Mr. Pinto: I read your original missive and I have to say that I chose to address the anguish expressed by you on the Chess question exclusively, not having an ax to grind in the issue of Hindu vs. all others in the field of human achievements. If you say that Goan Diaspora kids are non achievers, you must have sufficient data points to substantiate your thesis. On the other hand I know many high achieving second generation Goan kids who make us very proud. I know a girl who was elected home coming Queen by over 3000 fellow students. I know kids who were elected Presidents of the Honor Society. I know girls who dominated the local High School Tennis scene. I know kids who excelled at the spelling bee and so on-I know a kid who graduated Magna Cum Laude from an engineering program in a World Class University All you have to do is look around But I have to agree with you life in Goa was good. You could get plenty of respect just by letting people know about your high birth. Over here in the world outside Goa you have to prove your worth over and over again. There are people who claim superiority by nationality, by race and by physical attributes -so it is not easy and I can see why you feel sorry for the Goan kids who have to compete with all that and end up disheartened and lose their gumption and self confidence. Anyway on the subject of chess, you have to be a chess player to appreciate the paradigm shift that took place once the machines started dominating. That motorcycles run faster than humans is a bad analogy here, because we always knew that we were not the fastest on this earth; there are cheetahs, horses and even birds that run faster than us. So it is quite ok to hold trials to determine who can run faster among the humans. In Chess things were vastly different. We were always led to believe that no one, no machine could outthink us. Homo sapiens were at the top of that activity. So after Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, the landscape has dramatically changed. Chess is still a fun game and people can go through the motions of crowning local champions but the specter of the machines at the top will continue to haunt us. Nobody believes that the humans are evolving fast enough to compete with the machines in this field. There will not be any new chess moves or opening strategies named after great human champions, no new Alekhine's defense or Nimzowitsch defense or Grunfeld Indian defense – all because of the rise of the Artificial Intelligence. Regards, E.
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