4 ms·

I am Norwegian and fucking proud of it right now, due to Magnus Carlsen. He comes from a Nation consisting of 5 mill. people, compared to Anand's billion peopl

by McUsr 13y ago

I am Norwegian and fucking proud of it right now, due to Magnus Carlsen. He comes from a Nation consisting of 5 mill. people, compared to Anand's billion people. This is probably the greatest sports achievement our country will ever make, as there are really no comparable sports achievements in the world, not now, anyway. IMHO: They should knight him the second he gets of the plane when he returns home. Because no other Norwegian has ever accomplished anything close to this, with regards to bring honour to our nation. Gratuler Magnus!

hrkristian 13y ago
To clarify: While theoretically the title of knight is attainable in Norway, it's not something that is practiced, and has not been for at least 150 years. Were there such a title I'd be happy to see our government/King knight him, though.
sanoli 13y ago
You should be proud, Magnus is awesome! I'm Brazilian, and I would trade one of our World Cups for a chess World Championship. Hell, I'd even trade two-for-one :)
sremani 13y ago
Have you ever seen India's medal tally in Olympics - your logic will fade once your find India near the end of the tally with 2 medals one silver and one bronze. Vishwanathan Anand was not the rule but an exception.
vijucat 13y ago
This may sound "negative" but I would appreciate if you can think about this : by "proud", you merely mean "lucky". You can only be proud of things that you achieve personally. Unless you trained him or helped him somehow) you have absolutely no part in Magnus Carlsen's success. Probably without realizing it, your ego is merely interested in these false associations (Magnus > Anand => Norway > India, and parents-who-gave-birth-to-me-think-they belongs-to Norway => I belongs-to Norway) because it can grab a free ride to better self-esteem without any personal effort. I believe there are false notions of separateness and identity involved here. Nationalism is also spiritually detrimental because it prevents you from realizing that you are not who you think you are. How can you even ask the question, "Who am I?" if you are so comfortable with who you think you are? Sorry for the lecture. I hope there is something useful here for you despite raining on your parade!
sytelus 13y ago
I'm always amused by how people tie their pride to things they have absolutely no control over. In case of sports, it's even worse. Most sport outcomes aren't repeatable. When "your" team/person wins it is very likely due to random mistakes others made or you were fortunate to avoid this time. They may very well loose if the game was repeated again. Would your pride wash away then? Even if sport events were repeatable, why you should take pride when you had almost no contribution to their success (may be except buying a ticket or offering your eyeballs for TV ads)? In US, its even worse, considering teams are not even "national", they are actually owned by random zillionairs. I was almost floored to see people spending spending significant portions of lives and money in to cheer leading what is essentially absolute random team where members are pretty much from anywhere, sometimes even opponent teams! Why anyone should be spending their precious Sundays and take monumental amount of pride when some random zillionair's team wins because of what are essentially random non-repeatable events? Sometimes I think sport fans are people who skipped any or all education on probability and statistics. PS: Before you all get on my case let me tell you I do get the fact that sports does have display of skills value (same as skills of artist) that is worth paying for. I also get that professional sports is hard and money hungry adventure and without fans it won't exist. What I don't get is why is it a matter of pride?
- qw 13y ago
  If someone loses "he lost". If someone wins "we won"
asdfologist 13y ago
I don't understand at all the point to these negative replies to this comment. Magnus Carlsen made Norwegians happy because he accomplished something of great honor to that country. Is this really that absurd?

by McUsr 13y ago

hrkristian 13y ago

To clarify: While theoretically the title of knight is attainable in Norway, it's not something that is practiced, and has not been for at least 150 years. Were there such a title I'd be happy to see our government/King knight him, though.

sanoli 13y ago

You should be proud, Magnus is awesome! I'm Brazilian, and I would trade one of our World Cups for a chess World Championship. Hell, I'd even trade two-for-one :)

sremani 13y ago

Have you ever seen India's medal tally in Olympics - your logic will fade once your find India near the end of the tally with 2 medals one silver and one bronze. Vishwanathan Anand was not the rule but an exception.

vijucat 13y ago

This may sound "negative" but I would appreciate if you can think about this : by "proud", you merely mean "lucky". You can only be proud of things that you achieve personally. Unless you trained him or helped him somehow) you have absolutely no part in Magnus Carlsen's success. Probably without realizing it, your ego is merely interested in these false associations (Magnus > Anand => Norway > India, and parents-who-gave-birth-to-me-think-they belongs-to Norway => I belongs-to Norway) because it can grab a free ride to better self-esteem without any personal effort. I believe there are false notions of separateness and identity involved here. Nationalism is also spiritually detrimental because it prevents you from realizing that you are not who you think you are. How can you even ask the question, "Who am I?" if you are so comfortable with who you think you are? Sorry for the lecture. I hope there is something useful here for you despite raining on your parade!

sytelus 13y ago

I'm always amused by how people tie their pride to things they have absolutely no control over. In case of sports, it's even worse. Most sport outcomes aren't repeatable. When "your" team/person wins it is very likely due to random mistakes others made or you were fortunate to avoid this time. They may very well loose if the game was repeated again. Would your pride wash away then? Even if sport events were repeatable, why you should take pride when you had almost no contribution to their success (may be except buying a ticket or offering your eyeballs for TV ads)? In US, its even worse, considering teams are not even "national", they are actually owned by random zillionairs. I was almost floored to see people spending spending significant portions of lives and money in to cheer leading what is essentially absolute random team where members are pretty much from anywhere, sometimes even opponent teams! Why anyone should be spending their precious Sundays and take monumental amount of pride when some random zillionair's team wins because of what are essentially random non-repeatable events? Sometimes I think sport fans are people who skipped any or all education on probability and statistics. PS: Before you all get on my case let me tell you I do get the fact that sports does have display of skills value (same as skills of artist) that is worth paying for. I also get that professional sports is hard and money hungry adventure and without fans it won't exist. What I don't get is why is it a matter of pride?

qw 13y ago
If someone loses "he lost". If someone wins "we won"

asdfologist 13y ago

I don't understand at all the point to these negative replies to this comment. Magnus Carlsen made Norwegians happy because he accomplished something of great honor to that country. Is this really that absurd?