bonus points if you explain how US elections work and what you would change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College

One thing people don't seem to understand about the Electoral College is that it's not the people who decide the President, it's the states. I think the Electoral College is a good idea since people in California are ignorant about issues that affect Texas and so on. A popular vote would just mean the cities would outvote the suburbs and rural areas. I certainly don't want Chicago and New York City deciding issues for my area without me getting a proper say in the decision.

Yes its similar to the parliamentary system in Canada or UK countries whereby members of parliament (like governors maybe?) represents people at the federal level. We don't vote for prime minister across the country, they need to be elected in their own area so only locals vote for them. It's not really an issue here mainly because we don't have nearly as much gerrymandering and so the leader of the part that gets most members of parliament usually also represent the majority of people. The other thing to consider is that due to multiple parties its rare to technically get more than 50% of the population on your side. Most best effective governments are where they are forced to work together. Fortunately they still do more or less...

But then one rural person's vote could count for 10 people that live in the city.

That's not true though. California has about 9% of the population and 55 of the 538 electoral votes, or just over 10% of them. That means california has a larger proportion of the votes out of population compared to other states, for example.

Wrong

The people should vote for the most important person in the HOLE WORLD

i think that it is a good idea, but if a president were to win, i think it should be by popularity of vote

i am kinda undecided on my opinion

We don't need it anymore, we should just go by the popular vote now.

Mob rule?

The electoral College demonstrates there's two types of people in the world, those who understand why the it exists and those who make it necessary.
~GuillermoElNino

Good idea. It gives smaller states a voice in the election without being snuffed out by CA and NY. It also makes voter fraud harder b/c you would have to travel.

I feel like it should just be a popular vote

I don’t really feel like it’s fair. All the senates are rich and shit, while the poor actually need to vote on who benefits them. Let’s say joe Biden was raising taxes on the poor, and lowering it on the rich. The people who pick the electoral votes, they don’t need all that extra money, and yet the poor are going to be broke and homeless. So, I think the Electoral College isn’t really a good idea.

Is good. Very very good.

tl;dr The EC is an electoral handicap that allows the less-popular candidate to win some of the time. The fancy poli-sci term for this is "counter-majoritarian."

Longer story: In my opinion, the EC is a recipe for democratic apathy, divisiveness, unsatisfactory government, and a discontented population, as we saw over the past 4 years of Trump's presidency frankly, and arguably during G.W. Bush's term as well.

1. Why apathy? While some states are swing states, many states are firmly "red state" or "blue state" and for those who live there, having your vote for President "not really matter" as a result is a motivation to not turn out and vote at all.

2. Why divisiveness? There's little incentive to compromise and appeal to most of the country when presidential candidates know most states they need are already in their bag, and they don't have to work for them.

3. Why unsatisfactory government? The EC gives large-sized swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania undue influence on our nation's politics, to the detriment of states that aren't "strategic." This distorts our nation's policies and presidents' priorities.

4. Why a discontented population? The widening gap between the popular vote and Electoral College results means that on occasions when the "loser wins," millions more people will be dissatisfied with the outcome than otherwise.

Amending the Constitution requires a large bipartisan majority and it's doubtful Republicans will ever agree to reform it, because currently the EC seems to be their only shot at winning the Presidency.

However, let's just point out a few more things:
1. Every other elected position in the entire United States is selected by popular vote. This includes U.S. Senators, which were not originally chosen by popular vote but were made subject to the votes of the people via the 17th Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

2. Every other democracy in the world with a presidential system chooses the president by national popular vote. In no other country can the "loser" win.

3. While abolishing the Electoral College is a pipe dream in our current political climate, the Electoral College does not actually need to be abolished to remove some of its pernicious effects; we just need to abolish the "winner-take-all" aspect and allow states to apportion their EC votes in a manner consistent with how their people actually voted. That would help.