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Knight Of Winter

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  1. Who gives a fuck about what his motivations are? The important one is not him - but you: and if you have (presumably) made a decision to cut him out of your romantic life - start acting like it. Stop worrying about whether he's just bored, or regrets breaking up with you, or just wants a hookup; for he's no longer a part of your love life and whatever he does has nothing to do with you. Months after breakup and his one "baby" still holds too much power over you - that you get so emotionally invested and are confused about what to do.
  2. Interesting indeed. I truly wish your experience was the norm: not just finding your fiancée, but even more so productively dating (by that I mean connecting to and meeting all the women who are looking for the same thing as you).
  3. It both fascinates and appalls me how profoundly unsuccessful dating apps are at their most basic purpose: connecting sane and normal people who would be interested in meeting each other. A few of my female friends were on dating apps, and their experience was eerily like yours (and many many other women): lots of matches, however, these are - lots of guys looking for hookups, lots of low-effort guys, lost of guys prone to flakiness and indecisiveness etc. As I said - lots of matches, but rarely a single serious one. Meanwhile, myself and my male friends who were on dating apps at some point had the opposite problem: namely being radio-silenced. Likes were rare, and matches even more so, of out few matches half don't respond to first message, and out of those who continued chatting few would end up in dates. I'd say one date every several months was the norm. It's obvious that apps are full of women and men who are serious about looking for a relationship - yet these somehow rarely end up interacting with each other. You'd think that it would be easy enough: "Hey, we're all on this app, so we're looking for a partner. We've matched so there's some basic level of attraction. Let's talk and/or meet and if we click: great, we're dating. And if we don't: great, we'll move on and meet other people". But nope - what happens is that normal women end up meeting creeps and hookup-wannabes while normal men don't end up meeting anyone at all. Ughhh, rant over. Obviously, this is not everyone's experience. Success stories do exists (seriously, congrats @Erik of Hazelfield ), but judging from everything I've seen, heard, read or experienced - they're far less common than expected. People go to work for work, and to college to study - yet workplace and college are statistically two most common places to find your marriage partner. Same applies to all the other hobbies, activities and clubs. It's not (or rather: it shouldn't be) about desperately searching for a partner doing things you're not really interested in, but expending your social network and sphere of interests (as you note in your last sentence), however these expansions naturally lead to more dating opportunities - especially since you're surrounded by like-minded people who are interested in same hobby or club. All other factors being equal, I'd certainly say someone with regular 2 hobbies and 1 club has much higher chance of meeting compatible romantic partner than a homebody whose lives revolve around workplace and solitary home activities.
  4. Perversely enough, I think (current) Israeli government and Hamas are both mortal enemies and best friends in a way. They need each other. They leech of each other. Every Palestinian killed by IDF's bombings leaves behind enraged family members with "Fuck these assholes, I'm joining Hamas" mentality. And every Israeli civilian slaughtered by Hamas leaves behind other citizens with "Netanynahu says he'll obliterate these bastards? Well I'm all for it" voting attitude. They both need this atmosphere of radicalized conflict, for that's how they gain they support. And while I'm sure there are moderate and reasonable voices on both sides, they tend not to be prevalent in wartime era. Which Israeli wants to hear "Well, given how we've treated Palestinians, small wonder they're unhappy with us" with hundreds of their people slain by Hamas? Which Palestinian wishes to listen how "maybe Israelis don't fancy being constantly bombed by our Hamas government" after losing thousands of their children? I don't know what needs to happen fro this situation to end. This is not me being obtuse; I honestly don't know and would welcome any suggestions by more knowledgeable posters. One thing I'll say that it's clear that conditio sine qua non is Hamas being toppled in some way - either by foreign military intervention or through domestic rebellion. Party that wishes to eradicate the other side and treats its own citizens as expendable human shields can't be part of any long-term peaceful solution - that much is obvious. Israel, for their part, needs to ensure that peaceful cohabitation is actually a viable option that Palestinians would want to embrace. Because, the way that Israel currently behaves towards Palestinians in West Bank (where Hamas is not in power, mind you) borders between "treating them as second-class citizens" and "outright not caring about their lives" and really doesn't help their case. When faced with constant oppression from Israeli side, small wonder that some Palestinians turn to more radical solutions offered by Hamas and likewise groups. Perhaps more moderate approach would produce batter (and long-term safer) results for Israelis.
