Team Carlsen or Team Niemann

It was meant to demonstrate a ridiculous stereotype as being unfair

Bingo.  I agree.

Team Borislav. 

There you go trying to be a voice of reason. 😉

I wrote "Americans seem to be particularly bad for this" - that is not a generalisation. There is a reason why your nation is a hotbed of Christian fundamentalism and conspiracism (there is direct and indirect crossover between those two creeds).

In relative terms, the US and UK have very few problems compared to the rest of the world. Certainly no one who has regular internet access that they use to venerate ultimately trivial public figures has any problems a poverty stricken third world citizen could relate to.

Originally on no side, but I'm now 100% on Magnus's side after seeing his suspicious stats in is last 5 tournaments

@MorningGlory84

"internet-obsessed wealthy nations like the US and UK with no substantive problems"

How is that not a generalization?  It implies that someone from the US or UK doesn't know real problems because they live in a wealthy nation.

I stand by that. We have no existential problems here, unlike Indian farmers or Chinese peasants for example. It's mostly avoidable self-destruction from individuals making poor lifestyle choices.

It's a straw poll.  So, it's about what direction posters are leaning in, not about absolute certainty, nor about really being on a team.  So for me, it was not difficult to answer Carlsen definitively.  But I am not assuming guilt, etc.

Poverty and hunger are increasingly problematic in the UK. It's a rich country with a lot of poverty.

Again, mostly due to poor lifestyle choices. If you're on minimum wage it's probably not a good idea to keep breeding, for example.

You have no clue how Chinese peasants live, whether they live good or bad. What bad life choices do so many people make in the UK so that it threatens the society in UK? I know you have much more drug users than normal countries like Russia, Belarus, Serbia etc. but I didn't know that so many people are drug abusers that you have serious problems because of it, such as a burden on your healthcare system because of them, increased crime because of drugs, too many people not being able to work because of drugs etc. I haven't heard that alcoholicism is such a big problem in UK either.

Yes and it's self-perpetuating. I accept there will always be an underclass of low functioning people who need the support of productive people, I am not proposing we let them die, just that we stop viewing them as victims.

Britain is the main European market for cocaine which has complemented our preexisting binge drinking problem. The main burden on our healthcare system is chronic illness from bad living in terms of diet and lack of exercise though. Plus the amount of people we've imported from abroad with assorted problems.

Chinese peasants are disenfranchised and lead a subsistence life, there was/is an epidemic of suicide among Indian farmers. Those were just examples, I could have picked paddy field workers in Laos or something.

I am on the team of truth and fair play.

In addition, I believe Carlsen is right.

I think this is about as low of a statement as someone can make.  Blaming working-class people who are just trying to survive, rather than an infrastructure at the highest levels of government that is purposefully keeping people desperate and poor.  Politicians care about filling their own pockets as do CEOs and billionaires, who control everything.  Rather than calling these people the enemy, you're calling people in poverty the enemy, and you're blaming them.

Now I know what kind of person you are, MorningGlory84.  I'll keep this in mind about you.  And in the small amount of posts I've read from you, you've already managed to cram a lot of stupidity in a lot of things you write on here, and I find you extremely dislikable.  

It's strange you think you're smart enough to dismiss minimum wage workers, yet can't realize the many fallacies your proposed idea would have on society. 

This is the Dunning-Kruger affect at its finest.

You find the way I express my views jarring because I am direct and don't used florid language. I'm the "kind of person" who believes in personal responsibility instead of blaming abstract entities such as 'government'. The fact you are making this personal reveals a lot about you. You could just explain why you think I'm wrong, who I am is unimportant. I don't care about who you are, your ideas may interest me if articulated well enough.

Completely non-sequitur comment.