@BretDevereaux Recently discovered your blog, and it's amazing. With my 2 cents and 0 perspective, I was wondering: Have you ever considered doing a blog post on the perception of chess, especially in how it's related to perceptions of intelligence and especially military skill?
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It's a decent topic for a fireside. In practice, I *profoundly* dislike the way chess is used as hollywood shorthand for 'smart person' and how 'genius' tropes influence the perception of intelligence. I'm around super-smart people all the time and they look nothing like that.
Both in the sense of not being Big-Bang-Theory-esque social-morons, but also in the sense of not being inhuman alien intellects. Smart people are just regular people that think a bit faster. We're not special.