A great explanation of why the rugged individual mythology is perpetuated by the knights.

Do they still become Queens when they make it to the other side?

*if they make it to the other side

Yes, making it to the other side is just leaving the egg

Keep in mind this is anecdotal but at the same time I don't think it's unique.

I understand the value of unions and I think the world is better off with them than without them.

But

Having worked in them as a teen I will say the union leadership is to not be trusted as much as the business owners. Birds of a feather. The problem is power and hierarchies.

What I also did not appreciate as a union member was being told by people who have been there longer "stop working so hard the quotas will go up and we will be expected to make more" like wtf?

I love unions in theory. In practice they're just as corrupt because they don't address the underlying problem if anything they put lipstick on the underlying problem.

That is why you vote and get involved.in your union. same as governments, dont just pay your due and hope for the best.

"stop working so hard the quotas will go up and we will be expected to make more"

They were right.

They are corrupt and don't address the problem because much of the union leadership are reactionaries opposed to people having real power. Unions used to literally fight the police and national guard, radical unions have been dismantled and co-opted continually for the last century. It's not just about holding power, it's about the underlying worldview of the groups in power as well, and any unions that meaningfully challenged the normal capitalist status quo have been crushed by the US security apparatus.

They forgot "mmmmm chezburger" in the second frame

Is it even possible to lose without a king?

This is why the revolution will never die.

You can stalemate it if you have no valid moves, or lose via time. I think you can technically lose to the repeated moves rule too? But then again that's applying tournament rules to this scenario so...

Some would say you've lost before you even began.

But there is an interesting chess variant called horde where Black must capture all of White's pieces to win.

I'll never forget when I transitioned from an internship to a full hire and the initial offer was lower than the pay range on the posting. Funny how they took the ranges off all future postings after I pointed that out.

Unfortunately modern day some of the pawns are not so secretly working for the black team (class collaborationist union management) and the judge (government) is ready to interfere to smack down the pawns if they start winning.

so the king just has to expend a few horses and the rest of us will block each other and never reach him.

it's hopeless. got it.

Black can only take eight pawns before losing all their knights. After that it's just a matter of laddering white pawns until they queen up

you guys alllll think that the only king on the board, protected by knights all around, is going to play by your poor people chess rules? well guess what, Not pictured all around the pawns.... are McDonald's, Starbucks, NASCAR, pop music stars, snipers, cameras, and a gun to all those pawns family members.

where is your god now

but that will allow some of the pawns to reach the end and transition, gaining superpowers

No. Your pawn game must be weak as fuck if that's how you read this board.

Okay, but now I want to see what the end state looks like for optimal (or near-optimal) play between both participants in this fucked-up chess variant.

It's pretty straight forward I think. Each side loses one piece every round. If white somehow runs out of pawns that can check the black king, or if the black king manages to get behind the pawns, white can still promote some of them and win.

Wouldn't promoted pawns join the other side? Like a manager getting a payrise

Ah, yeah, I guess I was forgetting about promoting. Agreed that white definitely wins then.

It's pretty clearly a win for white, unless black forces a stalemate. Those knights won't last and that's a fuckton of pawns, even ignoring promotion.

It would be tricksy trying to get checkmate without promoting any, but one or two promotions is all it would take to make it a sinch.

It would be tricksy trying to get checkmate without promoting any

So what you're saying is, the strategy of e.g. Occupy Wall Street, avoiding creating leaders, made it less effective than it could've been.

Not sure, I was just analyzing the chess board.

Although I will say that decentralized movements may tend to shoot themselves in the foot by failing to coalesce around any solid leadership.

There's good ways to do leadership and bad ways to do leadership. A movement can be grassroots and decentralized while still having leaders.

https://lichess.org/editor/2nnn3/2nkn3/2nnn3/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP_w_-_-_0_1?color=white

https://lichess.org/editor/2nnn3/2nkn3/2nnn3/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP_w_-_-_0_1?variant=horde&color=white

I let the engine fully analyze each move according to whatever the default settings are, and got:

[Variant "Horde"]
[FEN "2nnn3/2nkn3/2nnn3/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP/PPPPPPPP w - - 0 1"]

1. h6 N6f7 2. h7 Nf8 3. bxc6+ Nexc6 4. g6 Nh8 5. dxc6+ Nxc6 6. d5 Nxa5 7. bxa5 Nhxg6 8. fxg6 Nxg6 9. d4 Nh8 10. f5 Ke7 11. g5 Kf7 12. d6 Ne7 13. h5 Nc6 14. h6 Ne7 15. d7 Nc6 16. g6+ Kf8 17. a6 Nd8 18. dxe8=R+ Nxe8 19. a7 Ke7 20. g7 Kd7 21. gxh8=Q Nc7 22. Qg7+ Kc8 23. h8=Q Kb7 24. Qxd8 Kxa7 25. Qgxc7+ Ka6 26. Qdc8#

What I’ve learned is that some of us are gonna die, there’s no way around it.

Good news is I’m an idiot and managed to do it losing two pawns.

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