If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Policy / Politique
The fee for tournament organizers advertising on ChessTalk is $20/event or $100/yearly unlimited for the year.
Les frais d'inscription des organisateurs de tournoi sur ChessTalk sont de 20 $/événement ou de 100 $/année illimitée.
You can etransfer to Henry Lam at chesstalkforum at gmail dot com
Transfér à Henry Lam à chesstalkforum@gmail.com
Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
General Guidelines
---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
Some Basics
1. Under Board "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) there are 3 sections dealing with General Forum Usage, User Profile Features, and Reading and Posting Messages. These deal with everything from Avatars to Your Notifications. Most general technical questions are covered there. Here is a link to the FAQs. https://forum.chesstalk.com/help
2. Consider using the SEARCH button if you are looking for information. You may find your question has already been answered in a previous thread.
3. If you've looked for an answer to a question, and not found one, then you should consider asking your question in a new thread. For example, there have already been questions and discussion regarding: how to do chess diagrams (FENs); crosstables that line up properly; and the numerous little “glitches” that every new site will have.
4. Read pinned or sticky threads, like this one, if they look important. This applies especially to newcomers.
5. Read the thread you're posting in before you post. There are a variety of ways to look at a thread. These are covered under “Display Modes”.
6. Thread titles: please provide some details in your thread title. This is useful for a number of reasons. It helps ChessTalk members to quickly skim the threads. It prevents duplication of threads. And so on.
7. Unnecessary thread proliferation (e.g., deliberately creating a new thread that duplicates existing discussion) is discouraged. Look to see if a thread on your topic may have already been started and, if so, consider adding your contribution to the pre-existing thread. However, starting new threads to explore side-issues that are not relevant to the original subject is strongly encouraged. A single thread on the Canadian Open, with hundreds of posts on multiple sub-topics, is no better than a dozen threads on the Open covering only a few topics. Use your good judgment when starting a new thread.
8. If and/or when sub-forums are created, please make sure to create threads in the proper place.
Debate
9. Give an opinion and back it up with a reason. Throwaway comments such as "Game X pwnz because my friend and I think so!" could be considered pointless at best, and inflammatory at worst.
10. Try to give your own opinions, not simply those copied and pasted from reviews or opinions of your friends.
Unacceptable behavior and warnings
11. In registering here at ChessTalk please note that the same or similar rules apply here as applied at the previous Boardhost message board. In particular, the following content is not permitted to appear in any messages:
* Racism
* Hatred
* Harassment
* Adult content
* Obscene material
* Nudity or pornography
* Material that infringes intellectual property or other proprietary rights of any party
* Material the posting of which is tortious or violates a contractual or fiduciary obligation you or we owe to another party
* Piracy, hacking, viruses, worms, or warez
* Spam
* Any illegal content
* unapproved Commercial banner advertisements or revenue-generating links
* Any link to or any images from a site containing any material outlined in these restrictions
* Any material deemed offensive or inappropriate by the Board staff
12. Users are welcome to challenge other points of view and opinions, but should do so respectfully. Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Posts and threads with unacceptable content can be closed or deleted altogether. Furthermore, a range of sanctions are possible - from a simple warning to a temporary or even a permanent banning from ChessTalk.
Helping to Moderate
13. 'Report' links (an exclamation mark inside a triangle) can be found in many places throughout the board. These links allow users to alert the board staff to anything which is offensive, objectionable or illegal. Please consider using this feature if the need arises.
Advice for free
14. You should exercise the same caution with Private Messages as you would with any public posting.
I've always voted Liberal ...always have and always will.
It's a shame that so many people (including CTers) who claim to know anything about Canadian politics can't clearly breakdown the main platform differences which characterize each party. And most folks that I've spoken politics with don't even know what historical contributions (and under which PM) each party has made in shaping our country.
Good pts in your 2nd paragraph, Neil. When I was in high school (the sixties) we took 4 yr of history with almost no Canadian historical/political content. I'll bet it's very different in the States and I hope things up here have changed.
Hi Vlad. Yeah, I agree. Impeachment seems like a low probability outcome at this point. Nevertheless, no matter what your political stripe, I still think it was an interesting article. Re a possible impeachment, don't forget the 2018 mid-terms could change things.
There are many more Democrats than Republicans coming up for re-election in the Senate. I don't see the Democratic party in its current form while doubling down on the policies that caused them to lose in 2016 will offer the majority of people what they want. Right now it looks like Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren is the front runner.
