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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 2025

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I was reading Does the social contract even exist any more?. It starts out with some typical stuff about questionable business models, some people being inconsiderate, some (left-leaning) politics. It mostly seems like a replacement-level post, until we get to the example of Daniel Naroditskys suicide.

Starting in late 2024, Naroditsky received repeated accusations from former world champion Vladimir Kramnik that he cheated in online chess tournaments. There is basically no evidence that this was true - Kramnik threw some slapdash statistics together that were roundly rejected by other experts - but Kramnik kept loudly repeating the accusations in interviews, on social media, and generally to anyone who would listen. As a former world champion, he had a large audience, and he specifically used it to harass Naroditsky without any real basis other than his own paranoia.

This mostly fits the theme (not that paranoid-delusional chess grandmasters are particularly new), and then comes:

Spurred by Naroditsky’s death, the chess community is demanding action. Some are calling for Kramnik to be investigated for ethics violations, stripped of his grandmaster title and kicked from FIDE, the sport’s governing body.

Holy shit, thats the normality youre missing? This is the only thing in the post that was actually unthinkable for me, though in retrospect with the amount streamers in the game, maybe it shouldnt have been. Still, in a post about how things used to work, presenting this as the obvious thing to do would still cause some whiplash, even if I thought to anticipate some people calling for it. The author here is an /r/neoliberal alumnus who frequently bangs the "You can just be center left, wokeness is a distraction" drum, and this feels like Ive just seen the manchurian punditate activate accidentally.

I don’t understand the complaint here. Unranking him for ethical violations is a normal thing sports have done for a long time. Pete Rose was one of the greatest baseball players ever and permanently* banned from the Hall of Fame in the 80s for betting on games. Whether you agree or disagree, I think the idea of having ethical standards in competitions that aren’t directly related to cheating is nothing new.

The bit in the article about the Twitch streamer is ridiculous to me. She is a form of prostitute and was kissed by one of her simps. This in turn did nothing but boost her career. I promise she is overjoyed by this and maybe even arranged it herself, she isn’t some vestal virgin.

Im not familiar with baseball, but from what I can tell the Hall of Fame is entirely done by voting. I think thats obviously different from something recording an objective achievement.

Pete Rose wasn't just banned from the Hall of Fame, he was banned from baseball, he couldn't coach and he couldn't work for a team and he was very rarely featured as one of the greats of the game along other legends of similar stature. This stance softened over the course of my life, and you started to see him acknowledged more as he got older and his sins faded into memory. But it wasn't that the voters never voted for him, like they have refused to with steroid users, but that he was never eligible on the ballot at all.

Reminiscent of this discussion on whether to list Lance Armstrong's objective achievements on wikipedia; https://www.themotte.org/post/3311/friday-fun-thread-for-october-10/375101

Although this thread is more about ethics outside the game (steroids are in the game) and chess. So maybe Bobby Fischer is a better comparison? His achievements aren't hidden but there's often an asterisk