Item — HN Reader

A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages…chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements … they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship.

A game of chess does not add a single new fact to the mind; it does not excite a single beautiful thought; nor does it serve a single purpose for polishing and improving the nobler faculties.

Scientific American, July, 1858

[0]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/19th-century-conce...

8 comments

Another more historic example in the same mold:

>>If men learn [to read], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.<<

Plato, 400-300 BC

Basically, learning to read and write would lead to an overreliance and provide only a "semblance of wisdom", rather than "true wisdom".

[0] https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/

He wasn’t wrong; we did lose the skill for memorising large oral works. He just missed the upside.

haha the man probably would have been absolutely devastated to learn that his posterity has degenerated to the point of using Google while coding... or god forbid, interviewing.

I don't know that much about literacy rates and social competition in ancient Greece, but I suspect it may have been in Plato's personal interests that others remain illiterate.

Which is not really wrong. Chess can be fun, but I always thought it is pretty fascinating that the chess champions are viewed by the media as some kind of genius. I mean, it's just a game, not more but also not less.

But playing Chess at any serious level (more than a couple hours a week) has some non Chess side effects; it teaches you to examine your own behaviour, it teaches you that even if you're very good you can still lose (and hopefully how to lose well), and it teaches you that the other side gets a vote (get a turn, no action happens in a vacuum).

All of which are very valuable life lessons.

You'll get that from any sport and also physical benefits

You learn all of these lessons by practicing most other practices/crafts.

Can't I learn this from any game, some with other, more life-applicable lessons and benefits, like sports?

Something that I believe sets chess aside from most other pursuits (e.g. sports, other games) is the lack of luck; it’s almost all skill. You and your opponent both have everything laid out in front of you, and if you’re skilled enough you can see more than they see, etc etc

There is absolutely randomness and variance in chess. And variance/randomness is important for any sport, that is what makes it exciting and worth playing. If there were no randomness then every game against the same team and players would be the same.

And anyway, sports are vastly more complicated than chess is. Just simply dribbling a basketball while bipedal walking is beyond the capability of replication by robot at the current moment. But a home computer from 20 years ago would beat >90% of the world in chess.

A computer being better than everyone doesn't mean that chess isn't complicated. With that logic, games like CSGO would not be complicated because you could create a bot that headshots everyone at first sight.

Also, there being variance doesn't mean that there is randomness. There is no random element to the game of chess. All the variance comes from human decisions. It's an unsolved game, so there is no way to guarantee a win.

I don't know how you are defining randomness, but the best player doesn't win the game every time, which is about as much proof as you need that there is a degree of randomness.

Define random in terms of sports, the same conditions apply to chess. The wind affecting trajectory of a ball could be similar to environmental factors effecting cognitive performance.

I wouldn't use the term "random" either. What randomness exists for baseball? Slight curve of a bat? Maybe that is part of the game and should be calculated into by the player and isn't randomness at all but part of the game. "Randomness" exists in almost every competitive activity, its called variance.

It's not even worth discussing, you don't even understand the terms you are using.

> There is no random element to the game of chess.

No idea how you are defining random. What random elements exist for cricket? The same things you would define as random for a sport would be the same for chess.

The sad part is I am better at chess than you are. And have a deeper understanding of the game. Unless you are CM rated or above, highly doubt it.

> A computer being better than everyone doesn't mean that chess isn't complicated

Less complicated than any sport that a computer can't be better at than humans.

By definition there are more moving variables in 99% of sports than chess. 5 on 5 basketball, at any time any player can be in an almost endless number of positions on the court in an almost endless number of contortions with different velocity and acceleration of multiple components of the body. The mental intelligence required to teach a robot how to walk and run is significantly harder of a problem than beating the best chess player in the world.

Chess isn't complicated. There is a finite number of moves a player can make at any one turn. And there is a finite number of unique possible games that can be played in chess, which means its solvable (not neccesaeily that it will be solved). You can notate an entire chess game on a napkin, you can't even fully quantify any sport with full length video footage. Comparing the vast complexity of physical movement to pieces on a board. Its a joke, you're a joke.

Life is a game no more no less.

If you can be a champion at anything you deserve recognition - just look at the people lauded for chugging dozens of hot dogs

"Life is a game no more no less."

Exactly.

So take a game AI from Deep Mind, link it to some AI that can build a world model, categorize images, put it in a robot, maybe an LLM so it can talk to you, give it some goals. See what happens.

To be fair, I do not understand how someone can gobble up food so quickly and not throw up. It really is amazing in a sense.

Lauded as champions or freaks? I'm on the side that believes there IS bad publicity...

Life can look like a game, but to think it is nothing more betrays just how easy you have it.

Yeah, if you spend your life solving crossword puzzles, you end up intellectually poor by most standards.

Note that this might also hold to some degree for computer programming.

I don't think that's true, let alone self-evident.

In any case, a life spent solving crossword puzzles would almost certainly deliver more positive net effects to the "player" (and society at large) than a person spending a lifetime getting good at chess. It really is odd that chess is considered so refined, laudable, etc. We probably shouldn't put it on a pedestal any higher than where we place video games.

(In fact, video games might actually be better—and I'm not saying that as someone staring up from a batch of sour grapes and/or looking for an excuse to play video games; that's not how I spend my time.)

There was some chess prodigy who, in his teens, was already winning against most champions, and who in his early twenties abandoned chess altogether, citing it a "waste of life".

Morphy, one of the greatest players of all time, is famous for this.

"The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."

Is this meant to be an analog to Postman’s argument? Because it isn’t. His argument doesn’t really have a moral bent to it. It’s a very practical argument that different mediums are capable of carrying different messages.

I read it as a counter to Postman’s citing Huxley that society is becoming enamored with the superficial (ie the ignoble) pursuits. I read the OP as effectively saying “who is to say what is noble vs trivial, considering it varies in societal context.”

170 years ago, people may have thought chess was superficial. I think now, maybe it would be considered a more noble pursuit.

Or, maybe the OP was saying it’s a constant devolving towards the increasingly trivial.

Chess is a superficial pursuit, especially today, because it became a meme due to a Netflix television show.

Not that I care. People can pursue whatever they want superficially. And I have plenty of my own superficial pursuits.

Lenin eventually took the same view - that chess was distracting him from a higher purpose. Perhaps a harmless game would have been a better use of his time.

I much prefer people amuse themselves to death than they think and theorize themselves- (or others, in the case of many late 19th and early 20th century intellectuals) to death.

At what point did this become a valid and legitimate issue?

Why do we feel the need to prefer or not prefer what others do with their time? Isn’t that something that concerns only the person and their own life, which really shouldn’t concern us at all?

I think your point really highlights this ethical mindset that has become so prominent today, especially with the rise of the internet.

They did not mean 'prefer' in the way you interpret it. They mean 'I believe the world would be better if...' rather than 'I'd choose for others to behave like...'

> Lenin eventually took the same view - that chess was distracting him from a higher purpose

The world would have been a better place had he kept playing chess then.

The world where nothing ever happens

If this man knew TikTok, he'd have a stroke.

I kind of agree. Chess sucks big time, especially played online. Playing with your grandpa in the park is OK.

Couldn't agree more with that quote. It is completely correct.