WhatsTheHoldup
@WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 1 week ago:
You can just not reply. It’s weird you keep up typing replies to me and then get mad when I respond.
Do you need the last word that badly?
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 1 week ago:
Your points are correct but I think you misunderstand what my analogy was intended to do. None of this makes it a bad analogy.
I don’t disagree with you that reading opens the doors to so many other things than chess does.
I also never intended to imply chess is a transferable skill. Chess skill, for matters of this discussion, could be entirely useless outside of the specific context of a chess game.
The reason i made the analogy betwen learning to read and reading for fun is because I’m trying to illustrate the difference of 500 ELO chess and 2500 ELO chess.
If you play 500 ELO chess you DO NOT KNOW what 2500 ELO chess is, you could not explain the reasons behind a single move which is made in strategy, you can barely identify how to move your horse.
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 1 week ago:
…it’s not an actual apology, it’s a rhetorical device. Was that not clear?
If we’re giving each other mutual advice on phrasing, I’d remove this particular rhetorical device from your repertoire. Strawmanning me as being upset about some irrelevant thing and insincere apologizing for it is unproductive because now I either have to address the strawman or I could use my own rhetorical device by taking your apology literally and use it against you.
The setup I was given wasn’t really a productive thing to build on, and that was just as clear as the phoniness in your apology.
I don’t really understand why you feel the need to second guess my own assessment of my own mind.
I understand why you think I’m doing that, and it’s probably related to the part lower down you admit you aren’t really caring about what I say to you and what point I’m actually intending to make.
To once again clarify. At no point have I second guessed your own assessment of your own mind.
I simply pointed out that your assessment of the mind you **do not possess?? (one in which you have fully studied the thing) can’t honestly be guessed at and this is an existing problem for everyone.
I’m not interested in an explanation either, just to be clear.
Then what are we doing here man? I’m responding for the sole purpose of explaining this point to you.
I think you need to consider why you’re still responding here because all I have for you are more explanations until you understand this basic concept.
Each time you keep drawing comparisons that paint me as naïve and childlike. It’s perhaps not intentional but the end result is tremendously insulting, hence why I’m not interested in further talk on the subject.
Since you mention you love logic puzzles how about that I instead of a comparison:
You are a prisoner in a room with 2 doors and 2 guards. One of the doors will guide you to freedom and behind the other is a hangman–you don’t know which is which, but the guards do know.
One of the guards always tells the truth and the other always lies. You don’t know which one is the truth-teller or the liar either. However both guards know each other.
You have to choose and open one of these doors, but you can only ask a single question to one of the guards.
You ask both guards “are you interested in further talk on the subject?”
The first guard stays silent. The second guard says “Each time you keep drawing comparisons that paint me as naïve and childlike. It’s perhaps not intentional but the end result is tremendously insulting, hence why I’m not interested in further talk on the subject.” And then continues ranting for 4 more long paragraphs.
Which guard is lying and which one is telling the truth?
With regards to learning new things, the world of human experience is vast. I am not shutting the door on chess out of petulance. I do so knowing the journey I would need to take is incompatible with my own preferences for discovery and growth. To my mind it is a distilled competitive logic puzzle. I don’t like logic puzzles of any complexity, and I particularly don’t like pared down ones with no set dressing or storytelling.
Yep, no need to justify anything. I know i sound like a broken record here haha but you keep bringing up justifications for why you don’t prioritize this hobby when what your priorities are was never really in question.
My point is still strictly about difference between learning X and doing X, and how the learner can’t access the mind of the doer before they’ve finished learning.
I am actually quite happy to engage in puzzle solving - it’s one of the things I do for a living. However there the puzzles are more cooperative and with many, many more facets to them. They can be solved in a huge number of ways and with a variety of different skills.
Thats got my interest piqued. In an abstract way or you literally solve recreational style puzzles for a living?
There’s this show Ludwig about a puzzle solver who gets pulled into a murder investigation.
I’m explaining this because it seems you need it spelled out rather explicitly.
