Chess: a game that's losing it's value?

Interesting remark. However I must insist (but I suspect you know more than me on the subject),Garri = Гарри Gary=Гары Garry=Гарры

The only reason he is called "Garry" is because it was "anglicised". 

from what i heard, he was only named harry some time after his birth and unfortunately Potter was taken. anyways, some new username was needed for the future champ and we've all seen the luck that a handle like Va-silly can do to a chesser.

Precisely.  And since it was anglicized into English, I'd say that worked out rather well.  (Btw my apologies for Americanizing your "anglicised.") 

I don't know of a game that is as complex as chess that has a greater popularity. Maybe Go in Japan, but even there it's probably only a small percentage of people who really care for it. Poker is really popular but not as complex and much easier to follow even if you don't know all the subtleties and the skill that is involved. To follow a chess world championship you need to know quite a bit about chess to actually get something out of it.

And why is philosophy less valuable because many people don't care for it? Popularity = value? That would be quite horrible. Just look at all the important influences that philosophy had on cultural history and science, or, on a personal level, how it can teach people to think properly, to question common beliefs and dubious assertions or to discuss and understand ethical questions and problems. Philosophy is quite important in this regard, the fact that most people aren't interested in it doesn't change that. But maybe you meant something entirely different.

Possibly.  I was speaking more to the notion that people who seem to find the world-views which they have concocted are so earth-shaking really ought to find more resonance for them among the folks around them...and that they should speak more to them rather than allow themselves to become lost among labyrinths of the arcane.

And I'm not sure I buy that philosophy has had all that great an influence on history or indeed that it can "teach people to think properly."  And when I say "philosophy" here, I am speaking primarily of weighty tomes unfolding cosmological systems, not simply people discussing matters in an inquisitive fashion.

Baseball is extremely complex...indeed, though I've been a fan of it for years, I'm still encountering rules I never knew about.  And I guess to some extent it's true that poker has a more accessable "surface"...but still, that line about the subtleties and skill involved can equally be applied to enjoying chess.

A lot of times I think it's a matter of what you're used to.  For example, I know little about hockey and can scarcely follow the puck...yet I am always amazed at how true fans know exactly where the thing is at all times and when there's been a goal.

Philosophy is a pretty big thing. There are those philosophers who design big crazy systems to explain everything there is in an obscure, barely understandable language (I'm pointing at you, Mr. Hegel) and there are others who are more interested in ethical or logical questions. Philosophy doesn't automatically mean old-man-with-long-beards who ask questions that have nothing to do with the world. I certainly found that my interest in philosophy helped me to think and articulate my thoughts more clearly and that it was beneficial by showing me new perspectives on certain things.

And I don't think that the influence of philosophy on cultural history can be underestimated: even Hegel, who was certainly a philosopher that was "lost among labyrinths of the arcane", to use your expression, had a tremendous influence via (among others) Marx, who developped his theories using the dialectic method Hegel invented. And we all know that Marx had great influence on history. Then there were Kant and the other german idealists who were very important for the era of enlightenment, other philosophers basically thought out the fundaments of the modern scientific method, etc., etc. There are countless examples. But of course, this is quite off-topic, I just wanted to protest against the notion that philosophy is some weird sport for crazy old man with nothing better to do.

Concerning Baseball: you're maybe right. To me, Baseball is a total mystery, but then again, I never tried to understand it. It's certainly true that there are complex games that enjoy a huge popularity, but I still think that chess is a special case. In Baseball you may have complex rules, but there's also a lot of action going on, you can watch it in a big stadium with beer and fast food while cheering on your team. In Chess there are just two guys sitting in front of a board for a few hours, doing absolutely nothing. You can't even let out screams of joy if your favorite player just won a piece. Most of the time there isn't much action, just some quiet moves that don't make much sense to someone who doesn't know a lot about chess and in-between those moves, there's absolutely nothing. In Poker the players at least talk about random stuff.