Speaking of liberals telling tall tales what do you make of our Defense Minister's speech taking credit for the planning and execution of a military offensive? Why? What was the upside?
I think a lot of us forget occasionally that partisanship, even extreme partisanship, has been around as long as politics has. President Andrew Johnson described 1860s Washington as "twelve square miles bordered by reality." :) I forget where I saw that (it was probably in the article I linked - gettin' old!)
Yes and back in those days they would sometimes even have duels with fatal consequences for the loser.
To Peter: there is no difference with militant atheists in their approach to attempting to change the laws of a country. They come into a society with the aide of clumsy political indifference or a veil of lies.
Listen to Ben's rhetoric. He calls me racist, but I have no such hateful comments as he.
Ben is a troll. He says things that will get a reaction. He doesn't necessarily even believe them. He claims to have cited extremely dubious social science research with regard to intelligence in conservatives and liberals (as if that has any relevance without links to the specific study and methodology) and even challenges you to an IQ contest despite the facts which render IQ as a somewhat dubious measure of intelligence in the first place. My take away from all this is that Ben is a very insecure individual who has a very over inflated perception of his own alleged intelligence which he miserably fails to display in this discussion.
Ben's IQ challenge would have scored you at least one or two points in a usenet troll trolling competition.
Most who saw the name "Mavros" would assume my country of origin is outside of Canada (as Peter did! - and he was right). In the same way I assumed "Daswani" was of origin from outside of Canada somewhere along the recent line. This is not racist. Its logic. Its not a French, English or Native name. I didn't say I hate Daswani, or Daswani is inferior, or any of the nonsense he is pushing about me. I was assuming a foreign sounding name is probably foreign, simply that. But Daswani is perhaps angry at society, or simply exercising his freedom and heritage, so that he can safely call others racist.
Never apologize and never explain to a troll. He sees it as a victory if you type more to explain than he had to type to get you to react. The left labels everyone a racist to the point that the word is losing its meaning when applied to political discussion.
Militant atheists, by their very nature, exclude humanity and Judeo-Christian thought from their method of thinking. Like Ben here, Heinrich Himmler officially believed in a superior race (in this case Ben is claiming atheists are superior).
I'm sure atheists voted for Hillary in overwhelming numbers.
Ben claims to be highly intelligent - constantly -
He has his doubts which are quickly suppressed by his narcissistic personality acting out to attack those who might raise doubts in others and more particularly himself.
despite really lacking proof of that fact.
Unnamed social scientists have confirmed that atheists/communists/leftists/dorks are "vastly superior" to everyone else. When you won't blindly accept this premise violence will quickly ensue. Well at least it did in the Assumption High School Chess club some 45 years ago. Oddly enough this did make chess more popular as word got around the school. The communist did not fare so well as a suprisingly well executed hip throw ended the struggle immediately.
The big racist that I am, I know there are 100s of thousands of chess players of higher rating then me, all of different creeds and religions. Its just a fact. Mr.Belzberg pointed out Ben's rating is lower than mine, so by Ben's own standards, I should be calling him a moron. But I will not. Maybe he is very smart - seriously. I just think he is incredibly angry and that fact is proven by his repeated posts.
He is only angry to the extent that you cast doubt on his superiority. To troll effectively emotions should not enter into it.
So, like the short and homely Heinrich Himmler, who did not make the "handsome standard" of the twisted Aryan ideal he helped to create, Ben's angry posts with little thought or reason exclude him from his own world of the "highly intelligent" master race of atheists.
If we were operating under Usenet laws and in particular Godwin's Law this would be a tacit admission of defeat. Though the correspondents dinner featured similar high humour (I do not see Steve Bannon, not see Steve Bannon, nazi Steve Bannon).
Let me be clear - I do not equate Ben with Himmler. Its just the world has seen where the line of militant atheist thought leads. The pinnacle of this path. Ben may not even be aware of this or care, but the world has a history with this method of thinking. It is recorded in both World Wars.
So Like Mr. Belzberg said, worship a stone, just don't throw it at me. Believing in nothing is still believing! Also try not to trash this wonderful country and its foundation.
He will continue to do so as long as it elicits a reaction.
You claim I'm a militant atheist, so let me ask you, what laws have I advocated changing?
Right, because being racist and being hateful are too very different things. You can be one without the other.
I never said that assuming that my name was "of origin from outside of Canada somewhere along the recent line" was racist. What I said was racist was implying that, because of this fact, I am an "immigrant" or of a "home country" other than Canada. I've been very clear on this. Why can't you grasp it?
