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Comment by yewenjie | Hacker News Reader

I have said this countless times, and I will say it again - it is just marvelous how Lichess provides so much value being completely free (both libre and gratis).

I would love to see more publicity of Lichess though - and seems like this move will help in that regard.

I don't know for sure, but is there any other chess organization in the world of this scope that is truly non-profit? Sure, FIDE itself is non-profit, but profit-motives of its commercial counterparts and allies are controversial, to say the least.

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FIDE's finances are the sort of finances where your Swiss bank terminates all of your accounts in response to OFAC sanctions against terrorist states [0].

I don't think they belong on this list, even if they technically are a nonprofit!

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43053626

> after a statement on it's website said he had resigned.

Sort of insane how the BBC missed the correct form of the possessive.

The BBC website is full of sloppy writing, not to mention straight-up clickbait, these days. It's kind of sad.

Don't forget the casual racism: [0]

Which is part of their racist, institutionally colonial makeup at the top, according to their own staff: [1]

Then there's how they treated Corbyn, or how they "covered" Assange, or their role in the war on terror, etc, etc.

They don't deserve your pity. They've been like this for a long time.

[0] - https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/irish-people-rage-over-...

[1] - https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bbc-institutionally-r...

As a rule, if an article uses [sic] in ANY part of its reporting it better have been scrubbed clean by an editor to not have any typos of its own.

Imagine if those sanctions had been successful and the “moderate rebels” had taken over Syria. It’s incredulous how atrocious Western foreign policy has become.

Also worth noting that the current "Director Of Content" for reddit is from Atlantic Council.

Its board of directors has been and continues to be a who’s who of high U.S. statespeople like Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, as well as senior military commanders such as retired generals Wesley Clark, David Petraeus, H.R. McMaster, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, the late Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, and Admiral James Stavridis. At least seven former CIA directors are also on the board.

(Colin Powell died about a year ago.)

To be fair the parent comment was saying that the current director of content for Reddit is ALSO part of the Atlantic council, then says the Atlantic council is and has been made up of those individuals. Powell could have been on that council before his death at some point.

The reddit board of directors? That doesn't seem right https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US

Now, what I meant is Reddit director of content was transplanted from Atlantic council which had these politicians as board

Who were these "moderate rebels" in Syria?

They were radical Islamists who would have made the Saudis and Ayatollahs blush. Just one step down from ISIS. There was a tiny liberal faction that barely existed, and of course, that’s what the western propaganda focused on.

Al Qaeda. Yes, the US Government sponsored the Al Qaeda in Syria. Our media, left and right, referred to them as "rebels" throughout the conflict. I found it wierd that the key US faction was referred to by a generic term "rebels" until I Googled. And then holy shit! WTF!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nusra_Front

While it was designated as a terrorist group it was tactically supping by both US and Israel. Russia defeated ISIS, against the best efforts of the United states. The United states merely wanted to move ISIS out of Iraq into Syria.

https://mronline.org/2022/04/23/al-qaeda-is-on-our-side/

So much for 9/11 - never forget.

While I hate Trump as much as anyone could, I give him credit for keeping the peace in Syria and Ukraine, that clearly the Democrat leaders have zero desire for. Fox news attacked Obama for his birth certificate, but steered absolutely clear of Obama's sponsorship of Al Qaeda. The US media is beyond fucked and committed to US Imperialism 100%. Watching CNN/FOX is simply 2 alternative recipes for getting brainwashed, though Fox is objectively worse.

> It’s incredulous how atrocious Western foreign policy has become.

Always has been.

Have we forgotten Afghanistan, circa 1980s to 1990s? Who could have foreseen that when you uncork the 'religious nationalism' bottle, the end result might be something that won't dance to your strings...

Ownership and influence of chess companies and FIDE sponsoring is not very transparent. This article for instance claims that Mark Scheinberg has a chess.com stake.

https://www.uktech.news/news/this-european-vc-wants-to-inves...

The Scheinberg family also sponsors FIDE:

https://www.fide.com/news/1694

There is or was FICS, the free internet chess server. It never really had a web interface afaik.

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