  5. @Madame deVenoge - at the risk of being too direct, I think you'd benefit from mentally categorizing this Doctor guy. Is he into "I want to date him again" category; or does he fall into "he's selfish asshole, my son and hairdresser are adamant on this; and I definitely deserve better" category - because....he can't be both. At the moment, it seems to me that he's in some kind of liminal space depending on your current mood. When he breaks up with you, he's an obvious asshole and good riddance. But a week or two latter, he suddenly ceases to be an asshole and for some reason becomes dateable again. So what is it? Also, should you two decide to date again - do you have any strategy to fix things that led to previous break-up in the first place? Do you plan to have tough conversations where you two will outline problems (which were serious enough to cause a break-up) you had with each other along with ways to start fixing them? Because if not - you're setting yourself for failure later down the road. And finally, judging from your post history here: you sound like someone with romantic options - many, many options. Meaning you're easily able to find dates should you wish to do so. Keep in mind that you can (and should) afford not to be desperately stuck on a single ex. So the question is: is Doctor truly the best out of all these options - present or future ones? Does he have such an awesome character, is dating him so rewarding that you can confidently discard all the other options because you know he's just that good? And if the answer is "yes" - then by all means try to get together with him; for quality partners are not that easy to find. But if the answer is "no" - then... feel free to let him go and don't spill any proverbial tears.
  6. If more people thought like the author of linked article, perhaps there would be a chance that this mess would not escalate to irreversibly-fucked-up levels. Not gonna happen, sadly. Wartime is not exactly the time and place for rational voices to spread. Not holding my hopes high here, either. Wartime also tends to massively increase the popularity of political leaders (especially if they win. And with Israel's huge military advantage - it's hard to imagine them not winning), even if they were hugely unpopular pre-war.
  7. I find that support for socialism (as a political/economic/both) or some other kind of system with state-owned property is mostly the domain of western academia and intelligentsia who are jaded with capitalism and are looking for better alternatives. On the contrary, you won't find much support for socialism from countries which have actually lived under socialist regimes - and I'm talking primarily about eastern Europe here (I'm not counting people who currently live in socialist countries, for they usually don't have the ability to speak their mind openly). The thing with capitalism is that it doesn't make any grand promises. It doesn't promise justice nor fairness. It doesn't promise happiness nor fulfillness. It doesn't promise equal opportunities (for all these things you need governmental regulations). And it certainly doesn't promise any kind of utopia. But it does promise one thing and one thing only: raw wealth (however distributed) with economic growth - and here it delivers. And the reason I support capitalism is not because I particularly like it or am personally invested in its success; it's because economic growth is kind of...very important to the overall well-being of a society. Wealthier countries in general have better education and health care. Their citizens report higher rate of happiness and life satisfaction. They have higher degree of human rights. Etc. None of these are, I hope, controversial claims to make. As I said, I'm not particular fan of capitalism per se. But as long as there's not any good alternatives - I'll grudgingly support it, for I don't have much of an option if my main goal if overall welfare of humans all around the globe. A point has been made about environmental impact of capitalism and on the surface level: the point is absolutely correct. Capitalism does indeed exploit mercilessly: its workers as well as natural resources. But this is not a unique feature of capitalism. A person arguing for negative environmental impact of capitalism would have to prove that the other, non-capitalist economic systems are somehow better. Are they? Are communist countries more environment-friendly than capitalist ones? Is mercantilism a better solution for our natural surroundings? Would environment fare better under feudalism, of any other kind of pre-capitalist economy system? The way I see it: human history consists either of societies which exploited natural resources without any care for environment, and societies which would have done so, but didn't have the means nor opportunities. Not that I'm advocating that nature exploitation is not destructive - far from it. Many things need to change in order for us to not fuck up our environment any more than we already did. But this problem goes far beyond capitalism.