I've never said you're inferior to anyone. More on your inferiority complex in a second.
I didn't claim that atheists are superior. I claimed that atheists are smarter. I've never said, and certainly never would say (because I don't think it), that smarter people are superior to their counterparts. Why do you constantly think people are claiming that you're inferior? Just a chip on your shoulder?
I have not made such a claim in this thread. I've claimed that atheists are, on the whole, more intelligent than theists, and I've claimed that liberals are, on the whole, more intelligent that conservatives. You do know what "on the whole" means, right?
That might be true if chess ability correlated perfectly with intelligence. You know what correlates a whole lot better? IQ... because, you know, that's what it's designed to measure.
How about this: you and I will write the same Mensa-certified IQ test. If you score higher than me, I will publicly admit that I'm a moron and send you a check for $1000. If I score higher than you, you will never fucking post in this thread again. Deal? I'm absolutely serious.
No, that's what you and Belzberg don't seem to get. Being an atheist isn't believing in anything. It's not even believing in the non-existence of a god. It's simply failing to believe in the existence of a god. A-theist: one who is not a theist. That's all there is to it.
In terms of "intelligence" or "reason", Mavros has demonstrated three very significant misses in his posts here. First, he equates atheism with race. Which means whenever he mentions race, he doesn't even know what he's talking about.
Second, he thinks modern democracies, specifically Canada and the U.S., are "Judeo-Christian societies". You and I have both laid into him on that point, and provided evidence against it, but he hasn't retreated from it, so I think he's just going to go on believing it.
And the third thing is that whenever challenged by evidence, Mavros does the typical conservative knee-jerk reaction: he just shuts it all down and says he is being insulted or hated.
Oh, and I guess there is a fourth -- he claims not to have insulted you, when in fact he categorized you as a militant atheist with no supporting evidence whatsoever for the militant part.
Rather than a Mensa-certified IQ test, there needs to be a central unbiased authority that can measure REASONING skills. Perhaps a web site where 2 people can go to debate opposing views of a subject, and be judged on their performance. The problem, of course, is finding unbiased judges. Perhaps there could be a software AI solution.... it looks for fallacies such as those presented by Mavros.
Liberals are amusing. In order to impeach Trump they would require a great deal of help from Republicans. Impeaching Trump would be the end of both the Democratic party and the Republican party. Ain't gonna happen.
Hi Vlad. Yeah, I agree. Impeachment seems like a low probability outcome at this point. Nevertheless, no matter what your political stripe, I still think it was an interesting article. Re a possible impeachment, don't forget the 2018 mid-terms could change things.
I think a lot of us forget occasionally that partisanship, even extreme partisanship, has been around as long as politics has. President Andrew Johnson described 1860s Washington as "twelve square miles bordered by reality." :) I forget where I saw that (it was probably in the article I linked - gettin' old!)
For those conservatives and/or biblical literalists who will experience problems reading this article because they have low IQs ( :) :) thanks, Ben!), here is an abstract:
From a centre-left perspective, the article examines issues relating to the removal of President Trump from office via impeachment or the 25th Amendment to the American Constitution **
** sorry for using multi-syllabic words in the abstract
Liberals are amusing. In order to impeach Trump they would require a great deal of help from Republicans. Impeaching Trump would be the end of both the Democratic party and the Republican party. Ain't gonna happen.
Fwiw, McGuinty once wanting Sharia Law tribunals in Ontario (no doubt for the sake of votes), and Wynn introducing her radical sex-ed agenda, are just two reasons why I find the Ontario Liberals loathsome. Don't get me started on Hydro rates, their failed Green Energy policies and the Liberals' incompetence and corruption in general.
The end of that experiment came when all the women who would have been affected by Sharia law objected strenuously.
I did something similar in the last election - in my riding the incumbent was PC so I voted for the candidate I thought had the best chance of finishing ahead of the Liberal. I hear you on voting so as to minimize potential damage. True but still disappointing that so many of us feel that way.
I've always voted Liberal ...always have and always will.
It's a shame that so many people (including CTers) who claim to know anything about Canadian politics can't clearly breakdown the main platform differences which characterize each party. And most folks that I've spoken politics with don't even know what historical contributions (and under which PM) each party has made in shaping our country.
To Peter: there is no difference with militant atheists in their approach to attempting to change the laws of a country.
