Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulsutter | Hacker News Reader

Status-seeking is the reason folks focus on professional running, or professional chess, or any of these very hardcore, very difficult endeavors that have no practical purpose.

Someone once commented that men make extraordinary efforts to impress women, yet in general have very little understanding of what women actually like. This explains jacked-up trucks, professional chess, professional running, etc

EDIT: I'm talking about professional-level running or chess, not the hobbies of running or chess

View on HN

Surely nobody becomes a professional chess player because they think it will impress women.

I think you dismiss the thrill of being really good at something.

We humans get a lot of satisfaction of improving and competing in all sorts of activities.

The world is so big that for any activity you'll find a good deal of people obsessed with that activity, and making it their life's work to perfect it.

I feel like for most competitive activities like this, who you really want to impress is other people who do that same activity. (I play competitive scrabble, for which there is approximately zero recognition in the "outside world", but having your fellow scrabble players recognise your ability counts for a lot.)

And yet so many men refuse to believe that women wear fancy dress and makeup for each other, not for men.

Is there no room for enjoyment of the activity? Does every endeavour have to be couched in the language of self-consciousness?

So too, the appreciation of excellence

> Someone once commented that men make extraordinary efforts to impress women,

While that is undoubtedly true, I suspect no one becomes a professional chess player for the ladies.

They do it because they like, they're good at it, and they (if good enough) can make a living with it.

>Someone once commented that men make extraordinary efforts to impress women

You are seriously suggesting that people go pro in X/Y/Z mostly because they want to impress girls? Oo

It is pretty well known that all civilization was just an effort to impress the opposite sex (and sometimes the same sex), as explained in this educational film about the dangers of sex robots [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrADTN-dvg

Because it is fun.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com