  8. Talking about one's favorite architecture from places I've personally visited: Italy is at the top of the list. Piazza del Campo in Seina is maybe the best public square I've seen; Pantheon in Rome (a tad cliché, I know ) one of most impressive buildings; while seeing Venice for the first time has been on-of-a-kind experience for me. Honorable mentions go to cities of Prague (Czechia) and Amsterdam (Netherlands). As for places I haven't visited yet - Japanese architecture is definitely the one which inspires me and makes me wonder the most. From traditional palaces and temples with gardens to modern and contemporary Japanese architects (Tadao Ando, Tezuka architects, Sou Fujimoto, to name a few) - I find their approach in city- and building-design to be unique and very creative.
  9. I'm not sure this would be a fine heuristics good portion of the time. It presumes that a person in question (who wishes to be treated certain way) is mature and emotionally healthy enough that their wish is good and productive. And while that can certainly be the case some of the times, other times it's plainly not. Person can wish for others to treat them in the way it can only be described as bad either for themselves, people around them, or society as a whole. You have people who wish to dominate others and others to subdue themselves. You have people who feel guilty about something and wish to be punished. You have people who only seek validation from others. You have people who wish to be a part of a cult. In all these cases, I don't think others should treat the person in question "the way they wish to be treated" - in fact, quite the opposite.
  10. I think that bashing centrism is an uniqueness of an US political system, not necessarily an universal value. Perhaps it is natural consequence of deeply tribal and polarized society to view those who declare themselves as centrists with mix of distrust and presumed dishonestly on centrists' part; but in countries with more pluralistic politics centrism is definitely a viable and legitimate political option. I'll give an example: here we have a party aptly called "Centre". And in all of societal issues (LGBT rights, abortion etc.) they are staunchly liberal, like the left is. But in most of other matters, they differ significantly. For example, left likes higher taxes and larger administration, centrists like tax cuts and smaller administration. Centrists prefer open immigration policy, left is much more ambivalent on that (since it could hurt already worn out domestic working class). Left campaigns strongly on climate change, centrists don't so much. Left is adamant in keeping certain property (highways, beaches, coastline...) public, centrists are more open to granting concessions to private companies to manage them. Left in oftentimes affiliated with various activist groups, centrists are not. In general, centrists' main aim is to promote meritocracy, while left is concentrating on protecting and elevating the downtrodden. So left, apparently, they are not. But they're equally distanced from the right as well - they have none of right's nationalism (in fact, they have quite cosmopolitan mindset), or affiliation with religion, or penchant for populism etc. Centrist parties in other European countries maybe don't follow this exact set of policies, but remain their own direction separated from both left and right (not that left and right and monolithic, either. Each is represented by 2-3 major political parties). You don't hear much from them because...well, mainly because they're not very popular and usually can't achieve more than single-digit percentage at national level (and often less then that). Best they can hope for is being a minor partner in ruling coalition. But that doesn't mean that their politics are not legitimate, that they are rightists (or leftists) in disguise or that they don't represent political views of some small part of population.
  11. This theory presents Prigozhin as an utter dumbass (which frankly is not out of realm of impossibility) who thought Putin would quietly stand aside while he deals with Shoigu and MoD. And also to believe Shoigu's decret forcing Wagner to join regular army went without Putin's blessing. He definitely should have been prepared and unsurprised, for Putin declaring him a traitor was the most expected outcome of his actions. All in all, this deal - while preventing bloodshed and quickly nipping the attempted coup in the bud - doesn't make either side look particularly good. For Prigozhin - his military group will either disband or join regular forces, his political influence is finished while he himself was sent to exile in Belarus. For Putin - offering amnesty for a rebellious group after calling them traitors and promising swift punishment doesn't sound like he was negotiating from a position of strength either, leaving serious doubts about how shaken his position within Kremlin currently is.
  12. I don't quite understand Prigozhin's strategy here. His actions during the past few months were increasingly hostile against Russian Army (and its leaders Shoigu and Gerasimov) and indirectly against Putin himself. Fine, but I don't get what does he hope to gain with such course of action. He knows he can't beat Putin - nor in elections, nor in military conflict. As powerful as it is, Wagner will lose, and lose horribly, if pit against Russian Army. Good news for Ukrainians, and all that jazz - but I'm just wondering about Prigozhin's motives here. Did he horribly miscalculate or is there something I'm not seeing here?
