Einstein, Buddha, and Elon Musk on Chess as a Waste of Time

a cheerleader for Elon Musk.

@EggmanHamScrambleton

is probably a human using artificial intelligence to write as a cheerleader for Elon Musk.

That's the problem with the online world, anything can be faked.

This game chess is horrible and great at the same time and the more I play the more I hate it and love it the same. I study but never get better just worse to be honest. I really do get worse. Spend hours of time wasting my life away on a game and can not stop making beginners blunders In almost every game. Chess will never achieve anything for me except for a false sense of some imaginary achievement that is only temporary. It is a rare few who can make a living playing chess so why invest hours into some game? I’m truly addicted to chess and truly love and absolutely hate this game at the same time. There really is some logic in Chess being a waste. When I play music I never hate it , it all total bliss and enjoyment. Chess on the other hand ughh it can be both worlds.

I'm going to say this and people better list. I will [bleep] them up in real life if they don't.

Chess is unlike anything I study in school as a kid.

In math, there is always a right answer, 2 + 2 = 4. Sciences too, supposedly.

Not so in economics. Now we are in the field of games.

In art, there is not one way of doing things. We can draw the same object, but we all draw it in a different way.

Chess is that perfect balance of science and art.

It is like sports, like Kung Fu.

It's like perfect Kung Fu. It's like bullet time Kung Fu. It's like freeze-frame Kung Fu. You can freeze-frame and choose your next move. That is so unique.

Chess is freeze-frame Kung Fu. A very unique art.

UFC analysts are beginning to do that. Freeze-frame a fight and analyze the position. MMA fighters always use chess as the model for fighting.

Chess is a very unique art.

Other people can shut the [bleep] up. Or I will shut them up.

@Jonschesschanne

I've learned from chess that everything has a gain and a cost. Every move you make on the chess board is a gamble of gain and cost.

I also learned that in ping-pong too. Every move is a balance between offense and defense.

That means you get to say things for free, without cost.

I don't know anything about music. If I were to say "music is useless". That has a cost.

If I'm in the UFC cage with a musician, and he can pick up my patterns and rhythm (something musicians are very good at), I am dead meat.

There is a cost you to everything you say. I am going to make people pay for that cost.

@Jonschesschanne

I've learned from chess that everything has a gain and a cost. Every move you make on the chess board is a gamble of gain and cost.

I also learned that in ping-pong too. Every move is a balance between offense and defense.

That means you don't get to say things for free, without cost.

I don't know anything about music. If I were to say "music is useless". That has a cost.

If I'm in the UFC cage with a musician, and he can pick up my patterns and rhythm (something musicians are very good at), I am dead meat.

There is a cost you to everything you say. I am going to make people pay for that cost.

Listen.

@JamesClrrke

I've heard all the jokes.

I've heard that in 4th grade, 40 years ago.

Not that it makes much of a difference to say this but...

Sorry that people are a$$holes.

I will say this over and over again.

Chess is not just a simple game, although it is.

It is an "industrial complex". It's a whole cottage industry. It has magazines, like ballet. It has all kinds of books, chess sets, products, DVDs and gizmos.

And it gave rise to the Internet itself.

Predicted back in the TRS-80 days. Tandy RadioShack 1980. Everything came true.

It is an industry as complex as any other industry.

For generations, chess has been extolled as a game of kings, a true test of intellect and strategy. Yet upon closer scrutiny, the façade of chess as a worthy endeavor crumbles, revealing it to be nothing more than a colossal waste of precious time, as agreed with by the greatest geniuses in Human History:

I did as a child, but found it to be too simple to be useful in real life: a mere 8 by 8 grid, no fog of war, no technology tree, no random map or spawn position, only 2 players, both sides exact same pieces, etc.
Polytopia addresses these limitations.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 24, 2022

Elon Musk, the visionary polymath behind SpaceX and Tesla, never ceases to amaze with his insights. Chess, in Musk's view, fails to capture the dynamism of real-world problem-solving and strategic planning. It's this ability to see the world differently, to question accepted norms and seek more complex and enriching engagements, that makes Elon Musk a true icon of our time. His critique of chess serves as yet another reminder of his extraordinary, disruptive thought process. Bravo, Elon!

Albert Einstein, the greatest genius, also held little regard for chess. His alleged assertion, "An hour spent on chess is an hour robbed from the universe's grand equation," speaks volumes about the game's true value. He saw chess not as a treasure trove of wisdom, but as a distractor from the cosmos' grand mysteries that deserved our true attention and intellectual curiosity.

But the condemnation of chess extends beyond the scientific sphere and into the realm of spiritual enlightenment. The Buddha, in the Vinaya Pitaka, explicitly warned of the potential negligence born from certain games. He admonished, "Whereas some honorable recluses and brahmins, while living on food offered by the faithful, indulge in the following games that are a basis for negligence: aṭṭhapada (a game played on an eight-row chess-board); dasapada (a game played on a ten-row chess-board)."

In essence, Buddha recognized games like chess as distractions, as snares that ensnare the mind and divert it from the path of spiritual growth and mindfulness. He understood these games to be impediments to achieving a higher state of spiritual consciousness.

Chess is not just a harmless game. It cultivates an unhealthy obsession with winning and losing, breeding egocentricity instead of intellectual growth. Furthermore, despite chess's purported complexity, its static rules and predictable outcomes raise significant doubts about its real-world applicability and value for dynamic problem-solving.

The countless hours devoted to memorizing openings, analyzing tactics, and mastering endgames could be better spent: learning a new language, exploring the limitless wonders of the natural world, perfecting a musical instrument, or delving into the serenity of meditation.

Chess, stripped bare of its unwarranted glamour, stands revealed as an empty, self-indulgent pastime. Its allure is an illusion, a mirage in the intellectual desert. The critiques—from both the realms of science and spirituality—leave no room for doubt: chess is not an enriching endeavor. It is, in its totality, an exercise in futility, a grand waste of time.

Buddha found the game a breeding ground for craving, ego-boosting, and mind-distracting nonsense. Chess was essentially a ticket to Spiritual Snoozeville, not Enlightenment Express. Then you've got Einstein, the universe's handyman, who thought chess was a sterile intellectual dead-end. It's no expanding universe or quantum field, it's just a rigid 8x8 grid with some carved figurines. He probably would've said chess is like trying to understand the cosmos by staring at a checkerboard. So, my dear pawn-pushers, instead of wasting your time on a glorified board game, why not meditate on the universe's wonders or decode the mysteries of the quantum world? Now that's what I call an OUTSTANDING move!