8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship • Hacker News Board

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#181

Post by mindgam3 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #162

mindgam3 wrote: post #82

As someone who had the unfortunate label of “prodigy” applied to me in my youth (chess master at age 10), I’d like to offer a perspective. It almost goes without saying, but huge respect to the kid for being able to persevere through massive adversity and achieve such a result. What I want to suggest without hopefully ruining the “feel good” party is that the adversity and the success here aren’t just a striking coin…

>I know a fair amount of chess prodigies from back in the day, including some who are still active and top players on the professional circuit. To this day I have not met a single one who didn’t have to deal with major adversity during childhood - broken home, missing or abusive/alcoholic parent, etc. I used to play professionally at Marshall chess club in NYC and one of the grandmasters there went rummaging through…

Although I can appreciate self deprecating humor, it seems that you are simply using my comment to make fun of people who have already dealt with tremendous adversity. Does it make you feel better about yourself to tell stories and jokes about grandmasters who didn't have enough to eat?

You're punching down. Don't do that. If you're in doubt, please refer to HN guidelines:

"Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#182

Post by mindgam3 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

michaelcampbell wrote: post #166

mindgam3 wrote: post #82

As someone who had the unfortunate label of “prodigy” applied to me in my youth (chess master at age 10), I’d like to offer a perspective. It almost goes without saying, but huge respect to the kid for being able to persevere through massive adversity and achieve such a result. What I want to suggest without hopefully ruining the “feel good” party is that the adversity and the success here aren’t just a striking coin…

> I hope his gift brings him joy and success, Not sure about that, but it might have brought him a home if all the attention that led to the gofundme account pans out, and it doesn't get stolen or frittered away.

Yeah, I was trying to get at something, but "joy and success" didn't really capture it. The fact that his gofundme raised enough for him to move into a new home - that's what I'm talking about.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/8-Year-Old-Nigerian-Re...

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#183

Post by yathern » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #161

yathern wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evenly distributed not in the sense that everyone has an equal amount, but that every way you can cut up demographics (age, race, sex, nationality) will have the same bell curve of talent. But that is not necessarily so with opportunity.

“Not everyone can be a chess champion but a chess champion can come from anywhere”.

Is that a modified ratatouille quote? That's been my philosophy for a while :)

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#184

Post by MRD85 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 11:25 PM UTC

Jill_the_Pill wrote: post #172

MRD85 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything wrong with wanting conditions attached to handouts, everyone has their own moral system. I see nothing wrong with helping support two children whose parents have been unable to earn due to injury / illness. If a single mum with 9 kids has a history of having more children while demanding hand outs then I'm not do keen.

Children in poverty should not have to rely your discretionary, strings-attached, judgement-laden charity. They need good public services fully funded by your mandatory, fair, and sufficient taxes.

I live in a very heavily taxed nation and across the board, we are seeing all our government services degrade more and more. I pay over 50% direct tax and all our services are crying out for funding. The ability to fund these "good public services" is dependent on having a large tax-paying base.

Social security and welfare is 36% of our federal budget. Education is only 7%. We have free universal healthcare and that's only 16%.

There is a literal culture here of living off support and having large families. You get more funding for larger families. The children tend to follow in the footsteps of their parents. Exponential math is taught in high school, it doesn't take much to see how this ends up. I understand your human argument for these children but I'm concerned with our ability to look after families in 20 years time, or 50 years time.

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#185

Post by ganeshkrishnan » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

mindgam3 wrote: post #181

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I know a fair amount of chess prodigies from back in the day, including some who are still active and top players on the professional circuit. To this day I have not met a single one who didn’t have to deal with major adversity during childhood - broken home, missing or abusive/alcoholic parent, etc. I used to play professionally at Marshall chess club in NYC and one of the grandmasters there went rummaging through…

Although I can appreciate self deprecating humor, it seems that you are simply using my comment to make fun of people who have already dealt with tremendous adversity. Does it make you feel better about yourself to tell stories and jokes about grandmasters who didn't have enough to eat? You're punching down. Don't do that. If you're in doubt, please refer to HN guidelines: "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say…

How is this snarky or uncivil? The lack of opportunity to earn good money is the reason I never continued on my journey to play chess professionally.