  13. I find very practical way to view self-esteem and confidence is as a reputation one has with oneself. If you see a unsuccessful person who is miserable about his problems, but at the same time does nothing about solving this problems, and instead engages in self-deprecating "woe to me" mentality, sooner or later your brain tells you not to think highly of that person. Except that here, you yourself are "that person" you don't think highly about. Hence low self-esteem and problems with confidence. Best way to avoid this would be to get to fixing your problems, by standards that you yourself set up. @Toth - in your case, all of the issues you list are fixable, at least to a degree. I'm not saying they're easily fixable - in fact some of them will take months or years to get a grip on, but fixing them is a must. For example: - you don't have any friends? Find some (assuming that is what you want). Social interaction is a skill that can be learned like any other. While going out of your comfort zone will be a hell of a lot uncomfortable and you're bound to make million of social mistakes with slow progress - once you compare this with a lifetime of disappointment, your course of action becomes clear. If you're scared of socializing, be more scared of long-term consequences of not socializing. - you're afraid what your mom will think about you dating? Well, work on becoming financially independent - and more importantly: emotionally independent from her. Take small incremental steps in that direction. - you're dissatisfied with how you look? Change the way you look, at least the stuff that can be changed. You can't do anything with regards to e.g. facial structure or height - but you can eat healthily, you can regularly exercise, you can learn to dress well with clothes that fit you. Ask a female relative with help with the last one: average woman has way superior fashion sense than most men. - you have nerdy solitary hobbies? So what? More people than you think themselves engage in nerdy hobbies. Having nerdy hobbies won't make you unattractive (in fact, should you meet a nerdy woman, in can only be an advantage); but faking not being interested in nerdy stuff or faking being interested in other stuff when you're actually not interested - these signal insecurities which will make you unattractive. Besides, being genuinely passionate about almost anything (nerdy hobbies included) is quite an attractive trait to have: both generally in life and specifically in dating. Once you start making progress on all of these (and it's not that important how big of a progress it is, as long as it's steady and you put in consistent effort), you'll start to see yourself differently. No longer you'll view yourself as someone whose response to being dissatisfied with life is to wallow in self-pity, but as someone who actively improves in things that you yourself deem as very important. Just as your opinion of somebody else would rise in such a situation, your opinion of yourself will also inevitably rise. Your self esteem is bound to go up. You won't have to fake confidence, it will naturally come in some amount as a result of changes you did. You also ask what do you have to offer besides steady income? Well, you have a fine job which makes a positive impact on your surroundings. You do have stuff you're passionate about. You seem to be smart and have no glaring personality flaws which would ruin your chances of a successful relationship. Many many men make do with less. In the end, what can kill your dating chances would not be "characteristics A" or "lack of personality trait B" that you have - but this self-deprecating mentality and your (horribly unfounded) bad opinion about yourself. All of this is coming from someone who was in similar boat as you for a long time and can sympathize with your current mindset. If this internet stranger's opinion is unwelcome, feel free to tell me to shut up with no hard feelings.
  14. Don't have much to add for the rest of your comment other than "fair enough", just wanted to address this bit: All the time. I strongly think that wokeness, generally, is a bad idea - yet several smart people I've interacted with hold the opposite view. I strongly think communism had maybe the worst track record of any ideology in history - yet I've seen educated and intelligent people who self-identify as communists. I strongly think putting Trump in charge of anything - let alone a country - is a horrifyingly bad prospect - but that doesn't mean that half of US voters are somehow dumb. And the second reason is that it took me shamefully long time to realize that history is full of fine people with reasonably good intentions whose ideas turned out wrong - sometimes even terribly wrong or detrimental to the society. It helps put current bad ideas (or ideas I think are bad) in context. One is bound to mess up many times through life and make awful choices - it doesn't necessarily mean they're a stupid person. Same applies to political choices.
