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Internet chess and the downfall of the chess club...

I don't think progress is the issue. Convenience would be a more appropriate word I think. At least til online chess can emulate the experience of playing over the board in a club or social gathering setting.
Although I'm not old enough to have experienced that, I see what you mean... I used to go to a kids chess club and the satisfaction of seeing an opponents face as he realizes that you've forked his king and queen with a knight is timeless :) We could use lichess to find other players in our area and have get-togethers. Thibaut is doing that in france, I think.
The nearest chess club to me is almost 2 hours away. I've never played in a club.

It's true that libraries are disappearing. I've lived in 3 different towns that had no library.

Video stores are similarly vanishing.

A book called "Bold New World" denotes this phenomenon as being a symptom of a growing "placeless society".
The average citizen today is likely to spend the vast majority of their time in a virtual reality of some kind. Physical society and culture still exist – but most eschew them, in favour of the Godlike abilities they can experience online. It is very rare to meet a friend or colleague in person now. You are far more likely to encounter a form of artificial intelligence today, than you are a living, breathing human. Urban centres have become eerily deserted, with most people to be found in their homes – or in digital libraries and entertainment venues – engaged in complex simulations that offer perfect recreations of the real world. To observers from earlier centuries, these virtual environments would appear truly dazzling in their speed and complexity, with an almost unimaginable level of detail, creativity and ingenuity.

A trend which began during the Industrial Revolution has now reached its ultimate conclusion. Working hours had gradually declined over the centuries, thanks to a combination of technology, automation, improvements in working conditions and employee rights, changing labour demands and a shift in the cultural zeitgeist. By 2050, the average person in a developed country was employed for under 30 hours per week and this fell to 20 hours by 2100. Working hours continued to fall in the 22nd century as machines – including life-like androids – took on ever more complex and sophisticated roles.

As humans began to enhance their cognitive abilities, the nature of work itself was changing. More and more people were moving from "drudge" jobs into their own personal, creative and intellectual pursuits. The line between work and play was beginning to blur. Some roles, for example, were now taking the form of extremely challenging "games", based on subjective anomalies and problems resulting from discoveries for which AI programs were unable to offer adequate explanations. Alongside this, average spending on various household items and utilities, when measured as a percentage of disposable income, was steadily declining.

By 2200, this trend is complete. In most countries, basic items such as food, energy and clothing are now essentially free, with little or no need for the average person to work in order to acquire them. Recent advances in replicator technology provide an abundance of resources – eliminating famine, disease and the need for war. Literally everything has been automated, digitised and made easier. Take the emergency services, for example. Hospital visits are rarely required now, as practically everything a person needs in terms of treatment is available at home, or within their own body. Police forces are dominated by robots and, in any case, physical crimes have been largely eradicated. Firefighters are no longer needed, since they are robotic too, while building regulations and nanotechnology materials can prevent most fires occurring in the first place.

This process of falling employment was, of course, by no means a smooth transition. It caused profound economic and political disruption throughout the 21st and 22nd centuries. By 2200, however, the world has fully adapted to these changes and is entering a period of artistic and cultural splendour the likes of which have never been seen before. Whether as explorers in space, or designers of entire new worlds in cyberspace, humans are free to pursue their greatest dreams and personal aspirations – unshackled from the confines of traditional economic and monetary systems.

I dream of such a future.
I have no hope at all that the direction we're headed will lead to that sort of Utopia by 2200.

Who wrote that, by the way?
It's very starry-eyed if you ask me, and is seriously prone to the lump of labour fallacy -- like most futurist ideas. I can see robots advancing to a point where they can match the 10,000 sensors on their hand at a greater rate of return than a human worker.

Alas, by then, resource depletion will have seriously taken its toll on industry and the Earth at large, which would make such a future financially unviable.

Source: Being an economist.

* * *

As for chess clubs, websites have easily surpassed them when it comes to playing chess games, but they obviously can't surpass them when it comes to face-to-face contact.

I don't know if the social factor alone will keep them from being obsoleted, but it's the only thing they still have going for them. Nonetheless, this excellent post has made me want to join a chess club. I'm sure there's one in London -- the largest city in Europe by urban, metropolitan AND administrative area!
This short essay was directly copy-pasted from futuretimeline.net. Only the very last line of it was added by me.
The Internet has given me so much, with asking so little in return. I would happily live in a world where all my intellectual and social needs could be met by just ... logging on to somewhere.
I'm optimistic that technology neither causes nor solves social problems. The fact that computers exist doesn't challenge the ability of willing people to get together: in my case, computers helped me find and join my local chess club!
Anybody that thinks that we're destined for Utopia is living in dreamland. The only possible saviour of the current population is nuclear fusion and it is eternally tomorrow......
The whole population wants a standard of living that is unsustainable. Those that have it, aren't about to give it up and those that haven't aren't going to stop wanting it. Yet as a documentary reminded me the other week - the whole world's annual investment in developing fusion power was equivalent to the UK's expense on chocolate bars and sweets...
We're doomed. Enjoy chess however you're able but at least try not to run the internet version on your gaming PC

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