Also I am pretty sure the gm had money but he had a concept of other people's stuff and had other issues. I am just adding to the point that op made that plenty of chess grandmasters have issues

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#186

Post by dang » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:39 AM UTC

cma wrote: post #163

macintux wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of "your" money is an indirect result of previous generations' sacrifice so that you can have a better life?

[flagged]

This thread had already devolved to generic ideological tangent, which is exactly what we don't want here. But you took it to an even deeper circle of hell with snark and personal attack. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the spirit of this site more to heart? Maybe you don't owe your enemies better, but you do owe it to the community you're participating in.

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#187

Post by akhilcacharya » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

yathern wrote: post #183

akhilcacharya wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Not everyone can be a chess champion but a chess champion can come from anywhere”.

Is that a modified ratatouille quote? That's been my philosophy for a while :)

It's a good quote!

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#188

Post by bluthru » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #148

bluthru wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but that every way you can cut up demographics (age, race, sex, nationality) will have the same bell curve of talent. No. There is not data to support this belief, and the problem becomes when people expect this result and make rules to create this outcome.

> No. There is not data to support this belief, At least with things like chess playing and related abilities, there is no data to suggest the opposite belief either. Any observations that we could use at sufficient scale are massively confounded by other huge environmental variables.

Let's take an easy one: basketball.

There are more white high school basketball players but more black college basketball players. Are you claiming that's 100% environmental?

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#189

Post by sherkaner » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

mindgam3 wrote: post #82

As someone who had the unfortunate label of “prodigy” applied to me in my youth (chess master at age 10), I’d like to offer a perspective. It almost goes without saying, but huge respect to the kid for being able to persevere through massive adversity and achieve such a result. What I want to suggest without hopefully ruining the “feel good” party is that the adversity and the success here aren’t just a striking coin…

While common, it's not so bad. Carlsen has a good family and he wasn't pressured to do anything. Polgar sisters were raised as chess players, but they all say only positive things about their childhood. 9 y.o Tihon Chernyaev is close to the level of Fide Master and plays competitively, but it's more of his obsession, and his mother just helps and encourages him without any pressure (that's from her own words, so could be wrong).

Re: 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins New York State Championship

#190

Post by mindgam3 » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #185

mindgam3 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I can appreciate self deprecating humor, it seems that you are simply using my comment to make fun of people who have already dealt with tremendous adversity. Does it make you feel better about yourself to tell stories and jokes about grandmasters who didn't have enough to eat? You're punching down. Don't do that. If you're in doubt, please refer to HN guidelines: "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say…

How is this snarky or uncivil? The lack of opportunity to earn good money is the reason I never continued on my journey to play chess professionally. Also I am pretty sure the gm had money but he had a concept of other people's stuff and had other issues. I am just adding to the point that op made that plenty of chess grandmasters have issues

"I am just adding to the point that op made that plenty of chess grandmasters have issues"

OP here. The point wasn't about the issues, it's that the issues often result from trauma, therefore we should speak and act with compassion.

In response, you told a story about a grandmaster who stole things from you and cracked a joke about someone being so poor that they couldn't feed their family. Hilarious!

Look, one of the reasons "plenty of chess grandmasters have issues", as you so astutely point out, is that so many people in the chess community think and act like you do. Not to single you out or anything, but this is such a common and harmful pattern. You'd think that people would see someone struggling and, I don't know, reach out to offer support. But instead, people like you make jokes.

Assuming you actually want to be part of a substantive conversation, rather than simply trolling, consider sharing more about where you come from and what you've dealt with, rather than making fun of other people.