You claim I'm a militant atheist, so let me ask you, what laws have I advocated changing?
He calls me racist, but I have no such hateful comments as he.
Right, because being racist and being hateful are too very different things. You can be one without the other.
In the same way I assumed "Daswani" was of origin from outside of Canada somewhere along the recent line. This is not racist. Its logic.
I never said that assuming that my name was "of origin from outside of Canada somewhere along the recent line" was racist. What I said was racist was implying that, because of this fact, I am an "immigrant" or of a "home country" other than Canada. I've been very clear on this. Why can't you grasp it?
I didn't say I hate Daswani, or Daswani is inferior, or any of the nonsense he is pushing about me.
I've never said you're inferior to anyone. More on your inferiority complex in a second.
Like Ben here, Heinrich Himmler officially believed in a superior race (in this case Ben is claiming atheists are superior).
I didn't claim that atheists are superior. I claimed that atheists are smarter. I've never said, and certainly never would say (because I don't think it), that smarter people are superior to their counterparts. Why do you constantly think people are claiming that you're inferior? Just a chip on your shoulder?
Ben claims to be highly intelligent - constantly - despite really lacking proof of that fact.
I have not made such a claim in this thread. I've claimed that atheists are, on the whole, more intelligent than theists, and I've claimed that liberals are, on the whole, more intelligent that conservatives. You do know what "on the whole" means, right?
Mr.Belzberg pointed out Ben's rating is lower than mine, so by Ben's own standards, I should be calling him a moron.
That might be true if chess ability correlated perfectly with intelligence. You know what correlates a whole lot better? IQ... because, you know, that's what it's designed to measure.
How about this: you and I will write the same Mensa-certified IQ test. If you score higher than me, I will publicly admit that I'm a moron and send you a check for $1000. If I score higher than you, you will never fucking post in this thread again. Deal? I'm absolutely serious.
Believing in nothing is still believing!
No, that's what you and Belzberg don't seem to get. Being an atheist isn't believing in anything. It's not even believing in the non-existence of a god. It's simply failing to believe in the existence of a god. A-theist: one who is not a theist. That's all there is to it.
In the last provincial election I actually voted strategically, for an NDP guy, because he had the best chance according to the polls of knocking off my Liberal MPP (the Energy minister at the time) - maybe further evidence polls may or may not be a good thing.
What a lot of apathetic and/or disgusted young people may not get is that you do in fact need to vote. That is, vote for the party or independent that you think is going to screw you, or those you care about, the least.
I did something similar in the last election - in my riding the incumbent was PC so I voted for the candidate I thought had the best chance of finishing ahead of the Liberal. I hear you on voting so as to minimize potential damage. True but still disappointing that so many of us feel that way.
In the last provincial election I actually voted strategically, for an NDP guy, because he had the best chance according to the polls of knocking off my Liberal MPP (the Energy minister at the time) - maybe further evidence polls may or may not be a good thing.
What a lot of apathetic and/or disgusted young people may not get is that you do in fact need to vote. That is, vote for the party or independent that you think is going to screw you, or those you care about, the least.
For those conservatives and/or biblical literalists who will experience problems reading this article because they have low IQs ( :) :) thanks, Ben!), here is an abstract:
From a centre-left perspective, the article examines issues relating to the removal of President Trump from office via impeachment or the 25th Amendment to the American Constitution **
** sorry for using multi-syllabic words in the abstract
Fwiw, McGuinty once wanting Sharia Law tribunals in Ontario (no doubt for the sake of votes), and Wynn introducing her radical sex-ed agenda, are just two reasons why I find the Ontario Liberals loathsome. Don't get me started on Hydro rates, their failed Green Energy policies and the Liberals' incompetence and corruption in general.
Yikes! I'm in agreement with almost everything you've said. I wonder which of us finds that more worrisome? :)
...
Einstein was a theist albeit, not one who believed in mainstream religions or Gods.
...
Fwiw, I've gone through various beliefs in my life, including atheism and then having more open-minded (and scientifically correct IMO) agnosticism. I came to be convinced about Christianity purely though personal experience, such as visions (which many would dismiss, naturally). I also was gifted with memories of a past life, around one time the bible was being translated in England. As a result, I have reservations about some of its accuracy, so I must cherry-pick what I choose not to believe in, based on just my experience, as much as I would prefer not to. So, count me as a rather unorthodox Christian for now, at least until I believe a fully accurate version of the scriptures has once again seen the light of day.
Leave a comment: