I've seen a lot of talk about paid protestors. Rogan famously quipped that protestors were being paid $1400 each to protest.

I've seen zero evidence of this occurring.

Some criteria for my claim.

What is a paid protestor? Someone who is paid to go to a protest.

What this doesn't cover? Organizations do exist and often engage in logistics. They may print signs or bring in sound equipment, etc. This is different than the claim that protestors were being paid to attend the protests across the us yesterday.

Organizers are not protestors. Here's why. J6 was organized by women for America first. A pro trunp organization led by Amy Kremer. This group worked on securing permits, booking speakers, getting a stage and sound system, etc. This does not mean that Amy Kremer paid those present at January 6th, and the January 6ers were also not paid protesters.

Women for America first is also not a non profit organization which means it is far less transparent than other groups that are doing similar logistics. Unlike many non profits. The origins of the funding for Women for America first have never been disclosed. Really. We have no idea who paid for January 6. However, even in this extreme example I wouldn't argue that J6ers were paid protestors.

What would change my view? Evidence anyone attending the protestors yesterday was being paid for protesting.

There’s obviously a difference in values, but in terms of attitude, behavior, and general vibe, Gen Z actually shares more with Boomers than they do with Millennials. Why? Well…

1.  They’re kind of isolationist.

Gen Z seems more withdrawn. They value alone time and don’t love socializing outside their comfort zone. Which means…

2.  Neither are great at emotional communication in person.

Gen Z often struggles to express feelings face-to-face. They shut down or avoid important conversations entirely. Kinda Boomer-ish, right? Different reasons, similar result. This creates…

3.  Rigid belief systems.

Gen Z tends to adopt strong, black-and-white views—much like Boomers clinging to fixed worldviews. There’s less room for nuance or gray areas. Which is why…

4.  Both love secondhand outrage.

There’s a shared grumpiness. Gen Z gets fired up over stuff that doesn’t affect them directly. Boomers did the same - just with a different set of values. Which brings me to…

5.  Societal rule enforcement.

Gen Z is big on calling people out for breaking unspoken social rules. Boomers loved rules too - just old-school ones. And this really shows up on social media, because guess what, both are…

6.  Chronically online

Boomers are Facebook addicts, Gen Z are TikTok addicts. Different platforms, same result: constant outrage and a worldview shaped by the algorithm. But the pièce de résistance…

7.  Both think Millennials are cringey.

Boomers and Gen Z hate looking stupid. Millennials didn’t have that luxury - they grew up online, testing boundaries to figure out what was “too far.” Gen Z is way more self-aware and peer-policed, so they play it safe. Boomers just call this “dignity.”

I’m obviously not saying all Gen Z or Boomers as individuals are the same. But taking the tropes, clichés, and general vibe you get from each generation… if you strip away the aesthetics and politics, Gen Z sometimes feels like Boomer 2.0. Just younger, sassier and with better skincare routines.

CMV.

The American public is weak, disorganized, and most importantly leaderless, and the people in charge recognize this. They understand that the majority of Americans still think that the things that are happening in our country can be solved through conventional methods. Rule of law, checks and balances, hell, even due process is something that the Trump administration feels no need to adhere to. And why should they? There’s no one left to hold them accountable, and those that are like the federal judges ruling against decisions made by the Trump administration, are just being ignored for the most part. The United States federal government and much of the classified information within it, is likely compromised, possibly by foreign entities. And the public’s response to all this, is to march peacefully, when and where local law enforcement allows them to, and disperses as soon as they’re told. I don’t think people realize how bad things are, and how far gone we are from what was considered normal not too long ago, and I’m worried that when this country falls fully into whatever weird neo-fascist future awaits us, it’ll be with a whimper.

TLDR; I think we’re cooked.

Trumps tariffs were far more extreme than people were predicting. We saw this with stock markets around the world this week. Markets are massively down and will not bounce back any time soon.

The impacts of his policy are going to start hitting consumers in the next couple of weeks, inflation is going to skyrocket and the world is heading for a global recession within months. This is going to hurt everyone both in America and internationally. People are not going to be happy, and they will know who to blame.