  15. What's disingenuous about it? One can disagree with someone else's opinion completely and utterly, yet don't feel the need to be mean about it. These two aren't mutually exclusive. I'd say yes, for at least two different reasons: 1) the argument may not be that absurd or pathethic after all, but you (not "you" as DMC, but as anyone reading this - myself included) may have lack of knowledge, or bias, of different perspective that causes you to undervalue the stength of supposedly stupid argument 2) because it won't get you anywhere constructive. By being rude one is, true, safitisying their desire to vent and collecting brownie points from like-minded people; but one is also horribly limiting oneself to what is achievable from the debate. By being rude, you're preventing yourself from learning what may be valuable point of view from the other party. You're also preventing the other party to learn anything from you, since they're bound to get defensive or become rude in return. You're turning what could have been interesting and educational experience from both parties into a competition who will be most creative in dissing the other one. (again, in this paragraph "you" is impersonal, it's not aimed particularly at you). Best debates I've either been in or saw have this great conclusion at the end, where everyone involved has this "Hey, I disagree with you a lot, but it's been great talking to you and I feel like I've learned something new and valuable. I'll ruminate about what you just said" feeling, and - at least in my experience - I feel watching and participating is such exchanges helped me and enriched me as a person. This would not have been possible if the tone of the conversation crossed the limit of rudeness. Heated - yes, passionate - yes, honest - of course; but not rude. That said, I can sympathize with the frustration - for not every debate can be like this. Like you, I also think there's many people whose arguments lack any coherence, insight or even basic logic and who couldn't say anything remotely intelligent if their life depended on it. But if that's the case, why bother debating them at all, why not just leave (instead of dissing them) and find someone better to converse with? To paraphrase: if you're the smartest person in the debate, you're in the wrong debate.
  16. This is one of most hilarious - and hilariously true - statements I've heard about Balkans in recent times . It does seem like most of the Balkan's politicians are participating in some kind of unspoken competition of who will tell the most sorriest tale of their own misfortune caused by their evil, evil neighbors. While I do take some solace in knowing that we're not the only ones, that other nations do so as well, it still pains me to see most of Balkan's political and societal leaders (as well as most of people) lacking any kind of self-reflection and trying to present their nation as ultimately noble and ultimately oppressed victim which suffered horribly at the hands of others. Zorral, right or wrong, brings something to the table in this discussion: asking questions, posting articles, arguing in good faith, trying to learn etc. Other than this holier-than-thou virtue signaling, what exactly is your contribution to this thread? What do you bring to the table?
  17. Problem with drawing all your knowledge of some subject from one source and one source only - is that you "inherit" all the bad data that this source has, without other sources to cross-check it. Which is to say, this NY Times author doesn't seem particularly knowledgeable about Serbian geopolitcs, or even basic geography (map of Europe, because it's apparently needed here. Find positions of Serbia, Spain and Italy and see how bizzare the idea of Serbia controlling parts of Italy/Spain sounds). Even the most radical and violent of Serb nationalists never had the notion of laying claims of Italian or Spanish territories, nor now nor over millenia ago when Serbia was first founded as a country. Also, this is the first I've heard of some trafficking operation for transporting Serbs to Venice.
  18. To say this is a shock and tragedy is an understatement. School shootings, especially with this many victims, are very rare cases such as this cause collective surprise and shock. Neither Serbia, nor most of its neighboring countries, never had even one such case. Meanwhile, all the societal actors are acing their part pretty predictably. From what I've heard, opposition parties are blaming the ruling party, ruling party (i.e. president Vucic) is blaming violent videogames and western values (?), while sociologists and psychologists are blaming the society. Whether any of them is capable of analyzing this objectively and without biases in order to come to meaningful conclusions which would help against similar cases in the future - remains to be seen. Which leads me to this: At the risk of being confrontational at this unprecedented time of tragedy, following question needs to be asked sooner or later: if system is the problem, what if could (and should) have done differently in this case? While it's natural - even expected - to be angry and demand punishing the guilty parties (politicians, legislators, security guards, social workers, teachers, journalists etc.) in times such as this, it's much harder to pinpoint exactly where system failed. The way I see it: - is it the widespread illegal gun ownership? Not in this case, since killer's father had the proper license for the gun in question - is it the fact that kid was able to access said gun? Undoubtedly so, but it's a gross negligence from the parents - not from the system - is it that Serbia is violent country with frequent murders? Statistics says no - Serbia's homicide rate is 1.23 per 100,000 people, relatively low and comparable to countries such as UK and France (1.20). US is at 4.96 for reference - is it that victims of school bullying get little to no support and their pain is swept under the rug? Possibly. While being bullied does not in any way excuse committing mass murder - this is definitely one instance where it's absolutely true that the system failed - is it faulty system of recognizing and preventing potentially dangerous youths? Except that for killer, nobody ever predicted he could he dangerous in the first place. He had stable and well-off family and good grades, by all accounts. The fact that he snapped and killed 9 people caught everyone by surprise. - is it really internet and violent video games? I hope nobody is seriously considering this as an option (for one, there's no evidence that violent video games cause violent behavior that I've heard of. For two, countless of other young people are exposed to same internet and same video-games and turn of perfectly fine. And thirdly, nothing suggests that the killer played violent video games in the first place). I'm asking because it's the most important question right now - not just for Serbia but for everyone else: what can we learn from this in order to make sure such tragedy never happens (again)? If system has failed, how has it failed and what can be done to improve it in this regard? And this is not me being facetious. @baxus - being Serbian and having the best knowledge and insights into Serbian society here - I'm interested in your thoughts in this matter.
