this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
362 points (97.1% liked)

Showerthoughts

33744 readers
459 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
vatlark@lemmy.world
forkball@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
SuperEars@lemmy.world
362
Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
142 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Sure, playing chess needs intelligence, dedication, and good chess players are smarter than an average person. But it's waaaay exaggerated in movies. I'm a math researcher, and in any movie, my department will be full of chess geniuses. But in reality, only about 10% of them even play chess.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] expr@programming.dev 0 points 3 days ago

This couldn't be further from the truth, and it's pretty clear you don't actually play the game. I had no idea this misconception was so common.

Chess is ALL ABOUT creativity and figuring out how to outplay your opponent and secure a win. It's a game of strategy and tactics, of timing and technique. The way "memorization" works is that players tend to have some number of moves in their opening(s) memorized (typically 5-10, though top players can go to greater depth), at which point they are "out of book" and into the middlegame, which is where the game is actually played using some combination of positional ideas, tactics, and calculation. Many players opt to play less theoretically viable openings (that is, variations that are not quite as good with best play), because it gets their opponent out of book faster. "Novelties" (a move in a variation not previously played by a master/grandmaster in a tournament) are played all of the time, even by grandmasters.