Me too!  I'm also having trouble thinking about Bobby Fischer as baby maker! lol

     In this politically correct world of phony baloney Tiger Woods clones that
pretend to be Captain America's I like the fact that Bobby Fischer spoke his
mind(although I don't agree with everything he said).
     Just because a bunch of people at Chess.com say he was mentally ill doesn't make it so, as he was never diagnosed.
     The truth is he had a lot of friends(including the great Tal) and a lot of
beautiful women as dates and a great life until his later years but let's face it
who truly has a better life after 40 than from 21-40 anyway?
     He also took on the whole chess world by himself.  Let's show the guy some
respect as NO OTHER human being had the courage to do what he did.

I think a pretty universal defintion of "failed at life" would be something along the lines of never finding happiness or serenity.   I guess your idea of having NOT failed at life is having died with 2mil in the bank and being a miserable SOB (or perhaps just nuts).  I refer you to a once vibrant thread:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/fischer-mentally-disturbed-or-just-mean-spirited-jerk

"who truly has a better life after 40 than from 21-40 anyway?"

I've had an amazing 32 years, but I hope after 40 is better! Don't kill it for me, Mr. Zappa! Er, Frappa! ;-)

As for respect, it's hard for me to respect someone who had such hate.  Now if we can attribute his outrageous actions to a mental illness, it might be a different story.

BTW, I'm a psychologist. A social psychologist, so I don't know much of the clinical side of things.  But even from my limited understanding, I do believe he showed some pretty good signs of mental illness.  Also, I'm not sure there would have been a way to better diagnose him when he was alive.  Fill out a few measures?  Some psuedo-scientific projective tests?  I think the actions he displayed provide enough information for a DSM diagnosis.

     Bobby Fischer was hardly the worst person on Earth.  What was his crime?  There are plenty of people in the news everyday to despise far more than Bobby Fischer.

I agree with that!

Hmmm...

I don't understand this idea of one man taking on the whole chess world by himself.  Chess is necessarily individualistic, so isn't everyone who wants to be World Champion technically doing precisely this?

Only a bubble headed woman would be able to stand him.

 Tribute to Bobby Fischer,

by zankfrappa...

"Let's show the guy some respect..."

"Bobby Fischer was hardly the worst person on Earth."

"There are plenty of people in the news everyday to despise far more than Bobby Fischer."

"The truth is he had a lot...of beautiful women as dates."

Wrong. Trauma (physical or mental), stress and a host of other things can contribute to the development of mental illnesses.

 Environment can affect it, but the tendency is genetic.

Oh yeah definitely. Usually certain elements of the envroment exacerbate the underlying genetic cause. You just made it sound like it was exclusivly genetic. I'm betting being being locked up in that prison in Japan probably made it 10 times worse for him. I doubt the prisons in japan were too pleasant for americans back then, and even today.

Turn on the news or read the paper.

There are plenty of people to hate more than Bobby Fischer.  What was his crime
again other than being obnoxious?  He is still the greatest game player in American
history.  Even Tal was friends with him. 

How about hate? If he had better social skills, his words might have actually done damage.  Luckily, he was written off as a nut case.

A great American! Not suggesting that everything he says is false, of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5xXEi3qncw

 What does that have to do with anything? Just because there were worse people than him excuses it? There were worse people than Ted Bundy too.

He was pretty good at chess, though. ;-)

I think this idea of the lone hero who takes the world goes in contrast with the idea of "Soviet School" and the alleged collaboration between soviet chess players to arrange games and save their best efforts for use against foreign players.

Fischer didn't have such school behind him and mastered the game basically alone, at least until he was already strong enough to draw attention and support from top american players. Of course this contrast is often pushed way too far because of the dramatic context of the Cold War, in which Fischer's achievements were used to indicate the superiority of individualist (i.e. American) ethics against the communist one from Soviet Union, but overall it seems to be a accurate picture of what happened.

      A lot of people hate various other groups of people.  Sadly, there is plenty if hate to go around.
      Speech is free in America however.  He was not a violent criminal.