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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • Yeah, I couldn’t name one either (I’m from the US). The first name that popped into my mind was Jimi Hendrix but he wasn’t British. I guess Othello wasn’t British either, and may not have even been historical. I had heard of Idris Elba but didn’t realize that he was British. No idea about the Spice Girls.

    There is a story (maybe apocryphal) that former US Vice President Dan Quayle (famous for malapropisms) once referred to Nelson Mandela as a “great African-American”, fwiw.



  • Psychologists are therapists. Just specifically trained.

    Nah, there are psychologists who measure axon potentials in rats and stuff like that. Therapy is an area in clinical psychology, which is a subfield of psychology, but you can get a psychology degree without ever going near that subfield. You get to be Dr. Rat Maze or whatever. But who knows, you might end up training the next Algernon who then takes over the world.

    Source: had a grad student housemate doing that type of research. He said when people heard he was studying psychology, they thought he was getting trained to be a marriage counselor. Nope, nothing of the sort.




  • I’m a chess fan. Men-only events were abolished in the 1980s. There are now women’s events (no men allowed) and open events (everyone allowed). In practice open events are 90% male, and the male players, especially at the lower levels, tend to fit the smelly and socially inept stereotype. Playing in them can be unpleasant for women, and women’s events exist basically to provide playing venues where women can enjoy competitive chess while staying the hell away from us clueless males. As a clueless male myself, I can get behind that, no problem. I understand and I’m fine with it. How do cis women feel about playing alongside trans women? Idk, I’m cis male and I don’t feel entitled to spout off about that. But I think they are the ones I’d want to listen to the most.

    The top levels from what I can tell aren’t as bad as the lower levels, since the effort it takes to reach that level of chess tends to weed out the clueless and lazy. There is still bad stuff though, e.g. the incidents with GM Alejandro Ramirez.

    You might like the book Chess Bi tch (that is the title, damn censor bot),by WGM Jennifer Shahade reviewed here , about her experiences in both women’s and open chess events coming up through the ranks.

    As for FIDE, there currently aren’t really alternatives at the top levels. FIDE on the other hand is not much of a factor in lower and mid level chess. Those events tend to be regulated by national and ad hoc federations, etc.