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Well. The speech police started changing "blacklist" and "whitelist" in programming context, even when those had no racist history; maybe it's time to change it
by shp0ngle 5y ago
Well. The speech police started changing "blacklist" and "whitelist" in programming context, even when those had no racist history; maybe it's time to change it in chess. (After all, white always goes first, that is not very PC.)
Rename "black" and "white" to "second player" and "first player".
- Waterluvian 5y agoChange the colours too. Red and neon brown.
- SilverRed 5y agoFirst and second implies a hierarchy and uneven power balance. Both players should have their turns simultaneously.
- user3939382 5y agoYou can be #1 and I'll be #A.
- SilverRed 5y agoThat sounds like segregation. Putting different players in to different sets.
- ikornaselur 5y agoYeah, or the Mongooses, that's a good team name. "The Fighting Mongooses."
- fighterpilot 5y agoI thought of this and realized it'd actually be a fun game. Both players write down their next move and then move simultaneously once both are ready. To avoid race conditions, if a player moves a piece that is to be taken by the opponent's move, then that player has saved that piece with that move. That creates an interesting dynamic where you may not wish to take the most valuable piece if you predict the other player will move out of the way.
- harryh 5y agoDiplomacy works like this.
- d110af5ccf 5y agoHow would two pieces moving to the same square be resolved? Both lost, or ... ? Regardless of the specifics, it would create a very complicated (but potentially interesting) dynamic when moving any valuable piece within a contested region.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y agoMaybe highest value price wins, with ties losing both pieces.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- meowster 5y agoYou gamble with how many points you have left. Let's say each player starts with 40 points (most games take about 40 moves). You spend anywhere from 0 to however many points you have left to move a piece. If it's early on and there's no chance of conflict, bet 0. If it's an important piece in a crowd, spend more. If there's a conflict, whoever spent more wins that spot. It might add an element of subterfuge to the game.
- codesections 5y ago> How would two pieces moving to the same square be resolved? I'd say that the one that has traveled the longest distance wins, and captures the piece that started closer. (My implicit mental model is that both pieces "depart" from their home squares at the same time and travel at a constant rate, so the closer piece arrives at an empty square, while the more distant piece arrives second and captures the first-arriving piece. This may also encourage more dynamic play)
- spxtr 5y agoI used to play a real-time version of this called Kung-Fu Chess. Each piece takes time to move to its destination, and when it arrives, a timer ticks down before that specific piece can be moved again. Very fun game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung-Fu_Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung-Fu_Chess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVob7meb83w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVob7meb83w
- agnosticmantis 5y agoBe wise, randomize!
- soheil 5y agoWhy not try to be more inclusive and have each piece with its own color?
- 1337shadow 5y agoThey are uneven, having the first move is a documented advantage called "initiative". Your first move as black depends on the first move that white made, typically you won't have the same response for 1. d4 and 1. e4! Anyway, I've been looking forward to this day, where SJW start trying to change chess because it's "racist" because white have advantage of initiative and "sexist" because it makes you sacrify the queen to save the king. Looking forward to see that level of stupidity being reached!!
- zarathustreal 5y agoThat’s weird, there’s a documented advantage to being the second player to move as well known as the “defender’s advantage” since you have more information to make your move. Your information includes both the board state and the knowledge of the other player’s move while the first player only has knowledge of the board state. No idea where the idea of an advantage to being first came from
- skinkestek 5y agoStatistically in chess however there seems to be an advantage for the first mover.
- jtsiskin 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess
- dogorman 5y agoI'm sure chess board manufacturers would love this. Think of how many new sets they could sell if everybody decided they had to replace their old black and white sets.
- mc32 5y agoEh, many wooden sets are light and dark woods. Also many checkers boards are red and black. It’s still ridiculous -like cultural revolution level ridiculous. At least nature will never change and nights will be black and days will be light.
- nextlevelwizard 5y agoUntil “they” force you to have eye implants that correct for this natural racism
- goatlover 5y ago"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."
- pests 5y ago"In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic."
- olalonde 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ma2rten 5y agoCould we do some affirmative action and let black go first?
- tsjq 5y agoand that is not sufficient. we need to give 33% more moves to black to compensate for the all troubles mounted on them in the past.
- visarga 5y agoYes, generations of black chess pieces have been discriminated in the past. We should make sure the black wins just as much as white, let's just use a coin flip to decide who wins ahead of the game.
- heartbreak 5y agoThere is a whole lot of joking dismissal of systemic racism going on in these comments. Are you making the point you intended?
- l33t2328 5y agoThey’re not dismissing systemic racism, they’re mocking some radical proposed “solutions”.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- commandlinefan 5y agoWell, just for the record, I'm dismissing it too - "systemic" racism is completely imaginary.
- hackerrrnews 5y agoDefinitely! It's completely imaginary to those it doesn't affect.
- booleandilemma 5y agoHow about just light and dark? A lot of chessboards don't have strictly black and white colored pieces anyway. (For the record I think the whole thing is stupid)
- nextlevelwizard 5y agoAnd attack and defense to moving forward and backward. And I guess we should abolish winning and losing while we are at it
- drran 5y ago"Light gray" is easy to misspell as "light gay", e.g. "light gay knight takes dark gay bishop". IMHO, it's better to use "wine" (w) and "blue" (b) as colors.
