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[silverspawn]

Yes, only the one from Zvi ([1][2][3]). No reason to puzzle this all together myself!

[silverspawn]

It's so crazy that Hans Niemann just gets to keep playing in tournaments.

[silverspawn]

It's so crazy that Hans Niemann just gets to keep playing in tournaments.

[silverspawn]

I'm not sure if I've gone on this rant before, but every player who's good enough to play in tournaments will now get a massive incentive to try to start cheating. It's like someone blasted with a world-wide microphone "HEY BEING SUSPECTED OF CHEATING IS ACTUALLY GOOD FOR YOUR CAREER!" The consequences are just so obvious and so bad and no one except me seems to realize that

[silverspawn]

I've definitely repeated this rant many times in my head

[silverspawn]

It's not that I really care about whether professional chess goes to shit -- I would trade professional chess going to shit for a 1% lower chance of Trump becoming the next president -- it's just the utter lack of anyone else expressing this opinion forces my brain to come back to it over and over again

[silverspawn]

I think that and just the fact that if Hans is cheating, he is being rewarded for cheating, and someone being rewarded for doing the immoral thing really upsets me on a deep emotional level

[silverspawn]

Oh and also the fact that everyone is so incredibly incompetent when it comes to assessing what does and doesn't count as evidence, that also drives me crazy

[silverspawn]

So yeah actually it's three different things all coming together. That explains why it's so emotionally effective.

[silverspawn]

Oh and also the fact that everyone is so incredibly incompetent when it comes to assessing what does and doesn't count as evidence, that also drives me crazy

That might actually be the worst. God every time I see someone say that there is no evidence that Hans cheated I just get so incredibly annoyed

[silverspawn]

Ahh unrelated but in the break of the sinqfield cup broadcast, they had this teacher go "I constantly see people applying the lessons they learn from chess in other subjects and sports and elsewhere in school" or something like this, and then this kid was like "I heard that chess helps you make better decisions elsewhere in life so I wanna play" and I'm like WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??

How on earth would chess help you make better decisions elsewhere in life ever? Other than incredibly broad lessons like "learn to focus on something" and "learn that you're maybe not as good as you thought," I don't see it at all. The case for video games seem much stronger than the case for chess.

And the guy supposedly seeing concrete examples is totally talking out of his ass. There's no way you see an unrelated decision and justifiably be like "oh yes the student made this smart decision because they play chess". That is not a thing.

[silverspawn]

I do think chess is probably pretty good against Dementia and general loss of mental capacity with age, but that doesn't apply to children

[silverspawn]

Hm actually GPT-4 says that maybe there is a causal link so maybe I'm wrong? Pretty surprised about this.

[silverspawn]

Still no way you ever see it in a concrete example though.

[Awaclus]

How on earth would chess help you make better decisions elsewhere in life ever? Other than incredibly broad lessons like "learn to focus on something" and "learn that you're maybe not as good as you thought," I don't see it at all. The case for video games seem much stronger than the case for chess.

I do agree the case for video games seems stronger, but it is pretty strong for chess as well. Being able to simulate complex decision trees in your mind is a pretty decently generalizing skill and I would expect that training it would also somewhat train other cognitive abilities too even if they aren't directly linked.

[faust]

How on earth would chess help you make better decisions elsewhere in life ever?

When you avoid the bishop by only stepping on white tiles.

[silverspawn]

How on earth would chess help you make better decisions elsewhere in life ever? Other than incredibly broad lessons like "learn to focus on something" and "learn that you're maybe not as good as you thought," I don't see it at all. The case for video games seem much stronger than the case for chess.

I do agree the case for video games seems stronger, but it is pretty strong for chess as well. Being able to simulate complex decision trees in your mind is a pretty decently generalizing skill and I would expect that training it would also somewhat train other cognitive abilities too even if they aren't directly linked.

mhhhhh .... yeah I guess

How on earth would chess help you make better decisions elsewhere in life ever?

