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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • Hi, fellow go player here!

    You are not alone. I’m the strongest regular at my go club, and when I ask if people want to pay even or with handicap, they 90% of the time choose even. I love the handicap system because it makes both sides have a close game, which is inherently more fun for everyone. And skill progress can be seen when their handicap decreases. The most common complaint I’ve heard against handicaps is that it changes the game too much. It does in terms of joseki and openings, but the important stuff which actually decides games—direction of play, fighting, evaluation of the board—still very much applies.

    I travelled to Japan recently and played three games at a go parlour. There was no asking for an even game. The stronger players said the handicap the game would be played with and that was that.

    In my country, that probably would be seen as rude because we don’t have that honour system. But maybe the solution is to just be more assertive and declare the handicap anyway. As a stronger player, people respect what I have to say, but I have never felt superior to anyone so I’ve always still asked. But if I say a handicap straight away, that respect means that people would probably just agree and play. And if they say that they’d rather play an even game instead, then we can! Maybe the solution is to make it opt-out instead of opt-in.






  • Removing guns (or at least access to them) can actually reduce the rate of suicide. Guns are quick and easy to use to commit suicide, whereas many other methods take time to set up and don’t work as often. When someone is feeling suicidal, often having that little bit of extra time can let the feeling decrease enough to prevent an attempt.

    Of course, removing access to guns doesn’t fix why people feel suicidal in the first place. That is a whole nother can of worms. But I expect everyone agrees that reducing the number of suicides is good.

    RAND: How Gun Policies Affect Suicide

    The consensus among public health experts is that there is strong evidence that reducing firearm suicides in contexts where more-lethal means of attempting suicide are unavailable will result in reductions in the total suicide rate (see, for example, Office of the Surgeon General and National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, 2012; World Health Organization, 2014; for review, see Azrael and Miller, 2016).

    Save.org: Restricting access to lethal means:

    Research has shown time and again that restricting access to lethal means or “means restriction” can saves lives. By restricting access to firearms and other highly lethal methods the decline in suicide rates by that method and overall suicide rates begin to decline. Restricting access to lethal means does not always lead to fewer deaths, but is one suicide prevention measure that merits further research and more individual-level intervention training to make lethal means less readily available.