Saudi cleric bans chess

It's also immature to believe in santa claus or the tooth fairy.

But when a billion people do it for 100 years it's suddenly respectable?

Well, that's not true of course. Cults are looked down on and feared at first. It takes about 1000 years before they're respectable.

Ancient arabian society buried down their baby daughter alive and they practised it throughout the decades. Was it respectable ?

To > one billion people, apparently yes.

To people with brains, no.

I'll stay away from this topic now.

I'd like to spot, though, those type of practices (as many others) are not only related with cults/religions, at least not in a simple way. Religions are at once origin and product of societies where they exist, they are not falling from the sky (see what I did here?!)

Because approves of communism = totalitarianism

When you write a song, you gotta dumb it down enough so that people will buy it. Chessplayers being the elite intelligence on this planet should at least know that.

Don't be absurd. the song Imagine does not approve of totalitarianism. And it is a song about people living together comunally, not the kind of communism you apparently live under.

And Lennon's song is not naive, it is simply too advanced for lesser intelligences to grasp {just because you can play chess does not mean you have an advanced intellect...A high IQ is not necessarily indicitive of real intelligence}.

Imagine there's no borders - it's from the song! Dude,now imagine there's no Mexican- US border!

What happens when you believe in this kind of "flower power" nonsense? Ask Angela Merkel.

Don't bother to convince me of how stupid I am. I know that.

Yep, Frau Angela is a big fan of flower power!

Good job! At least one country will be relieved of the bloody game..

Not unlike "The Hokey-Cokey" in that respect

Thank you. I Couldn't agree more!

No, we chess players are not the elite intelligent people on this planet. Some of us are really good at chess. It does not translate into general intelligence or specific intelligence that may have to do with business, sciences, reading emotions etc. people who are really good at something such as chess are more likely savants, not overall more intelligent than others.

I like chess a lot. But I strongly believe top Poker players are more overall intelligent than the chess players. More parts of the brain are used in poker than in chess. I'd also argue a very good Go player is "more intelligent" than a very good player of chess. I've read that in Go intuition and estimation plays a bigger role than in Chess.

Of course another reason why chess player aren't the intellectual elite of the world is the fact that we all know dumb people who may be good at chess.

ilulzmetuna wrote:

When you write a song, you gotta dumb it down enough so that people will buy it. Chessplayers being the elite intelligence on this planet should at least know that.

Moderator, close this hijacked thread. This destroys the spirit of chess.

You do not know how to think in chess.That is why you are low rated player. You perceive that all chess players are like you and do not possess any deep intellectual skill in other affairs. But i think different. The genuine chess players are simply better than other ordinary people and have the ability to outsmart them very easily. But if someone do not understand his power or do not want to give  importance on other affairs, the fault is not with chess but with the will of the individuals.

you can not expect that a computer programmer can do the activities of a chemist perfectly without certain amount knowledge & experiance.

Moreover, some chess players are good at chess because of  memorising thousands of games & brute force search. That does not mean that he is organised in planning or intellectually possess higher position.

Have you thought about not following the thread?

No, I've never thought about it.

xming wrote:

Drawgood wrote:

Moderator, close this hijacked thread. This destroys the spirit of chess.

Have you thought about not following the thread?

@Earth64

Is there any data or studies at all that support your claim that chess players are the intellectual elite of the world?

I still maintain it is a myth spread by chess players who may feel insecure and who might be questioning whether many hours they spend on chess has some objective benefit besides simple enjoyment, so they perpetuate the myths such as "chess players are the most intelligent people" or that their ideas in other spheres of life are based on greater analysis and deeper logic. I can list many examples of how it isn't the cases but it seems to be common sense.

Nope, it's a myth spread by NON-chess players who see something they don't get and so it just must be something mysterious and exalted.

Like religion.

And the statement "The genuine chess players are simply better than other ordinary people and have the ability to outsmart them very easily." by earth64 is just laughable.

Exactly this.

It's one of the top two myths held by non players.

The other being that what differentiates strengths of players from each other is how far a player can calculate.

When asked, chess players tend to laugh at these questions and attempt to inform the silly interviewer (who I suspect still somehow doesn't believe the chess player).