Maybe chess was wrong, it's adversarial. But there's definitely a qualitative leap between "adversary withing defined rules in a particular context" and "anything is on the table, they could kill you etc." kind of adversary
Any kind of competition is adversary; it's just that in most competitions, you'd be disadvantaged if it came to light that you didn't follow good sportmanship.
I disagree! I claim that most people follow rules out of a general sense of fair play rather than because they will be punished for not doing so. Certainly this is true of me, and I don't believe society would look the way it does if the cynical view were nearly universally correct.
Cheaters in games like Magic are very rare; if most people tried to cheat whenever they thought they could get away with it, we'd be forced to set up competitions with more stringent verifiable rules like (off the top of my head) "all cards must be drawn and given to you from your deck by the opponent". We haven't done that, so I infer that most people don't try to cheat.
(In your favour, I do concede that everyone writes down their individual understanding of the history of a given chess game; but there are weak instrumental reasons for that even if people aren't cheating, because it is possible to upset a board by accident.)
mgaunard|6 months ago
Smaug123|6 months ago
Cheaters in games like Magic are very rare; if most people tried to cheat whenever they thought they could get away with it, we'd be forced to set up competitions with more stringent verifiable rules like (off the top of my head) "all cards must be drawn and given to you from your deck by the opponent". We haven't done that, so I infer that most people don't try to cheat.
(In your favour, I do concede that everyone writes down their individual understanding of the history of a given chess game; but there are weak instrumental reasons for that even if people aren't cheating, because it is possible to upset a board by accident.)