5 ms·
Controversial opinion, but what is the point of becoming a pro chess player in a world of computers? Any novice can beat you when assisted by an engine. The sam
by umvi 3y ago
Controversial opinion, but what is the point of becoming a pro chess player in a world of computers? Any novice can beat you when assisted by an engine. The same can't be said of other professions. A novice can't design a better bridge than a civil engineer just by using cots software.
- jackmott 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- michaelt 3y agoWhat's the point of being a professional runner, when motorbikes exist? People can get enjoyment from doing (and watching) people doing things, even if machines can do it better.
- paulsutter 3y agoStatus-seeking is the reason folks focus on professional running, or professional chess, or any of these very hardcore, very difficult endeavors that have no practical purpose. Someone once commented that men make extraordinary efforts to impress women, yet in general have very little understanding of what women actually like. This explains jacked-up trucks, professional chess, professional running, etc EDIT: I'm talking about professional-level running or chess, not the hobbies of running or chess
- sebzim4500 3y ago[flagged]
- chongli 3y agoIs there no room for enjoyment of the activity? Does every endeavour have to be couched in the language of self-consciousness?
- erikerikson 3y agoSo too, the appreciation of excellence
- water-your-self 3y agoBecause it is fun.
- huevosabio 3y agoI think you dismiss the thrill of being really good at something. We humans get a lot of satisfaction of improving and competing in all sorts of activities. The world is so big that for any activity you'll find a good deal of people obsessed with that activity, and making it their life's work to perfect it.
- initplus 3y agoSurely nobody becomes a professional chess player because they think it will impress women.
- zem 3y agoI feel like for most competitive activities like this, who you really want to impress is other people who do that same activity. (I play competitive scrabble, for which there is approximately zero recognition in the "outside world", but having your fellow scrabble players recognise your ability counts for a lot.)
- lupire 3y agoAnd yet so many men refuse to believe that women wear fancy dress and makeup for each other, not for men.
- tester756 3y ago>Someone once commented that men make extraordinary efforts to impress women You are seriously suggesting that people go pro in X/Y/Z mostly because they want to impress girls? Oo
- tzs 3y agoIt is pretty well known that all civilization was just an effort to impress the opposite sex (and sometimes the same sex), as explained in this educational film about the dangers of sex robots [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrADTN-dvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrADTN-dvg
- paulddraper 3y ago> Someone once commented that men make extraordinary efforts to impress women, While that is undoubtedly true, I suspect no one becomes a professional chess player for the ladies. They do it because they like, they're good at it, and they (if good enough) can make a living with it.
- throw_pm23 3y agoArguably nothing. Amateur running seems to make more sense.
- lewhoo 3y ago> Any novice can beat you when assisted by an engine. A novice wouldn't be assisted by the engine but rather be an engine-chessboard interface with no real input as far as the game goes. I think that's a really weird take. You wouldn't claim there's no point in 5000m race when any person with a car easily beats you.
- lupire 3y agoI can't carry the car everywhere in my pocket though. Running ability is useful in real life outside of races. Very high chess skill is never useful in any environment outside of the artificially restricted game environment.
- recursive 3y agoThe analogy holds. Deep thinking is useful in real life. "Very high" running skill is not useful in any environment outside of artificially restricted controlled races.
- vharuck 3y agoLike all professional competitions: because there's an interested audience with money. And humans still have the money, so we demand to see human competitors we empathize with.
- flappyeagle 3y agogames are fun.
- paulddraper 3y agoWhat's the point of becoming a champion runner in a world of automobiles? Any novice can beat you when in a car. --- EDIT: With all due respect, your comments sounds exactly that silly.
- umvi 3y agoIt would be more like "what's the point of becoming a champion runner if a theoretical drug existed that made anyone instantly into a champion runner and was very difficult to detect?"
- paulddraper 3y agoYes, except that cheating is not that rampant. Maybe for Title Tuesday IDK, but not for most competitive chess.
- somenameforme 3y agoCheating, except when done by an extremely strong player to begin with, tends to be utterly trivial to detect. For one reason among many more, a normal cheater will not really understand how difficult or easy some moves are and will tend to play a super-human move, requiring an exceptional depth of calculation, at the same pace which he plays a trivial recapture. Cheating in chess is maybe something closer to steroids in athletics. If you take an average Joe and gear him up with all the steroids in the world, he's not suddenly going to just hulk out and become a world class athlete, contrary to what many think. But if you take a world class athlete and gear him up, he is going to be able to use that gain a substantial and unfair advantage over his clean peers.
- jcalabro 3y agoLove of the game. Computers can make chess more interesting, not less! I love working with them.
- tzs 3y ago> A novice can't design a better bridge than a civil engineer just by using cots software ...although a novice can beat a civil engineer at bridge design games. :-) See Real Civil Engineer's YouTube channel [1], where a real civil engineer plays various engineering and puzzle games, including a lot of Poly Bridge 2 and 3. In Poly Bridge after finishing a level he generally looks at the leaderboard to see how the people that beat him did. There's usually a bunch that used cheesy methods, but there are also often several where they actually just did a better design. Especially on levels where hydraulics are used to move parts of the bridge. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@RealCivilEngineerGaming https://www.youtube.com/@RealCivilEngineerGaming
- importantbrian 3y agoWhen AGI finally comes around are you going to just stop doing anything? After all, what's the point when a machine can do it better?
- alasdair_ 3y agoThis is my fear. That everything becomes pointless. I think the solution is human augmentation to stay relevant. Or we just have silly things like weight classes for each achievement.
- somenameforme 3y agoIn 50-60 years from now you'll almost certainly be dead, if you're unfortunate it might be much earlier. And along the way everybody and everything you've ever known will also die. Literally nothing anybody does has any grand point or meaning. All life comes down to is fulfillment. And chess, for many, is one of the most absurdly fulfilling and satisfying things that there is. And what makes the game so special is that as you become better at it, it becomes even more fulfilling and satisfying. And there's no real limit to how much you can improve. And the cost of it is practically $0. And so all a pro is, is somebody who takes their fulfillment of the game to an arguably natural extreme.