- mPReDiToR 5y agoIf you use English rather than American, you have "light grey" which is less ambiguous.
- rawbot 5y agoIt would still be light-skinned pieces vs. dark-skinned pieces.
- nicky0 5y agoChess already has the terminology of light squares and dark squares, so adopting that for the pieces too would add confusion and awkwardness. For example “black’s light squared bishop” would become “light’s light squared bishop”.
- tomc1985 5y ago"Night" and "Day"
- systemvoltage 5y agoI think the words themselves are racist - black and white. I'd be down with getting rid of them from the dictionary all together. Edit: Add brown as well to the list.
- nextlevelwizard 5y agoWhat about yellow and red? Maybe add grey there too in case we run into “little grey men”
- goatlover 5y agoGreen as well in anticipation of Elon's Mars colony. We'll just call them dusters.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoNo, no, no! Yellow and red are clearly offensive to Chinese and indigenous populations of the Americas!
- FrozenSynapse 5y agoyou're the problem, you have brain damage
- arua442 5y agoWow. Would never have imagined I'd read something like this on hacker news.
- IanSanders 5y agoI've interpreted it as obvious satire
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- phonebucket 5y agoRelatedly, the world champion played a game where the player with the black pieces went first to make a statement about racism [1]. [1]: https://www.chess.com/news/view/moveforequality-carlsen-giri-battle-against-racism https://www.chess.com/news/view/moveforequality-carlsen-giri...
- isolli 5y agoUnderstandably, it was difficult to adapt to the change: "It is difficult to change your mindset in a chess game with a different start. But if we can change our minds in the game, we can surely help people change their minds in real life."
- rawbot 5y agoBut the pieces would still be white and black. We just need to recolor them to a color that hasn't been claimed as part of an identity... (looks at rainbow flag) well, shoot... Infrared-coating player and Ultraviolet-coating player? Chrome player vs. Brass player? No kidding, I like this last idea.
- zinekeller 5y ago> Chrome player vs. Brass player? Chrome Player: sponsored by Google. Sorry, I can't stop from posting this joke!
- commandlinefan 5y agoThe only logical solution is to make all the pieces the same color.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoWe should recolor the pieces with neutral colors such as #d3e6fa (because green and yellow have connotations). And remove the obviously sexist Queen (why stronger than King?) and King (why should it decide when the game is over?). Rook is shady as well. And so on. As Aristotle said: "once we look close enough, we will find someone offended".
- account42 5y ago> We should recolor the pieces with neutral colors If only! Clearly we need different chess skin colors so that everyone can identify with their chess pieces. I think five skin tones [0] should cover everyone. [0] https://emojipedia.org/emoji-modifier-sequence/ https://emojipedia.org/emoji-modifier-sequence/
- baremetal 5y agoneed different genders for the pieces too.
- raxxorrax 5y agoWhat connotation does green have? Where can I find the land of green people?
- skinkestek 5y agoGreenhorns are the new and inexperienced. See also: green usernames here on HN. Note: I'm serious and not serious at all here at the same time. No: the colors doesn't matter at all. Yes: If someone wants to get offended they will find a way, even how they are held outside since no one makes jokes about them.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoExactly this. I am tired with fake official correctness, and that people get back to racist/homophobic when they are off. I am French and we have a history (and culture) of parody, and freedom of doing it and being offended by it. This was the case when I was a kid and up until some 1( years ago. Now criticizing or making fun of some groups is *dangerous* - you cannot publish a picture of the god of Islam without literally putting your life in danger. Yes, I know that this is a small minority yada yada yada, but I have only one head. At the same time you can make fun of Catholics. They are not happy, but also somehow "protected" by the culture and history of France. This is similar to Jews, though they became more offendable recently. The worst is that the people who are going to officially claim how much everyone is equal will say in private that someone is a "tapette" (I do not know the English word for that: derogatory expression for gay), or that Muslims are middle ages savages, or that Blacks are dumb (we had a few cases on TV where the invited person thought that they were off when they were not). I do not know what the solution is - it certainly does not help the normal part of the communities above that people are afraid to put them in the same bag as Catholics (in France). They would not be officially immune of criticism/fun, but they would be perceived as "people like us".
- glandium 5y agoIn Shogi aka "Japanese chess", while for some reason in English, the players are Black and White, in Japanese, they are 先手 (sente, literally first hand/before hand) and 後手 (gote, literally second hand/after hand). Black is first, BTW.
- hvis 5y agoIt would be easy to choose a narrative that casts the first player in the bad light as well. Chess is a game of war, isn't it? So whoever goes first is the aggressor. So if Black goes first, that can also play into certain racial biases people have.
- glandium 5y agoExcept there are actually no color difference in Shogi. Which player a piece belongs to is indicated by its direction (at least that's my layman understanding). I have no clue why English goes with Black and White.
- prezjordan 5y agoThe speech police didn't do anything. I stopped using those terms because they're not descriptive.
- thr0wawayaway 5y agoThis is false. At least two very large organizations (Microsoft and the Department of Defense) have decreed that their employees not use "sensitive" terms like "whitelist" and "blacklist".