This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If you want perfect information, yes. But to gain an edge you do not need that. Enumerate all pieces by their starting row from 0 to 7. Have the oracle figure out what a player with a given rating would would move each piece.
"If I tell this player to move the their queen (or queen's pawn, if that looks more plausible for them), does this have a better expected outcome than if I tell them to move their light-squared bishop (or its pawn)?"
Again, this has limitations. The player needs to be a fairly decent chess player. And a decent chess engine would still totally crush them, because the cheating player would be limited to fairly obvious moves. "Sacrifice your queen here for a decisive advantage ten moves down the line" is not a strategy you could communicate in three bits.
But it would probably make the cheater significantly stronger.
I do not have a good example for a channel which can communicate three bits but not five, though.
Sure. On the other hand, humans are also really got at filtering out irrelevant information. Luckily, sound is rather obvious (especially if your baseline is complete silence instead of what you get in a football stadium), and players do not have a lot in their field of view which can be controlled by third parties.
My gut feeling that the optimum for in-person cheating would be to have a computer implanted into your body. Some 28 years after Deep Blue, a chess engine which could defeat mere humans should fit in your guts. A bidirectional connection with a few baud should be well within technical reach, you have all sorts of nerves just waiting to be tapped. Unless you are checking if your cheater is sleeping with a Qi charger on their belly or put them into an imaging scanner, you are unlikely to catch them.
More options
Context Copy link