A bit like the consensus that most gods don't exist.

I hate the way Big Concrete Slab is always trying to put down independent film makers in favour of yet another Hollywood blockbuster. #SmashTheSystem #SmashTheSlab

I can't answer for America, but generally in democracies you get two and only two parties. Anyone taking a middle position cripples the side they're closest to.

Before Socialism was a thing, England had 'Liberals/Whigs' (what yanks would call libertarians, because they've somehow managed to repurpose the word liberal to mean the opposite of what it means) and 'Conservatives/Tories' (king and country and church and don't change things because you'll break them and hurt people).

And of course, like all political groups do, they hated each other.

The Church of England was once known as the Tory Party at Prayer. The Liberals were the radicals, the party of industry and progress and free markets and who cares who it hurts as long as it's the future.

With the rise of socialism/fascism/anarchism/progressivism, a truly radical program to rebuild society on utopian lines and use totalitarian terror to enable even more freedom and progress and human happiness, represented in England by the Labour Party, the 'conservatives' and 'liberals' were squeezed, and combined to oppose socialist thought, which hated them both and wanted to destroy everything they thought was worthwhile in the world.

So there came to pass an uneasy alliance in England between classical liberals and religious loonies, who'd naturally detest each other.

That's the modern Conservative party, who want to use radical social transformation and the power of the free market to go back to the glorious past, and are very much in favour of freedom of speech and thought as long as it's the sort of speech and thought that they approve of.

The Liberal Party effectively ceased to exist, because in its radicalism and desire for progress, it was more sympathetic to socialist thought, and so it got crushed.

Socialism has rather collapsed as an idea after an hundred years of practical experience with utopia, leaving Labour as the party of 'every problem can be solved by stealing more money and spending it on subsidies'. A position which is popular with those who benefit from subsidy, and unpopular with those who get their stuff stolen.

And of course, few of the people in either party actually believe in the causes they publicly espouse. They're not stupid. But public communications have to be simple-minded and rally tribal support.

Obviously this is a terrible system, but it's better than regular civil war, which is what you get in all other systems of government.

Nice, thank you! Also kudos to lemmy in general for providing a useful answer before reddit's r/chess did!! Maybe there is hope!

So kind! Thank you.

Forgive me, I am editing it in-place as more thoughts occur to me, so do make sure you still agree with it when I stop doing that, and edit your comment appropriately.

Behold:

https://lichess.org/?user=maia9#friend

maia9 is a chess bot who plays in a human style. She keeps whacking me in positions where I can beat actual stockfish easily. Just what I wanted. Thank you iceman on reddit.

It's great! Thank you so much! It just feels right, somehow.

old.thelemmy.club is going to be my new homepage.

This, and block the meme subs explicitly.

8 upvotes though. People have to have time to work up their courage!

Nah, we think you're on your phone, asleep at the wheel, halfwitted, careless, angry and frustrated and in a hurry.

And you don't really remember the highway code, because that was some guff you had to study for an exam when you were eighteen. Nobody really drives like that, right?

And you've usually been driving for more than an hour so your minds aren't really on the job.

And you've got the music on really high and it keeps distracting you at important moments.

The few drivers who actually are soulless malevolent murderers who enjoy the thought of running over pedestrians and cyclists really make the other 90% look bad though.

It's wonderful! There was a terrific BBC TV series when I was a boy which inspired me to read the book, which is even better.

Clavell wrote several other books, all great, but Shogun is the masterpiece.

I personally like to use really really bright LED lights pointed straight into the eyes of oncoming traffic.

Occasionally an oncoming car will take a swipe, or a cyclist will stop and punch me, but it's well worth it for the widespread misery I can effortlessly cause.

It also makes it quite hard to see anything that isn't in my 'cone of death', which is good in the same way that peril-sensitive sunglasses are!

Wakarimasen, Toronaga-san!

That's the spirit! What fun you must have imagining them all fighting about who's real...

They sound like great Gods, and I'll believe in them even though they don't exist. Where do we meet up to sing?

That's a nice app! Free and open source, and now a permanent addition to my phone. Thank you!

I can't tell you whether it solves my problem because it won't let me set up a position where I know that standard stockfish runs away, but I played with it for half an hour and it doesn't show that behaviour in the games I played.

As long as he's on the road I got no problem with that! A brave man.

I knew it!

Yes, I'm confused about why engines play so badly in endgames.

If you start them off a piece down then that's presumably a theoretically lost position, but they don't just make random moves because it doesn't matter...

What is it about the endgame that means that they suddenly start to favour the move that drags the game out the longest rather than the move that allows their opponent the biggest chance to screw up?

And actually, they often don't even play the 'drag it out longest' move, they seem to just pick moves at random for no reason.

And that means that I can often beat stockfish in positions which I have no idea how to win against someone who hasn't given up.

Maia does seem to fix this. She plays well in the endgame.

I wonder if it's possible to layer the two things, so that if standard stockfish sees that all moves are equivalent, it can hand off to maia to choose which one to play rather than rolling dice?

Oh that's nice, thanks, looks like if I can figure out how to submit a form from anki I'll be home and dry....

I can feel some python coming on...