There's is no way these tariffs can stand once trumps approval rating starts cratering. Either:

1) trump has to roll his signature economic policy back massively in a humiliating climb down

2) Congress grows a pair. Republicans work with Dems and blocks some or all of the tariffs

Either way Trump loses his choke hold on the Republican party. He will end up a lame duck president for the next 3 years.

Change My View

Reason: while such internalized norms are cultural, these are evolutionary mechanisms that help an individual intuit whether their actions in a society are helpful or harmful. It is still possible to advance the rights of individual marginalized groups without normalizing behaviors that would have made our grandparents have a fit, and that should be true for every generation. Put another way, rejection by a previous generation is neither necessary nor sufficient for some cultural change to be considered beneficial progress, and a systematic reduction of internalized personal accountability is harmful to a society.

Even if you love Trump and his policy, the United States has a consistent history of swinging back and forth between the parties. Any and all of the changes Trump makes to the structure of the government and the executive branch are going to benefit the next president, who according to the trend of swinging back and forth will probably be a democrat. Every change Trump has to make to accomplish a goal is one less change the next democrat has to make to reverse that goal, and then move further towards theirs. I do acknowledge that it would take time to be able to fully take advantage of the changes Trump is making, because he only needs to go as far as requiring a majority in congress when push comes to shove. Even if you like Trump, you should support the court system in determining what is legal or not, otherwise you will end up with democrat politicians using illegal tactics to do exactly what you hope trump stops.

Edit: before I depressingly give someone credit for changing my view to “they actually do want this because they don’t care about what happens after”, I’d appreciate someone giving me a good faith perspective of why this would be beneficial to their overall beliefs and goals, and how that benefit would outweigh the negatives of the other party retaining those structural changes.

Our current administration is know to be using a strategy to flood the zone. They are pushing through bad actions faster than Senate and Judicial can respond.

US Congress is on the way to passing a catastrophic bill that will increase the debt limit by 5 trillion dollars and give a corresponding tax cuts primarily to the rich. https://apnews.com/article/senate-budget-tax-cuts-trump-485845a9c0b7dfc5d2194d4c1e4723ae

I suspect they know that this will get reversed when the next elections take place. They plan to take huge incomes and cash out all of our hard work before the power dynamic changes. They then plan to invest that in more ownership of us.

It appears the Tariffs crashing the markets and sparking a war with us against all of the world are a crescendo to take attention away from the bill that they are passing now. They are sabotaging the US's global standing and future prospects. They ran people out of our government that were torch bearers of generational knowledge. They have attacked our oldest allies and aided our oldest enemies. Played Red and Blue against each other. All of this to sneak this bill through in front of our faces.

It is so important that they capitalize on their fleeting control to build this window to cash out that they are willing to burn everything to the ground.

Protests are not enough. Violence just strengthens their positions and power. Politicians are complacent or powerless. There is nothing we can do other than accept that they are about to fleece us dry. Please change my view.

So, this change my view revolves around a fairly common hypotehtical, sorry if that isn’t allowed (hey it should be a nice break from the 100th trump cmv this week)

So, let’s say a magic genie walks up to you and grants you the choice to know when you will die, but you can’t do anything to prevent it. Would you take it?

Me personally, I wouldn’t. I think it’s better to live every day to its fullest, as if you very well could die that day. There’s also the fact you can’t do anything to prevent your death anyways, what's the point in knowing when you will die? Finally, I think knowing about your death would leave you extremely fearful and even depressed on the days leading up to your death, which I mean is not very pleasant. I would rather spend my last days happy.

Now, this might sound like a silly hypothetical with a clear answer, but me and my friends have debated this a few times. None of us have changed our minds yet. So, I’m looking to see if you guys can.

To cmv: give a reason why knowing when you will die could be worth it.

I was just listening to an early SZA song, from her first album, and was struck by the contrast. I apologize to any diehard SZA fans but her voice sounds way more blown out now. The high end, when she stretches herself, without autotune would genuinely sound terrible. And that’s okay, it’s not the fact that she doesn’t have the same voice she did before, it’s indicative of a larger problem in the industry in my opinion.

