Can an average person ever break 2000?

a picture is worth a thousand words.  Obama plays chess, I wonder where on the average scale he fits in and what his potential USCF rating would be provided the full measure of his potential...

Wow great stuff. Well you are a star in my book for working so hard and doing so well. I take my hat off to you.

(Your last comment is also very interesting. I have come to the conclusion in the last couple of weeks ((had more time off work to think)) that strategy is also very important and is my weaker aspect vs tactics. I have been going through master games in terms of looking at strategy, in particular with Chernev's Logical Chess book with this in mind. I feel I am doing right by this. Hope so.)

I'm sorry plutonia, my bad. It's just that I have come across so many such genuine criticisms in the past that suffered from knee-jerk reaction on this particular occasion and my sense of humour was left outside (in the cold and blearly winter). Plus - I swear working with angry teens does nothing to help my constitution!

Also though, consider that this is not just about an average adult picking up chess for the first time at 30+, but an average person achieving 2000. There are two separate (if interesting) questions here on the go at the same time.

I'm 42 and have been playing for 4yrs.  SO if I become a National Master, that would be a first in the history of chess??  Ok, let's do this thing.  Time to get serious.

Go for it fellow! Not that is the attitute I'm talking about!

I would say that I noticed the comment, not that I missed the joke. But then I also noticed, or so I thought at the time, that parsing the sentence literally gave the opposite meaning to the colloquial meaning (which was the one I intended). If it were a chess game, I would have recalculated to check my work, but it's the chess.com forums, so that was the last I thought about it. Until now.

THETUBESTER wrote:

I'm 42 and have been playing for 4yrs.  SO if I become a National Master, that would be a first in the history of chess??  Ok, let's do this thing.  Time to get serious.

Lol! Sorry Plutonia!

My response to Ozzie's was in reference to the post (?!) Sommerswerd made with his. "ITT: old people underestimating young adults, this generation is smarter than your generation

deal with it"

Most people I've ever met work pretty hard even if they prefer to be lazy or doing something else.  They call it growing up but I call it practical for some and silly for most.

I believe that over all society is dwindling in the ability to think and reason, while their ability to rapidly process information and multitask improves.

Because of the availability of books, I think that wisdom must have increased.  It's just with technology there is more evidence that there are individuals and societies (including your own) that disagree with your personal values, which would be interpreted as unwise.  These things have always existed, it's just that people are more aware of them now.

In addition to this bias, past societies are often viewed through rose tinted glasses anyway.  Selective memory of the aged and the bias in history books.  I have to wonder what you base your opinion on.

I think everyone's rating should be given a 2000 floor, so no one's feelings get hurt.

How would one go about processing information without thinking and reasoning?

I think he means to focus on speed of processing and in general make a distinction between intelligence and wisdom.  We can recall more facts but can't use the facts to draw good conclusions.  I don't agree, but there it is.

It's hard to say. Sometimes I believe that people as a whole are getting wiser. But they sure are good at breaking that notion, sometimes. I think people were just really really stupid in the past. 

Francis Bacon explained it many centuries ago. Something about chewed and digested vs. swallowed whole. OTOH, maybe I'm updating Bacon a bit.

Point is there is processing fast food style, and there is processing slow food style. Slow food is a radical innovation in a fast food world. Some young people tell me that Crown Royal is fine whiskey.  I held the same opinion (it's not Seagrams 7) before I discovered good bourbon and single malt Scotch.

The modern world goes at a faster pace, but I wonder what examples can be given of the comparative foolishness of the times.  The inexperienced are always less wise than the experienced, surely long before technology every generation has criticised the new one as unwise.

I for one would like to think that wisdom has increased in the world.  Some believe that this is an age of ascention where a chosen set will evolve spiritually and lead the way so to speak with concepts like love and light and virtue.  Unfortunately evidence to the contrary is abundant.  Personally I think people have become bombarded and overloaded with information.  This mass experiment on the human experiance via insta everything is hardly a substitute for good old fashion value's.  What has changed on a global scale is a rise in per capita income.  Brazil, China, India all now boast 10-15k annually on average and rising.  Nationalism is no longer feasable, or possible and we are not educating people here in the good old US how to deal with this changing global diaspora. The Wealthiest American's don't even live in America while many American's wait for things to change or come back.  A phone that could process the math to take a vessel to moon cost as much money if spent of food would hardly nourish you for a week.  Pre-emptive intellegnce is rampant and becoming hardwired.  The process is running and running and tasking away. 

NM ozzie_c_cobblepot 

I feel smarter already!

I don't know what income, nationalism, and "value's" have to do with comparing the wisdom of different times.

I stopped reading at "ascention" (sic)