True.  On the other hand, this can also be a matter of custom.  After all, most people talk up a storm when they're playing 5-minute, and the pieces certainly go flying fast and furious there.  In such an atmosphere (especially if say $100,000 were on the line), spectators might well be drawn to it a lot more.  Even say a tournament with 30-minute games might prove of interest to the general public.

But we've had this discussion around here before.  I have come to the conclusion that the chess world wants to bury itself off a neglected corner somewhere...and so it ends up getting what it wants.

And re Marx (and philosophy), I'd say he was a pretty good example of what I'm talking about.  A guy with his head in the clouds, preaching a Utopia based upon "historical inevitability"...somebody like that could've definitely used a Zen dude kicking him in the pants to bring him down to earth a bit. 

Ouch

Yes, Blitz can be quite exciting, even more so with a good commentator, though the ideas behind the moves will be even more difficult to grasp as they are played so quickly. When you say that the chess world wants to bury itself off a neglected corner: what could the chess world do to prevent that and to get more people interested in the sport? I think chess was always like this, with some short periods of chess enthusiasm that were mainly caused by some kind of patriotism (in the case of Fischer e.g.). The only thing that could change that, in the long run, would probably be a better promotion of chess in schools, so that more people will understand what's going on in a game and develop an interest for it. The alternative, which would probably mean to make chess events more flashy and "accessible", maybe by adding some hot girls dancing around the boards, doesn't sound very good.

Concerning Marx: you don't have to like him or his theories to concede his cultural significance. His thoughts on economy were definitely groundbreaking and have lead to a better understanding of this subject, even anti-marxists acknowledge that. Of course, many of his ideas were simply utopian, but to just put him off as a dreamer with his head in the clouds is a little too easy, as his thinking was mostly based on real conditions. In fact he heavily critizised many philosophers of the past for having their heads in the clouds and not caring about changing things. And the horrible stuff that some people did with his theories, well...That's not really his fault.

But if you've got a sympathy for zen buddhism, I can understand your aversion against philosophy. Maybe it would indeed be better to just discard all these systems and thoughts, do some useful work and let everything be as it is. But I still prefer to think, even if it is a futile attempt to understand where there's nothing to be understood. It's just too much fun.

He doesn't have to be right, he just has to be influential. It was probably beneficial for everyone to work out the pros and cons of marxism.

As the old saying goes Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Everyone has to come up with their own answer to this question rather than depending on anyone else's opinion 

Drahtsiel-"Concerning Baseball: you're maybe right. To me, Baseball is a total mystery, but then again, I never tried to understand it. It's certainly true that there are complex games that enjoy a huge popularity, but I still think that chess is a special case."

Many games are this way. While I can talk about golf and baseball, others have told me of the intricacies of auto racing or soccer that I had never thought of.

Chess is this way with some (including me).

I enjoy thinking as well.  But not about philosophy.  I don't find that sort of thing fun at all.

Well yes, and Adolf Hitler was once Time's Man of the Year.  But I don't think you want guys like this acting as poster children for the virtues of philosophy.

The world has a long history of "working out the pros and cons of Marxism". I'm not sure beneficial is the word I'd use for ths process

Well, you can't expect people to apply every idea "correctly." Are you saying it was better for people to not know of Marx's ideas simply because they wouldn't understand how they should to react to them? Ultimately people grow from new things even if there are bumps along the way -- people had to suffer through the industrial revolution too. I understand your point though.

How do we know that Marx's ideas weren't applied "correctly"?  Seems to me his Utopian vision was likely bankrupt from the beginning.

One thing I am very grateful for however:  that the OP did not type "loosing" in the thread title.

The thing is: all these communist dictatorships of the 20th century had basically nothing to do with Marx. They took some of the stuff he said and distorted it in such a way that it fitted their aims. Marx wanted equality and justice, he certainly didn't think that ethnical cleansings (is that the right english term?) were the way to go. Just because his thoughts have been heavily abused by some, it doesn't mean that there isn't any good in his works.

Hitler on the other hand wanted to kill the jews right from the start and he didn't even try to conceal it. You can read it in "Mein Kampf", which wasn't about some nice theory to bring peace and freedom to people that only later got distorted, like it happened with Marx.