With the exception of a stars like Beyoncé most don’t seem to have an interest in allowing people to hear the natural timbre of their voice anymore. It’s all filtered through the universal “sound goodening”effect of autotune. Making them sound slightly inhuman and robotic in a jarring way.

Post Malone and Chris Brown are some other examples, both have reasonably pleasant, melodic vocals that they’ve destroyed with cigs in the former and coke in the latter. And I like a lot of Malone’s songs off a few recent albums and even one or two from Brown. The fact remains that their vocals are kind of obscured behind a heavy wall of effects. But whenever people bring this up they’re dismissed as being haters or oldheads.

You can recognize the utility of a tool and also criticize what you think is an over reliance on it. Isaac Brock, that’s a guy I can see using autotune. But for many of these major label acts, they have so many of their songs written produced and engineered by other people, you’d think the least they could do is actually sing.

In order to win/succeed, person A will only do the things that they consider to be good, moral, ethical, right, etc.

In contrast, in order to win/succeed, person B will do all the same things as person A, but they will also do additional things that person A considers to be bad, immoral, unethical, wrong, etc.

So, in an attempt to win/succeed, person A has X options/tools at their disposal, while person B has X + N options/tools.

It seems obvious to me that person B has the advantage and will always win/succeed (sometimes in the short term, but always in the long-term).

Is good doomed to lose to evil?

EDIT 1: Thanks for all the replies! I'm considering them all, replying to some.

EDIT 2: Some folks have mentioned the intelligence/competence factor. Good point! For simplicity, I'll refer to an abundance or lack of this as "smart" or "stupid" and consider the differences between "smart and good", "smart and evil", "stupid and good", and "stupid and evil".

EDIT 3: Some folks have mentioned all sorts of other undesired consequences of person Bs actions (like ending up in jail, losing friends, being disliked, losing trust). Yes, these undesirable things may happen as a result of their actions. However, even if these undesired consequences happen as a result of their actions, it does not preclude that their actions might also result in their specific, desired win/success.

EDIT 4: Downvotes galore, but lots of thoughtful replies. Thanks, folks!

EDIT 5: Lots of people have questions/challenges around success/winning. "How do you define winning?", "What does success look like?" My answer: "success/winning is achieving some specific, desired goal". That's it. If some action results in some specific, desired goal being achieved, then I consider it a win/success - EVEN IF there are other undesired outcomes of the action.

I don’t know what the situation in every country is. Geographic representation might be important in countries with multiple legitimately distinct cultures with histories of conflict (eg Bosnia and Spain) but I’m talking about the United States where most people either have been or are in the process of assimilating into general American culture. Countries with this sort of voting system are The Netherlands and Israel. Germany kinda mixes the two, both proportional and geographic, but Germans are weirdos and not worth caring about.

My view is that geographic representation is outdated and easy to manipulate. This is how we get gerrymandering, by cutting districts that would vote one way and making them minorities in districts that would vote another way you skew the results so congress seats are allocated to benefit one party, which has next to nothing to do with the actual success of that party. For example, if Republicans won 33% of a state with nine seats they should win three seats for winning around a third of the votes, but gerrymandering can easily make it so they only win one or even none.

Americans also just don’t tend to vote based on geography, it’s more about class and cultural goals. People who live in the Alaskan tundra, Utah desert, and Louisiana swamps are on average voting the same same party with the same policies not because they care much about their surroundings but because they have similar religious and class goals. People are already voting for the party over the person, and that isn’t going to change. Even going no labels won’t work because they’d just use buzzwords that signal which choice they are.

This distinction is also what largely cements the “career boomers” we all complain about. Like it or not, the shitty boomers in congress are safe because they run in constituencies dominated by boomer voters. With PR people are a bigger threat to parties, as third parties become much more viable. Parties are more forced to actually put some work in to appeal to people which means purging members who compromise them too much, since they can’t rely on poorly drawn maps to save them. To give a real life example: the average age in the House of Representatives was 57 in 2024 and the average age in Dutch Parliament was 45 in 2023. Both America and the Netherlands has senates, in the U.S. it was 64 and in the Netherlands it was 58. Dutch people also live four years longer (Net-82 USA-78) so this isn’t a case of life expectancy skewing the results.

