Perhaps. But what are the long-term ramifications of continuing down this track? Does a society of individuals with low cohesion survive in the long run? What motivations to pull together and overcome any adversity that might come along exists? Is it worth it for a few generations of improved individual freedom, if that society doesn't hold together longer than that due to a lack of cohesion?
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” — Abraham Lincoln.
Perhaps more like... 'engagement fatigue'? When it's truly rote or mindless work your brain can disengage and be somewhere else. With knowledge work you don't have that luxury, even when the work itself isn't what we could consider 'engaging', you nevertheless are obliged to be engaged mentally to carry it out. Do that long enough without deriving any satisfaction, it seems a perfectly sane reaction to want to escape the situation, or just plain shut off. It makes sense for our brains to realize we're spending a lot of brain focus and time on something that isn't activating any reward centers, and insist we stop doing that. That really seems like a fundamentally sensible and healthy response from a brain functioning properly.
>As soon as you possibly can, start working on something you 100% agree with.
Man, that point resonates with me. I quit a while back due to severe burnout (actually, I think now, boreout) and have been struggling to get enthused about anything. I think what you said here is the core of why I might be done with tech as a profession entirely - I'm almost completely soured with the impact and direction of it as a whole.
So then the question becomes well, what do I agree with and want to do? That's a hard one. This is the only career path I've been on and even if I do find something else, starting off at 40 with no skill base is... oof.
If you hate [war, human trafficking, etc] and live in an honest country one of the best things out there is working for law enforcement or intelligence. You'll use your skills on real problems that matter. Impact and excitement.
I'm with Carlsen on this. If you're caught or admit to cheating even once in a professional competitive career that's it - You should be out for good. That we have this bizarre attitude of permissiveness and time salvation around cheaters in competition is frankly bizarre. What other argument is there than to refuse to engage. It is not difficult to simply never cheat, in the same way that it is not difficult to simply never murder anyone.
Honestly, bravo. He's at the point in his career that he really doesn't need to prove anything, and as such is uniquely positioned to make this kind of statement with at least a vague chance that it will be heeded.
> I'm with Carlsen on this. If you're caught or admit to cheating even once in a professional competitive career that's it - You should be out for good.
That’s absolutely not the rule and neither you nor Carlsen get to decide that.
There is no permissiveness here. Hans has played according to the rule of the tournament. There is no evidence of cheating. That’s it.
Unless you have proof of what you are advancing, you are just bullying a teenager. The conduct of the chess community has a whole has been nothing short of shameful in this instance.
Let the man protest. It appears to be quite effective. There is a long history of positive change coming from quiet, stubborn, non-violent protest outside the rules.
From what I can find: "he did admit that he had cheated in the past – first as a 12-year-old when a friend gave him some help in an online tournament and then as a 16-year-old playing unrated games while he was streaming."
A 12-year old cheating in a tournament! We cannot ever trust this man!
Magnus Carlsen started playing at around age 5. Was in his first tournament at 8. Was winning and establishing a career in his teens. Was grand master in his early 20's.
So, cheating at 12 and 16 could equate to cheating now. That's only 3 or 7 years ago. Hans is 19.
That doesn't change that a 12-year old is still a 12-year old though, and that a mere "7 years" (12 to 19) is a huge difference in terms of personal development. A 12-year olds brain is still developing.
The cheating when he was 16 was unrated, so that's less severe, but the same argument applies here really; how many 100% responsible 16 year olds do you know?
Should there be some consequences? Maybe? But people further upthread here are argueing for life-time bans, which seem ridiculously draconic for the actions of a teenager who can't buy alcohol or cigarettes, is below the age of consent for sexual activities, etc. in in many jurisdictions.
In my early teens I would shoplift for the fun of it and did some other things I'm not especially proud of today. That's been 30 years ago and I haven't stolen anything in just as many years (since I was 14 or 15).
I'm very uncomfortable writing off an entire person over actions they did as a teenager.
Thank-you for pointing this out. The defence that Niemann was "only a minor" when he engaged in his admitted cheating has always sat uncomfortably with me. As you say, Chess is game played at very high standards by children as well as adults. Cheating in that context is highly immoral in my view.
I never said it's not immoral, but we're also talking about what are essentially children, which does not make it permissible, but I don't like judging adults (and 19 is only barely adult) over whatever they did as children/teens. There wouldn't be enough stones to cast if we started doing that.