I don’t need anything spelled out. I understand on my end, I’m trying to explain a basic concept to you (difference between thing and learning about thing) and it seems like the problem of why I’m not getting through isn’t that you’re aren’t capable of understanding but you’re not willing to concede I might have a point because we’re now in an adversarial sort of context and you’re just I think in “winning” mode from here on out and won’t give me an inch.
Particularly as you seem to have rather strange ideas about who you’re talking to. I’m nearly 40 and your comment about not recognising past versions of myself could not possibly be further from the truth. The various iterations of myself have been built atop the old ones. The eleven year old boy is still in there, as is the teenager, twenty-something, and the several versions of me from my 30s.
For example this. You obviously understand the difference between teenage your tastes and your tastes now, you just don’t want to give it to me.
Which well, that’s sort of how we’re encouraged to act online anyway.
I don’t necessarily know everything I like, but I’ve tried a great many things and have a firm understanding of what kinds of activities I dislike. I can also extrapolate fairly well, and it’s not like chess is an obscure interest such as shin-kicking. The journey and destination both look rather dull to me, whereas many others do not. I cannot do everything in one lifetime and must choose. Chess has had its chance with me. It blew it. The same is true for gambling, as it happens. I have tried it in various forms and found it universally dull. I also don’t enjoy ales, gloomy literature, tennis, or horror movies. There’s much about those things I don’t know and I intend to keep it that way in order to explore other potential interests. Things that I hopefully won’t be bored by, or at least I enjoy some element of the journey.
Yeah I know, chess doesn’t fit into your goals and you don’t have an interest in the game at the current level you’re playing at.
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 1 week ago:
I understand you didnt like it haha. That was never unclear.
But why do you keep feeling the need to apologize to me? Don’t self flagellate, just state what you believe without worrying about upsetting me, this is just about understanding a concept. Theres no emotion here. I think you are almost there and actually nailed the point you’re just missing the nuance.
This is perfectly on the money here
Building an opinion around the game I actually played rather than some hypothetical higher level game feels like an extremely reasonable approach to me.
Fully correct. Build your opinion around the game you actually played, but impprtantly leave room for potential different opinions on the game you haven’t gotten to yet.
When a little kid says “I hate math” we don’t want to take that as inate truth about them, it probably has more to do with their boring math teacher.
Get them into Minecraft, if their into sports get them into learning stats for their favorite players.
I am super passionate about learning and what I’ve learned about the human brain is all it takes is for the right mindset and sometimes a thing just clicks. Not always, but trying to leave room for the myself I could grow into is a huge part of growth in general as a human.
You at 40 is not you at 30 which isn’t you at 20. Accept my advice or not, you’ll look back one day and I guarantee you won’t recognize the person you once were.
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 1 week ago:
At no point did I seek to judge it objectively.
That was exactly the reason for my response. :)
Your subjective opinion that “chess is unfun for you” ignores the objective lack of knowledge of what chess even is. I believe something is unfun for you, I just disagree that it’s the game of chess you’re describing.
What you are calling “chess” here is the basics. It’s not the game Magnus Carlson plays.
I have played some chess at various points throughout my life. My subjective judgement is that it didn’t grab me, unlike many, many other games. It might well have some divine beauty to it but the subjective barrier to entry is far too high. I also don’t bother with TV shows that “get good in the second season” or endure multiple chapters of tedium before bailing on a book.
Fair!
Once again I’m not here to convince you to play it or that it even would be fun if you did. Watch and play what you want. Just also recognize everything has a learning curve and that it is an error to misattribute frustrations in general along the learning curve with frustrstion towards the actual thing once it’s been learnt.
You’re now putting words in my mouth.
At what point did I state anything other than a subjective opinion?
“Chess doesn’t feel like a gateway to other, more fun games, and if it’s not a fun game for me, why would I pursue it?”
Right in here. You don’t actually know if it’s a fun game for you or not. You just know it’s unfun to learn at your current level and don’t see it getting more fun any time soon to he worth sticking with.