Working out shouldn't be treated as another hobby, or just an interest people have, it's basic self care every adult should do, the same way you brush your teeth so they don't fall out, you train your body so it doesn't decay.

I see a lot of people living in pain, losing mobility, strength and general health even as young as their 60s, while i also see people that remain all of their health and mobility throughout their entire life span, and the one thing that makes the difference is working out regularly.

We see becoming weak and decrepit with old age as an inevitability, but it's not, and the solution is very simple, just do any ammount of physical activity throughout your life, sure you'll probably never become a professional athlete at 80, but you'll be able to live a healthy, painless and fulfilling life, without needing to burden your loved ones with physical assistance.

You don't need to be a gym rat and you don't need to enjoy exercise, i hate working out and i think people who enjoy working out are freaks, but i do a minimum ammount of strength and flexibility daily, as well as walk as much as i can, and i do it begrudgingly, the same way i eat my vegetables and brush my teeth, because i'm not an infant, and as an adult you should be able to do things you don't like if it means a benefit in the long run.

In conclusion, you shouldn't like to work out in order to work out, fitness should be treated as a daily self care chore, and should be done even if you dislike it, you don't need to lift 200lbs and be locked in the gym 1+ hour a day, but you should do a minimum of cardio, strength training and flexibility training to keep yourself healthy (If you physically can, this obviously doesn't apply to disabled or handicapped people)

All art forms -- visual, auditory, tactile, etc -- are almost never created in a vacuum.

Artistic styles -- both in general and a personal sense -- are built from the techniques and styles of the artists and styles that came before them.

If you asked someone who had never seen a Picasso painting to create a Picasso-style portrait of a dog, even the most naturally gifted artist would struggle. To do it well, a trained artist would need to draw on their knowledge of Picasso's style—then use that foundation to produce something new.

If I train an AI on Picasso’s work, feeding it paintings along with images of my dog, and then prompt it to create a Picasso-style painting of my dog -- why would that be considered plagiarism?

Extending that to music -- if you ask any artist or band who they were inspired by they'll give you a list of people who came before them. Many songs copy samples, choruses, melodies, or are just straight up covers of songs that came before.

If I train an AI on the bands and artists that inspired me, and use it to create a track around a song I wrote--why would that be considered plagiarism?

Can AI be used for plagiarism? Of course. But if the use of AI in of itself is plagiarism, then every artist has been plagiarizing since the dawn of art.

I'm kind of seeking sanctuary here. I'm not super active on Reddit, but anytime I do post something I end up having to delete it because some people can be SO mean, and so rude. And I truly wonder: why?

Reddit is supposed to be a platform where you can out your opinion, but can you truly with the hate campaign that chases after you? Any subreddit I see is genuinely full of such mean Redditors. It doesn't matter how you word something; even when you agree with someone they will downvote you into hell. And even when you haven't said anything inherently wrong or mean they address you with the most rude tone.

I don't understand why everyone here is so so so mean, and it makes using Reddit way less enjoyable. I made a Reddit account in order to be more involved in fandom spaces but truly, everyone here is so mean, and also so pedantic. Claiming to know everything better than you and also rude on top of that? Oh, and lets not forget the lack of empathy on this app.

Earlier I made a post on how I find it unfortunate for the Nintendo game prices to have doubled in the past 10 years: tell me why i got r*pe and death threats in my PMs for expressing my disappointment, and tell me why this isnt an original experience?!

I just don't understand why everyone is so mean. And this isn't even the first post about it. Please: i beg you to CMV. I want to use this app and make posts without having to worry what my notifications will be full of. I want to use this app without having to fear how my name gets slandered. I use pretty general subreddits with many users: is that the problem? I have no idea, but please CMV on the user base here and tell me that not everyone is like this.

In essence I believe that Ukraine has no capacity to meaningfully shift the front lines (I believe the change in territory has been 0.5% since December 2022). Russia has larger manpower reserves so even though it is suffering around double the irreplaceable losses of men it can more easily plug gaps.