>The last few days have been tumultuous for many in the chess community. At this time we have reached out to Hans Niemann to explain our decision to privately remove him from chess.com and our events. We have shared detailed evidence with him concerning our decision, including information that contradicts his statements regarding the amount and seriousness of his cheating on Chess.com. We have invited Hans to provide an explanation and response with the hope of finding a resolution where Hans can again participate on Chess.com. We want nothing more than to see the best chess players in the world succeed in the greatest events. We will always act to protect the integrity of the game that we all love."
I can't really determine who is right on that; my response was intended just for "he's admitted to cheating in the past." If the chess.com allegations turn out to be true then it would of course be a different matter entirely.
nobody can determine who is right because they haven't made the allegations specific, but as a professional chess player if they say his cheating goes beyond what he's claimed, and they have evidence of it, he could sue them for defamation if it wasn't true. I suspect chess.com has the receipts.
Fair enough but those priors should also be updated by a lot of evidence showing that he probably isn't cheating over the board:
* His blitz/rapid ratings went up just as much as his classical ratings. Cheating in OTB blitz is much harder, so you would expect his blitz rating to stay roughly the same if his recent rise was due to cheating.
* Ken Regan is generally the most trusted authority of cheating detection (you can find his papers online, his methodology is rigorous), and he says there is no evidence of Hans cheating OTB.
* AFAIK no strong player has described the game between Hans and Carlsen as suspicious. Even the (increasingly rare) ones that are fully on Magnus' side.
The only confirmed cheating we know is online, in a no prize money setting at ages 12 and 16. This is hardly sufficent for banning him for life in FIDE OTB Tournaments as an adult if they don't have other evidence. It's like banning a sports player for life for cheating in high school games or an academic for cheating in their math test as a kid.
A good counter-example is s1mple from the Counterstrike: Global Offensive scene. He was known to have cheated when he was a teenager but went on a redemption arc that has seen him become not only the statistically best player to ever play the game but also one of its most mature and respected players. All the while under intense scrutiny for cheating because of his history.
I don't think one and out forever is really the way to deal with cheating in teenagers, they are yet to fully understand the consequences of their actions or how to deal with pressure/emotions - especially in online settings when the temptation is higher and the fallout less obvious.
It probably is also not a standard that can be practically upheld in an online setting. In both of these cases as I understand them, the cheater did so on their main account. If they'd created a new account to cheat on, would people have known?
I am absolutely not decided on the issue but you should always remember that the "guy" caught cheating was 12 and 16 when it happened.. I mean he was a kid. Kids do stupid things. So we should not overrate what happened in the past.
The "kid" is only 19. If this were 10 years ago I would get your point, but "kids do stupid things" doesn't apply when he already admitted to doing it only 3 years ago as a 16 year old.
professional chess is not place for second changes.
To you hold this view for all competitive endeavours or just chess? If you cheated in a high school basketball game, should you be barred from ever playing professional basketball.
You're saying Hans only cheated twice, and chess.com is falsy accusing him of cheating more often than that because they're working on a takeover of Magnus' company?
That's straying pretty far into conspiracy theory territory.
I think they were probably pressured by Magnus who out of malice after losing a game is targeting promising player... Which I think is entirely reasonable reading of situation after seeing actions take by a player.
Chess.com ( magnus carlsons sponser) put out a statement refuting Hans' claims that he only cheated twice and Hans has not responded yet.(and chess. com have yet to show any evidence of said cheating)
It can be. Being professional doesn't mean being good, it means doing something for money, and there is money at stake in some online blitz tournaments.
One important question is whether Niemann has cheated in tournaments with prizes or "only" in ladder-type games (he's only admitted to the latter as I understand)
> If you're caught or admit to cheating even once in a professional competitive career that's it - You should be out for good.
No, you shouldn't. People make mistakes, especially children. It is simply immoral to close any path to redemption for them. Also, anti-cheating measures on second-rate chess site chess.com are known to produce a lot of false positives. Niemann was never caught cheating in over the board games, so people trying to kill his career because of Carlsen's unspoken allegations should be ashamed of themselves.
I have a passion for a very small niche within this - Preserving user-created levels for the game Quake III Arena.