Happens to me with countless games and hobbies. I used the book analogy to explain how someone learning to pronounce and sound out words complaining that “reading isn’t fun for me” isn’t actually complaining about reading, they’re complaining about learning to read. Those are different things.
In fact I went out of my way to make it abundantly clear that these are my opinions and not a judgement on the game as a whole.
You did. But there’s an objectiveness hidden in the subjective opinion.
As an analogy, if I saw a child in a burning building I could say as a subjective opinion “I will save that child”.
The problem is under pressure and actual flames of a fire, I can’t know how I would act. Maybe I’d panic and wouldn’t actually be able to do it, or maybe some switch would go off and I’d rush in.
The point is I don’t know because I’ve never been in that emergency situation. I’m unqualified to make subjective statements about how I’d react to completely unfamiliar states of mind.
Maybe chess is unfun for you, maybe it’s not. Insert ANY hobby in that statement, it’s not about chess specifically.
Until you’ve learned the thing you can’t even make subjective statements about yourself and how you’d act with knowledge you DONT HAVE.
If this thread is anything to go by, I wish I’d played even less chess than I already have. Sorry that I’m enjoying my hobbies wrong?
Why are apologizing lol?
You aren’t enjoying your hobbies wrong, I just think you’re thinking about them in the wrong way.
I think you mean “X is unfun to learn” instead of “X is unfun”.
I think you admitted you don’t know enough about X to say if it’s fun one way or the other.
I have not enjoyed my limited experiences with chess. They have turned me off pursuing it further. The same is not true of many other games I’ve played. To me that makes chess subjectively worse than those other games.
That’s okay I guess.
I could spend a few hours with no tutorial failing to learn Dwarf Fortress and just conclude the game is unfun and live my life that way perfectly fine.
Does it actually mean the games unfun for me? No, of course. It just means I’m preventing myself from giving a chance to things I misjudged.
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 1 week ago:
I think that’s a much worse comparison tbh.
There’s no presumption that a game like chess must be fun, all I said is that we are unable to objectively judge whether chess is fun or not before we’ve learned the rules and memorized common openings.
However if the basics of it don’t draw me in, and I see no ancillary value in learning how to play it to a higher level, why would I continue?
You shouldn’t. No one’s telling you to do things you don’t like. I’m just saying don’t accuse reading of being “unfun” because you hate learning grammer and punctuation.
If you say “i don’t see the value in reading so it’s not worth it struggling through the unfun part of learning grammer” then we have no issue. See the difference?
If I invested enough time I could perhaps find myself engaged enough in the bigger picture, care about the minutia, but why?
You’re focusing on the wrong question.
If it is possible to invest enough time that it becomes fun, then why are you trying to insist that thing is inherently just unfun.
It’s unfun at the level you’re at, but the next level is a completely different game.
- Comment on Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. 1 week ago:
I’m sure there’s some elegant simplicity in
There is! It can get REALLY cool once you get just a bit inro it.
Chess doesn’t feel like a gateway to other, more fun games, and if it’s not a fun game for me, why would I pursue it? I’m fairly sure it doesn’t build skills that translate to anything else.
If you’ve never learned how to read, then while you’re learning it’s difficult to imagine reading books for fun.
If I don’t enjoy stumbling on pronunciations and having to look up the meaning of words, then how will I ever enjoy books?
Well books aren’t about getting stuck in the pronunciation, you can only really start enjoying reading after you’ve already learned how and the built in rules and patterns are things you understand and can play with.
It’s up to you whether to put in the effort to learn to read, but for someone who hasn’t yet learned to say they “don’t like reading”. Sorry but you havent actually experienced what reading for fun actually is yet.
- Comment on Netanyahu Promises the “Final Stage” of Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Implementation of “Trump’s Plan" 3 weeks ago:
Why can Democrats only offer candy bars for dinner when we need fresh fruits, vegetables, and actual healthy foods?
Corporate interests in politics. You and me donating to our favored candidates is nothing compared to the big money and lobbyists mega corporations are throwing around.
Democrats can’t offer fresh fruit because the chocolate lobby won’t let them.
