Tuesday 2 May 2017

Communist quiz


More from Ray.

Questions arising:
  1. The present women's world champion is Chinese, the fifth person of her nationality to hold that title. How did they manage to overcome the collectivist nature of their culture to achieve these heights?
  2. Can anybody think of any countries whose "communist tradition" failed to stop them doing rather well where world titles in chess were concerned?
  3. Why does this drivel get published?
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous2 May 2017 at 11:55

    So there hasn't been an Indian world champion, Ray??

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jack Rudd2 May 2017 at 12:43

    Here's a handy list of world champions who *weren't* born in places that were at some point part of Communist countries:

    Max Euwe
    Bobby Fischer
    Vishy Anand
    Magnus Carlsen

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrew Gelman9 May 2017 at 07:30

    Jack:

    The Netherlands, India, and Norway are kinda socialist, right? Fischer's the only one to come from a full-on, winner-take-all capitalist country.

    Actually, the U.K. is kinda socialist too---maybe that explains why Ray never made it to the top: he, Nigel Short, etc. were too busy helping out others and sharing the wealth; they didn't have the capitalist single-mindedness necessary to excel as individuals.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9 May 2017 at 13:59

    I assume the above post was in jest, but just for the record India has been run by rightwing nationalists for a while now. As for the UK - Thatcher, May, Cameron, even Blair??

    ReplyDelete

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