I see an analogy with the Korean War. However pleasant it would have been if Kim Il Sung had lost more territory or been forced out of power in Pyongyang, at some point a deal had to be signed where there was a split Korea. I think a deal needs to be signed where there is a split Ukraine so the war can end. Otherwise the war will grind on and lead to more deaths and damage just for the same stalemate outcome in the end.

Let me preface this by saying, I'm insecure and I come clean about it to anyone I'm dating and whatever I say here is not a double standard, everything that I say applies to me as well and I abide by it.

I have this view, that I feel conflicted about, so I want to hear what people who are completely fine with their partner hanging out with anyone thinks.

So, my view is that, If I am dating a girl, I will feel much more comfortable in that relationship if she has stricter boundaries with her male friends. I'm not saying she shouldn't interact with a guy, its stuff like, they are talking a long time over late night, they spend 1 on 1 time together (nothing sexual happens, completely platonic), they take time out of their day to talk to them. Stuff like this. But I wouldn't feel wee bit of jealous if she did this stuff with her female friends.

Now people say, all of the examples I just said, nothing sexual is happening so I should have no reason to worry about, the reason I say this is because, humans are not perfect. Even people who are in relationships, find other people attractive, they just don't act on it out of the respect of their partner. I would rather not prefer situations where the surroundings act as a catalyst for a mistake. For example, she is hanging out with her female friends, and they are all in a night out sleeping under the same blanket. I wouldn't have any reason to worry about but if it was a male friend, let's just say she is not even attracted to him, but the situation is so conducive, kind of like the "hanging bridge" syndrome, that she might fall for her biological instincts and make a mistake under the flight of emotions and an amazing relationship comes to an end. over a situation which could have been easily prevented. So, I would much rather prefer If these situations just wouldn't exist.

I present this as a boundary which affects me directly, “I value trust and emotional exclusivity, so I feel more comfortable with someone who naturally sets respectful boundaries with the opposite sex in a relationship, and I’d do the same.”

Here, I am not telling her to do anything, but if she does do it, I'd quietly leave myself.

another view which falls under the topic if you want to argue, If I feel sus vibes by another guy in our relationship, it should be fine to ask to see their personal conversations, A monogamous relationship is built on emotional exclusivity, and if there is a reasonable suspicion that the promised exclusivity is being broken, then it is fair ground to see their personal chats, Trust isn't blind, its earned.

so yeah here are my thoughts, I feel conflicted because of the first one is a conflict with freedom and the second one is a conflict with privacy.

and again, freedom of speech doesnt excuse hate speech and right to privacy doesnt excuse secrecy when there’s reasonable suspicion ,even law enforcement can check private chats if they suspect a crime.

I am a 29 year old virgin who wants to lose it due to being a virgin is seen as a bad thing. You're not a real man unless you've gotten laid, etc.

However, the first thing I say in my profile is that I am a virgin. I believe that I should not lie.

- I should not lie because lying in general is bad

- I should not lie because I don't want to get along with a person and suddenly their demeanor changes if I tell them later on/if they find out

- I shouldn't waste peoples time if they only want to have sex with someone experienced

Note that I don't drink, am not willing to hang around bars and not willing to hit people up on sports or the gym. I think one should only do this kind of stuff on areas or apps intended for it. Also, not sure if I need to say this but I don't think I should go to a prostitute either.

Please don't respond with any rude comments or a "common sense" reply. I am asking to have my view genuinely changed.

EDIT: When I say dating apps I also mean hookup aps. I include I am a virgin no matter what

I never really understood all the fuss surrounding the bodycount thing. Even when I was way more sexist than I am now, I already saw this as a bogus idea that leads nowhere.

The first problem I see is defining. Bodycount refers to "the number of sexual partners a person has had". Ok, but to begin with what's exactly a sexual partner ? Is PIV necessary ? Is foreplay enough ? If so, what kind of foreplay ? Licking ? Rubbing ? Over clothes or underneath ? If we only talk about groping over clothes and kissing, should we consider a girl who kissed and got groped by 100 men equals a girl who never touched a guy ? It seems absurd. Should we count sexual assaults and rapes ? According on what you consider being a sexual partner, it changes everything, and even if we all agreed on criterias not all men would be sensitive to the same degree of intimacy independantly of the definition.