The Democrats either don’t know the right way to govern, or they know but they don’t care. Do either of those options sound like a party that anyone should vote for?
It’s not any one party’s fault. It’s a systemic issue. People who don’t actually represent voters are being given disproportionately amount of money to run campaigns because they represent businesses.
That being said I don’t know if we should be looking at party as a whole but also who the candidates are.
If we pushed more progressive candidates like AOC who do call out Israel and show up to primaries we can steer the party to a more reasonable direction while realizing the 2 party system is broken and needs fixing.
I dont see how disengaging entirely from electoralism helps.
I did not vote Democrat in 2024 because the Democrats are not entitled to my vote by pretending to be less awful than the other team. I did not vote Democrat anywhere on the ticket because I refuse to be complicit in genocide. That is the hard moral line I am taking. There is no excuse for genocide.
You got to keep your “moral line” but if it was at the cost of worse material conditions in Gaza and means Gazans got more bombs and their aid and rights watch groups defunded then I’m not sure I agree that was worth it.
Your suggestion that the material conditions of Gaza under Kamala would have been equally bad doesn’t feel very convincing.
And that’s not even mentioning the genocide in Ukraine. Biden was at least on the right side of that, Trump is certainly not.
We “caused it”? We “allowed Trump to win”?
I only brought that up because it seemed at that time you were trying to accuse me of not doing enough by asking how many protests I go to.
I’m saying that if you chose not to vote against fascism, it’s unfair to blame the people who did for not protesting now that it’s way more dangerous and they might be abducted, tortured and deported for doing so.
Had Kamala won there would be much less fear of protesting against her government.
You guys didn’t cause it per se, but you still can’t seem to agree that a fascist is worse than a neoliberal and I just don’t get what’s not obvious about that.
Show me 3 examples
No
There ya go. Then I will continue to insist that the abduction and systematic targeting of students and academics on grounds of “wokeness” wasn’t happening under Biden.
- Comment on Online ‘Pedophile Hunters’ Are Growing More Violent — and Going Viral: With the rise of loosely moderated social media platforms, a fringe vigilante movement is experiencing a dangerous evolution. 3 weeks ago:
I don’t think that’s true. Half of his kids have disowned him. He has a trans child he says was “killed by wokeness” who hates his guts.
- Comment on Netanyahu Promises the “Final Stage” of Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Implementation of “Trump’s Plan" 3 weeks ago:
Democrats lost all on their own by pretending the economy was fine despite everyone clearly noticing it was not, and continuing to double down on supporting a deeply unpopular genocide. There are by far not enough ‘tankies’ in the US to sway an election like that. If we had that kind of power we’d be pushing our own party instead. 90 million people didn’t vote in 2024, what are a couple thousand at most terminally online leftists compared to that?
Yes they did, and they’re to blame for terrible messaging and gatekeeping democracy to force Kamala as the candidate without voter input.
90 million people didn’t vote in 2024, what are a couple thousand at most terminally online leftists compared to that?
OP threw out tankie as a bad faith term and we just kept using it
I assume when we say ‘tankies’ we’re using the term as OP originally did, ie anyone who abstained from voting for Kamala because they don’t support genocide?
Those are the people I’m talking about, not terminally online people.
The genocide was already bad under Democrats. No, we didn’t forget that Genocide Joe sent Israel hundreds of shipments of weapons and supported them full-heartedly in their slaughter of the Palestinian people.
Yes. Joe was sending weapons to aid the genocide. That’s terrible and no excuse.
In light of comparing him to Trump though, Biden tried to set up a dock to distribute aid to Gazans when Israel tried to block it and continually threatened to stop sending these weapons if Israel bombed certain regions or were undertaking operations with crazy high civilian casualties.
Trump’s policy is “let them bomb” and deporting people who disagree.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Voting for Democrats would not have lead to fewer Gazan lives lost, because the Democrats don’t give a fuck about Gazan lives. Biden was already giving them all the weapons they needed, and Harris made no indication she was going to change course. Harris would have enabled the genocide same as Trump.
Okay, that’s a genuine argument if true.