When I was a kid we got our first PC just as Quake (1) released. We didn't have a modem to get online, but magazine cover disks sometimes included custom user maps and mods. I'd run around them offline, wondering in awe at these empty spaces and amazed at being able to explore a 3d space that someone somewhere else in the world had conjured from their own imagination and effort. In time I figured out the tools and techniques, and even released some of my own content to add to the mix. That sense of wonder has stuck with me for over twenty years, and while I very much enjoy playing the games, it's not just about that - Accessing and exploring the spaces themselves is fascinating and hold inherent value to me.
I recently came back to spending more time with the games, and see a great deal of that custom content dropping offline never to be seen again as the sites that used to host them wind down and dry up. A lot of it has likely already been lost. I'm digging through every available source I can to try and dig out as much content as possible, but of course it'll never be 'complete' in the same way that a ROM collection for a classic console might be.
Then, quite aside from finding and saving, there's the question of how to make it accessible (and interesting) to anyone else. I'd like to think it's of interest to more than just me, but maybe it isn't? Perhaps daves_awesome_map_v5.pk3 and the thousands of others I have stashed don't really have an audience beyond that one weirdo that saved them =)
On the offchance you're reading this and have any old Quake 3 custom content stashed away in your closet, please get in touch!
Something related to this is all the user-generated player models. Like a slice in time of pop culture, there was at least one model for any popular character at the time, plus lots of original content as well. And people did it for free!
For sure, I have hundreds of custom models and skins stashed away. I remember going to the millenium dome around y2k, and there was a booth there that would 3d scan you into a Quake 3 model! Sadly I lost my scan. Wonder if the company that did it has them all saved off somewhere. That would sit in a very weird place privacy-wise.
According to Wikipedia and Wiktionary its etymology is English. I also checked with A Pronouncing and Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language by Malcolm McLennan, which has "tocsaid, n. f. a hogshead ; fr. the Eng." Gaelic for barrel is "baraille".
Perhaps the Gaelic word for barrel somehow came from the English measurement hogshead, but more likely that it was spoken Gaelic for barrel overheard and adopted by English speaking stevedores.
The main problem with that is that the first recorded occurrence of the word was in Middle English in 1390: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dicti... i.e. before (Scottish) Gaelic diverged from Irish. If the word had a Middle Irish origin predating this, it would be shared by its descendants in both modern languages. But the Irish word is oigiséad (m), and the Gaelic word is tocsaid (f). Different genders, and Irish dropped the h sound, which (after lenition) Gaelic preserved. So the word must have arrived in Irish and Gaelic independently, presumably from Modern or Late Middle English after Gaelic and Irish diverged into separate languages.
The other problem is that there is no known Irish etymology for either tocsaid or oigiséad, or Malcolm McLennan would have included it in his faclair, but there is a plausible English one. Other Germanic languages (Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish) have variants of ox-head. Whether it originated in one of those languages or in English is disputed.
Appreciate the gotcha, nearly as fun to post as pedantry. I only made the same mistake OP did, however.
The actual point still stands. If you're going to take a dig at a legal system, country, or culture, don't try to back up your point with an example from a different one.
Scotland is not England legally or culturally, and the scots will be the first to make that point clear.
Sure, although this does feel like it's becoming painfully drawn out. Let's use a simple parallel example: If someone's having a laugh at, say, Trump. Then they use that as an example of how those those silly Canadians are always electing daft politicians. You're probably going to point out that Trump was not in fact the president of Canada. That the example is not relevant.
Likewise, it is a mistake to lump the Nazi dog case in with the other case. One occurred under Scottish legal jurisdiction, the other under English legal jurisdiction. The example is not relevant.
>And, truthfully, I'm very much having an existential crisis. I often wonder what the worth in studying the climate is. After all, we already have an extremely detailed understanding of the basics.
This same line of thought is what turned me away from pursuing a degree/career in climate science. It feels like an area where you can make significant contributions to the analysis of impacts and gain greater understanding of the future direction things will take (and the rate), it'll be akin to shuffling deckchairs on the titanic in terms of being able to actually effect any meaningful change; since I was frustrated in my current career with a sense of futility I realized the move into climate would not be satisfying, as much as the topic was of interest.
Similarly with working in industry 'tackling' climate change. Pinning hope on technological advancements are (IMO) fundamentally flawed. Plus much of 'green' industry where the majority of jobs are to be fund amount to a thin veneer of PR for organizations that are significantly exacerbating the issue.
As an aside, how much stock do you put in the notion that the first Blue-Ocean Event will significantly ramp up the rate of change being felt globally?