  19. Good news is that, contrary to our expectations coming from the opening - this game is currently anything but dry and sterile. Starting from Nepo recapturing at f6 with the pawn - position (currently at move 24) is really fun and imbalanced. Bad news [for Ding, who unbalanced the position in the first place (which he had to do, considering he must play for a win)] is that it's unbalanced in Nepo's favour. If anyone is winning here, it's Black.
  20. Game 12 starts with Colle System for Ding (White) - a bit of a unusual choice when you want to play for a win. It doesn't look like it will provide White with much opening advantage (move 6 at the moment), but we'll see. ETA: move 8 now. Even with weird tempo-losing maneuver by Black (first 6...Bd7 and then 8...Bg4) - White's position doesn't seem to hold much of a bite.
  21. Quick glance at game 9 (move 19) - and it looks to me that Nepo is in the driver seat. Current position seems more comfortable for him.
  22. Sad and anticlimactic finish to otherwise great game 7. Ding sacrificed the exchange for pressure on White king. Ding played bravely. Ding played confidently. Ding played creatively. And just as this kind of play was about to pay off, Ding psychologically broke. With only 5:39 on the clock, he spent 5 minutes on move 32, and soon blundered due to impossible zeitnot he found himself in, and resigned soon afterwards. People who watched the game in real time said Ding's nerves got the better of him and the he physically froze at move 32, unable to make a move until it was too late. Really a pity, for this game did not deserve to finish like this. No matter the outcome of this championship, I really hope Ding recovers so we can witness more great games in this quite entertaining fight for the title. Here's a game for those who are interested.
  23. Best explanation I've ever seen about JKR is this: she's hardcore pro-women and women's safety. Protecting women and keeping them from harm is highest-order value she holds, to the detriment of everything else. Also, considering her history and previous statements, it's obvious that she's had bad experiences with men and views them with a mixture of unease and distrust. So that's the core of her position: protection of women, usually against men. If she were to given a choice between inconveniencing 20 men and making 1 woman feel slightly safer, she'd choose latter in a heartbeat. Ok with her critics so far, but "protecting women" is still her highest-order value. With the same zest she's defending women from men, she's also "defending" women from trans people. Replace "20 men" with "20 trans people" in example above and JKR's answer would staunchingly remain the same. In fact, the most (in)famous issue she had - the one with transwomen entering women's bathrooms - can just be viewed as an extension of her fear for women's safety from men. Hence her tweets how "there's no evidence that transition changes transwomen's male pattern of behaviour" or something to that effect. I think that in her mind, she's genuinely fighting a battle for safety of women, misguided as you may consider it. In short: - do I agree with her in this instance - no, not at all - do I agree with her on principle - no, I think society should not be built upon fear-based policies - do I think she has elements of transphobia in her character - yes - do I think she's a bad person overall - no - do I think she deserved all the vitriol, including death threats, she's getting - no, not nearly - do I take some satisfaction in the fact that attempts at canceling her failed, no matter how much I think she's wrong - admittedly yes
  24. Great game 6 from Ding Liren. Masterful combining of accumulating small positional advantages and final tactics waving mating net around Black king. With such unpredictable game results so far, it's anyone's guess how games 7 to 12 will turn out. With such an entertaining match so far, it pains me to say that there will probably always be some speck of dount with regards to "legitimacy" of new champion, whether Ding or Nepo. That is to say, whoever wins the much will be viewed "only" as a world champion, but not as the world's best player - for it's very likely Carlsen would have beaten either of them in a match. Which is really unfair to both of them. With Carlsen withdrawing, they were logical choices for new contenders, seeing how they won first and second place in Candidates tournament. Ratings-wise, they are in second and third place in the world. They regularly compete and perform well in top-tier tournaments. It's just that Carlsen's supremacy over the last decade or so has been so pronounced that nobody would have been used as a "true" world champion unless they beat Carlsen in a match.