I just am shocked you’d say that. I already demonstrated that Democrats care at least slightly more than Trump. Do you need a source for Biden providing aid and pressuring for Israel to deescalate while also funding them?
My god please take a step back and look at yourself. Examine your views and have an ounce of introspection.
I have, but I agree I should continue doing so going forward.
It is important to think hard on our values and that goes both ways.
So what protests are you going to? What are you doing to put pressure on the Dems?
I’m in Canada so I don’t have much I can do about US politics unfortunately unless you have some suggestions.
Our government put an arms embargo on Israel so we aren’t supposed to be funding them but as of 3 days ago apparently that promise is broken so going forward that’s an open question.
I am boycotting American goods, and I have a recurring donation to the food bank to help bring aid to Gazans and other starving people.
If your point is that I could do more, you’re certainly right. I’ll think on that.
Leftists did not cost the Democrats the election, Democrats just suck. Harris got 68 million votes in 2024 to Biden’s 81 million.
Yeah, they threw the election seemingly on purpose because transitionary president Biden who we already voted in as the lesser of two evils just to stop Trump’s second term decided he would take up space and prevent new candidates from stepping forward.
It was already happening under Biden, you were just content to ignore it.
I’m not content to ignore it, it wasn’t happening.
Show me 3 examples of university students having their green card revoked for attending a protest under Bidens administration and I will apologize.
- Comment on Netanyahu Promises the “Final Stage” of Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Implementation of “Trump’s Plan" 3 weeks ago:
I’m a lib but I want to have a dialogue that’s less shit throwing and more genuine.
Just because someone is against Harris/the Democrats does not automatically mean they are in support of Trump/the Republicans.
Agreed.
This might come as a surprise to you, but we hate Trump and the GOP, too.
Not a surprise, totally know that and appreciate you guys for it.
We’re just not under any illusions that the Democrats are going to fix anything.
So neither am I, but I feel frustrated because we need to be protesting and making noise on this issue.
Its frustrating because our shared goal is to end the genocide, but you guys by staying home that election sabotaged this goal for us both and made the genocide worse than before.
If you focus on the material conditions of Gaza and think “which vote is going to lead to less Gazan lives lost” voting for Kamala seemed like a no brainer.
It’s only when you bring your own ego into it “well I will never support genocide” that comes across like you’re willing to sacrifice Gazan lives to feel self righteous.
Had many of these tankies voted Kamala instead of staying home it would be so mucy easier to form a protest and get the pressure cooking on the dems
But because they stayed home (regardless of justification you might have) we’ve now lost the right to protest and many university students, scientists and academics are being disappeared into the night for speaking out.
This simply would not have happened under Kamala.
- Comment on Online ‘Pedophile Hunters’ Are Growing More Violent — and Going Viral: With the rise of loosely moderated social media platforms, a fringe vigilante movement is experiencing a dangerous evolution. 3 weeks ago:
Do people read this and fail to realize that the “calling everyone I disagree with is a Nazi” rhetoric is the exact same thing?
Like how Elon can do a full Nazi salute multiple times but then throw out some rhetoric about how “they call everyone Nazis” and everyone just buys it?
Yeah I can see how they’re similar.
- Comment on FBI warnings are true—fake file converters do push malware 4 weeks ago:
Lol, if the point was to sarcastically respond how easy it was to type you were supposed to enter
convert 001.jpg example.pdf
And
ffmpeg -i rock.mp4 rock.avi
By putting the “and” in the commands you just caused an error lol
- Comment on Enshitification of CrowdSec 5 weeks ago:
But times change and the cost of free tier users surpasses that of paying users. Should the company continue providing the same level of service for free tier users?
“Times changing” here seems to be the central trick to the argument.
What’s interesting about enshittification is that as the company gets more and more profitable there seems to be more and more excuses as to why these free features are so costly.
It’s very easy for a company to put out a statement that times are changing and that the free tier is unaffordable. Is that always true? Who’s to say?
I’m sure sometimes it is true but the doubt is why arguments like this will never go away.