When you avoid the bishop by only stepping on white tiles.

[+1]

[silverspawn]

Since scott pilgrim had this amazing post about the effects of psychedelics on depression, I should probably plug this episode from Sam Harris podcast about psychedelic medicine: https://samharris.org/episode/SE1863DFCF3

[silverspawn]

Barbie (2023)

Yes yes, I know, you're supposed to watch it together with Oppenheimer. I like the meme but I didn't actually want to spend a 5 hours block.

Gonna skip spoiler tags; spoilers don't really matter for the movie anyway

So this was not what I expected. I heard that Barbie starts in the Barbie world and then visits the real world, so my brain just filled in the details and assumed without evidence that they're correct, as usually happens. I thought most of the movie would play out in the real world, and that the real world would, in fact, behave approximately real. That's not what happens. Instead, the real world is only used as a way to give the characters some ideas that they can then take back into Barbie world.

But also, the real worlds obviously isn't the real world. It's a fantasy world that has some symbolic similarities with the actual world but, like Barbie world, operates according to simplistic narrative logic rather than the messy laws of the actual world.

So no part of this movie ever engages with any practical obstacles. Which means that everything has to be read as a metaphor; nothing that literally happens means anything. So the movie basically has no real story. It also didn't say anything interesting. It was pretty funny though, and most of the non-funny parts were still fun for the sheer spectacle.

None of the characters except maybe Barbie herself (and even then eh) were interesting or felt real -- which isn't really a consequence of everything being a metaphor, it was just also the case. As a result, every time the movie tried to be a drama, except when it was about Barbie herself (and even then eh) it completely failed, often so hard that it was just uncomfortable. Several other characters supposedly went through arcs and I didn't buy any of it.

Since it was fun it's probably like a 6 or weak 7?

Oh, and the movie was also incredibly sexist. I can't honestly say that it bothers me but it feels dishonest not to point out that if you did similar things the other way around, it would be completely unacceptable.

[silverspawn]

the music was pretty good

[silverspawn]

Oppenheimer (2023)

Pretty good! I liked it more than Tennet. Weak 8/10.

[Snorka]

The "real world" in Barbie was definitely eye-roll worthy. All the people were bending over backwards to advance the narrative forward as fast as possible, and that felt awkward and forced. Ken's transformation especially felt like the real-world section of the movie was originally planned to be much longer and got chopped up to reduce runtime.

if you did similar things the other way around, it would be completely unacceptable.

While that statement is true, I don't think it's all that relevant. Context matters and the context of Barbie is a world biased against women in many ways. So while the movie is sexist, I think(?) it's doing it in a way that mostly discusses things from a cultural perspective(i.e. sans bioessentialism) and is generally constructive.

I do love how you have several paragraphs of discussion on Barbie and just one sentence about Oppenheimer.

[silverspawn]

While that statement is true, I don't think it's all that relevant. Context matters and the context of Barbie is a world biased against women in many ways. So while the movie is sexist, I think(?) it's doing it in a way that mostly discusses things from a cultural perspective(i.e. sans bioessentialism) and is generally constructive.

Yeah, I think it depends on whether you think an imbalance toward X makes it okay to depict an imbalance away from X. I'd agree that it is okay to do as long as it stays within art (reverse-sexist/racist/age-ist/specietist policies are probably a bad idea). Though I also tend to think that most stuff is okay in art regardless unless it's very clearly pushing an agenda.

[Awaclus]

Though I also tend to think that most stuff is okay in art regardless unless it's very clearly pushing an agenda.

Why is it a problem for art to clearly push an agenda? I mean, if a work of art is depicting genocide to push a pro-genocide agenda, it makes sense why you might take issue with the agenda itself, but the part where a genocide is depicted in art to push an agenda should be completely fine, because presumably the exact same part in an anti-genocide work of art would not be a problem either.

[silverspawn]

yeah, I meant if the agenda is bad. Pushing an agenda is how it can be a problem.