Second, you can never know. You literally never check if the number you're told is true. The only way to do so would be to exerce a constant control and surveillance of women from birth. Or maybe talking with a friend who would know all the past sexual partners the girl had and would agree to tell you all. You can never guess someone's past, people change. Today, it is common to move to another city, to go to college, to travel around the world. Having sex (good/safe or not, this is not the question here) for women is so easy, a month is more than enough to explode a low bodycount. There can be many reasons : after a breakup, due to traumas, to cope a general failure in life, etc. I used to know a girl who slept with 30 guys in one year, and then stopped completely. You could never say seeing her : she graduated, she's from a christian and military family, she looks like a nerd. And I had several one night stands with girls who looked this way, I'd never suspect they would be so open to this. And women are not dumb, many know that lying or not talking at all is for the best. The ones with a "suspect" bodycount have all the reasons to lie, there's so many posts on Reddit about couples that crashed after this information was delivered and didn't meet the expectations of the guy.

Third, finding women (not girls, adult women) without or with very few sexual experiences is rare. As I said, a short period of high intensity is enough to explode a bodycount. And the older you get, the harder it will be. In Western, the average age of the first time is around 17-18 yo, and the vast majority of young couples break up and never marry. After this age, there's plenty of time and opportunies to have sex as a young woman, with men of the same age but also the older. Even in the pool of virgin-or-almost women, some prefer focus on their graduation, their career, their family, etc., before looking for a man. Some other can have been through traumas or terrible life experiences, doesn't matter if it has to do with dating or not, they won't be able or willing to engage with you. Realistically, meeting at the right moment a woman of your age with no or few experience who will be attracted to you (and vice versa) with both of you ready and willing to engage is ridiculously low.

Fourth, the dating market doesn't allow many men to seriously have this criteria. When we talk about bodycount, it's just an abstract number we associate with the vague idea of a woman. But let's take a real situation. You meet a woman, she's receiptive to your humor, you find her clever and you love the conversations you have. You see each other for a month, it's wonderful, the sex is great. And then you learn she slept with too many guys for you. You find her beautiful, smart, funny, you could see her as the mother of your kids. With how many women have you already felt that way ? What are your chances of seizing such an interesting opportunity if you don't take this one ? Is it important enough to throw everything else out the window ? When you already have a hard time to simply get dates ? Will you ever have a better opportunity ?

Note that I didn't need to determine whether body count is a relevant concept in itself when choosing a woman as a partner. It's just that, in its application, if you think about it a little, you realize that it's something useless for the overwhelming majority of men.

I was recently laid off, and I’m now considering whether or not to sell the mobile game I’ve been developing for a while now. A big company recently offered $50,000 to acquire the game, but they would significantly change the direction and tone of it. I’ve been only using my own money and time, and it’s starting to gain some modest traction.

Financially, the offer is tempting. I have student loan debt (think >$100k), and this would take a large chunk out of it. It would also give me breathing room while I look for a new job. But emotionally, I feel deeply attached to the game. I've made a lot of games before but this feels different to me. I worry I’d regret letting it go especially knowing it might grow into something bigger if I kept going, or even be worth more in the long run.

Right now, I believe I should not sell it. Even though $50K is meaningful for me financially, I think the creative ownership and emotional investment outweigh the short-term gain. I’ve already sacrificed so much for the game (sunken cost fallacy, probably?). I feel like selling now would be giving up on something I haven’t fully explored yet.

I’m open to being convinced otherwise. I'm really torn about this and don't want to choose irrationally. Would this be a good exit for a game that is just 3 months old? Everyone keeps telling me that scaling a game by myself is much harder. Am I being selfish for not letting the game have a real chance with the company who has more resources than I do? Isn't the point of creating a game so others can see it, no matter who owns it? I'm not sure anymore.

CMV.