  25. Although (disclaimer) I generally don't view wokeness favorably, I'll deliberately not going to tackle the essence of such discussion, debating its flaws and merits here. Instead I'll point to a wider meta-problem: that such discussions were proven time and time again to be fruitless, with both sides talking past each other with none being any wiser afterwards. Part of it surely comes from semantic confusion, as I'm convinced that different people have totally different concepts in mind with regards to same word. While for me it means something like "dogmatic, authoritarian and deeply tribal ideology which is ineffective in achieving its (noble and admirable) goals", for many of you that same word means "fight against systemic prejudice and helping disadvantaged groups". I'm not saying either mine or the other definition is the correct one - but I am saying that we're having completely different things in mind while discussing ostensibly the same concept. Such discussion will be very difficult from the start. The other part of linguistic problem, which Darzin and Ran talked about - is inability to label to concept with a word - any word - which is a prerequisite of any reasonable discussion. The fact is - there is a ideology of a left side of political spectrum, that we're all (judging by the number of participants in this discussion) interested in discussing. You don't like the term "woke" and think it's being unfairly coopted and misused by right-wingers - fine by me. But then give my any kind of alternative. Give me any other word (already existing one of newly minted word, it doesn't matter), upon which broad definition we can agree upon and finally have some common ground on which we can base debate on. The third point of contention with term wokeness (and again - feel free to propose any alternative word here) is that it's deeply personal, sentimental and important part of identity for many people. And when something is deeply personal, sentimental and important part of identity - people on both sides lose the ability to argue objectively, with myself being just as guilty of it as the next person. It's not caused by malice or bad faith, it's simply how the human brain works with regards to concepts that constitute the important identity-building block. They subconsciously start to twist the other side's arguments, interpreting them in worst possible ways and using strawmen all around. Each of you probably witnessed it a hundred times before, mostly with religious or political issues. So I'm not proposing anything new here. One one hand (and not to worry, I'll cover the reverse as well) - that's the problem that TrackerNeil or Darzin or Heartofice or myself face: every time we criticize something woke (or whichever term you'd like to use instead) or woke-related, usually we're met with some combination of always-the-same bullet points which rarely address the essence of whichever argument we provide. Usually we hear something like: 1) why are you talking about woke when right-wingers are much bigger problem 2) you're just blind to systemic prejudices in this world 3) or maybe you're not blind, you just don't care 4) you're adopting right's talking points 5) you should support us since we share the same end-goal etc. which obviously make you feel a bit shitty, misinterpreted and ignored. On the other hand, it's not only probable, but certain to the point of beyond doubt - that myself and others arguing similar things are guilty of similar flaws. That we can also (subconsciously I hope) misinterpret other's side arguments, attribute wrong motivations to them or have glaring blind spots that we're unaware of. As I noted, it happens with heated topics all the time. The entire point of debate is to have different people standing for different ideas, so that each can correct the other's biases and present arguments other side is unaware of - so that everyone can come up a little bit smarter and a little bit more enlightened. But in debates about wokeness this doesn't happen - it didn't in previous ones and I doubt this one will be different. I suspect nobody will change their worldview significantly here, other then to become even more entrenched in the position they already have. And this is not about being correct or incorrect. While I don't like wokeness, it's possible that I'm wrong. Maybe it truly is the best possible thing since bread came sliced that will permanently change humanity for the better and we're all be thankful for it. I have no problem being wrong. I do however, have a problem, if good-faith discussion about any topic are impossible, and that's what I feel is happening with this particular topic. This is not the effective way for society to move forward. Kind of half-baked and half-coherent rant I have with this issue, but nonetheless an issue worth stating. Hopefully next time by someone more articulate then myself.
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