‘Sac, sac, mate!’ If you know chess, you might have heard this quote before. Attributed to former chess world champion Bobby Fischer, it refers to a situation where you sacrifice two pieces in a row, followed by mating your opponent. If you can pull it off, it’s quite simply beautiful to look at. It’s quite rare. Perhaps not as rare as a nine-darter in darts, but much more so than throwing a 180 – which pros do regularly.
Here’s what I find so fascinating about all of this. Beginners usually overlook sacrifices resulting in a quick win. They’re so preoccupied not losing any of their own material, they fail to see how giving up one of their pieces, while costly in the short term, might yield big benefits in the long term. It’s a lesson chess players learn quickly: only the end goal matters, not how much pawns you’ve got left by the end.
Not that I’m pretending to be a great chess player. Whilst I love the game, I can’t afford the hours of practice required to improve. I guess I’ll have to sacrifice being a better chess player, in favor of my other pursuits. But that’s what real life is like. You may want everything, but you have to make your choices. Other times, like in chess, you’ve played as well as can be expected, but the situation turns against you and your down a piece. The thing is, you can’t allow yourself to be affected too much, otherwise losing the game is pretty much guaranteed. Pull yourself together, let go of your emotions and do everything required to pull off a win. All of these lessons which can be applied to real life – up to a point of course.
In any case, let me get back to one of the subjects we’ve discussed before. Why do so many get conned by figures like Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes? Well, for one, these con artists are great at convincing investors of their genius… and everyone is looking for the next Steve Jobs, hoping they’ve found the next Apple to pump their money into. If so, they’ll make a fortune.
Trying to find clues to find the next Steve Jobs, we all read the same stories. We read about his difficult behaviour in school, the pranks he used to pull along with Wozniak, him dropping out of college and so on. The message being implied comes down to: you’re either born a genius, or you’re one of those average chumps, doomed to be average.
And that’s how we tend to view intelligence, you either got it, or you don’t. Nowadays, I’m left wondering if that’s really so. These people tend to truly believe in their hearts, it’s all a matter of choosing the right parents. That would also imply that the fight has already been won or lost beforehand, which would lead me to the next question. If that’s the case, why even bother? It’s about the most depressing outlooks on life imaginable.
As such, I opt for a different outlook on life. Choosing the right parents probably counts for something, but I choose to view the same way I view sports. You might be born with Arnold’s genetics for muscle building, but if you don’t go to the gym, it’s all for naught. Even the most average gym rat can make the best out of what he’s gotten. To be clear, when I’m talking about intelligence, I’m not just talking about the score received on an IQ test.
By the way, you should really look up the history of IQ testing. There’s a dark history there, linking it with the eugenics crowd. That should explain a lot, given how IQ tests put people into simple, neat boxes – which is precisely what you’d want as a eugenicist. Today, we’ve chosen not to travel the path of eugenics, which is a good thing. So let’s completely abandon it, both mentally and culturally. Beware of handcuffing your own self-belief, especially by labeling your own mental faculties as completely fixed by birth, thus limiting your potential. Food for thought.
Kind regards
Vincent J. Dancet