Russian Police Seize Kasparov

An anonymous reader writes "Russian police seized Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess champion, for staging a political rally against Vladimir Putin. IBM's Deep Blue computer was the first to beat a world champion when it defeated Kasparov, who is one of the strongest players in history." He's also been a giant critic of the Russian administration which is increasingly restricting free speech.

In Soviet Russia

[EaglemanBSA]

In Soviet Russia, they sieze dissidents. What, you were expecting a joke? 'Cuz this isn't funny.

gratuitous IBM inclusion

[gargletheape]

Surely a story about the greatest chessplayer of all time, and a key campaigner for civil liberties in Soviet Russia counts as "news for nerds" without some Deep Blue window-dressing. Do we really need to fake-tag this story as being about supercomputers to get it here?

"Stern but fair?"

[qw0ntum]

Who tagged this "Stern but fair"? Please explain how this is "fair" and not just more of Putin's power grab?

Surprised?

[Pecisk]

Russia never was a democracy, and never wanted to be. At least seems to me.

Yeah, I know, it sucks, because no one wants another Cold War. But seemingly US and West pays now for their lack of involvement of helping Russia to scurb corruption, investigating old crimes and anything else.

Now we all pay the price.

Re:"against"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the recent ouster of Australia's pygmy fascist Howard does not restore confidence, since that public already elected Howard twice, the second time unforgivably

You're butting up against the ugly side of democracy. Being a democracy it means that people who don't think the same as you do get to cast their ballots. Whether you like it or not.

Asking for a democracy in which the only people that are elected are the ones you like isn't asking for much of a democracy.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[shutdown -p now]

In Putin's Russia, they seize dissidents.
In Soviet Russia, they shoot dissidents.
Not quite there yet, guys.

this is all still a remnant of Gorbachev's legacy

[jacquesm]

If the transition had been a little milder than it was then the crime bosses in Russia would not have been able to grab as much as they did. The last thing the new 'vlasti' want is to have their playground taken away from them. This is going to be an extremely tense time for Russia.

Re:obigatory joke

[SlashThat]

Actually this might benefit Kasparov's cause. He's a respected person both in Russia and abroad, and a move like this could provoke a stronger protest against Putin. I trust Kasparov has calculated this 6 moves ahead :)

Re:In Soviet Russia

[calebt3]

I hope you are kidding. If not, your ignorance amazes me.

Re:Don't Worry

[G3ckoG33k]

Well, as Kasparov was born "Garri Weinstein" you might be correct. It might be that name the Russian's shun; history tells us so.

Re:Someone sieze that bitch Hillary

[rednip]

I wish our president had such powers to sieze anti-American politicians like Clinton

I thought that was funny as hell and was about to moderate it as such, but the sad thing is, I'm not sure if hes kidding. As I've heard people say in all seriousness such things.

Re:obligatory joke

[Aminion]

I hope that you are right, but if the world hasn't been able to do anything about Russia's horrible crimes against the people of Chechnya, how big are the chances that Kasparov can make a difference? Also, don't forget that Putin's approval ratings are pretty high even if you disbelieve the official statistics from the Kremlin, i.e. the Russians themselves might not even care about this and that is what's really required here. You can't force changes like this from the outside (are you going to sanction Russia? Use military force? Hardly), it has to come from the people of Russia.

Mods

[Morosoph]

The mods are particularly humourless today. I hope that the parent modder is justly punished in meta-mod.

In chess, you seize the opponent's King.

Re:"Stern but fair?"

[Anonymous Coward]

kasparov is linked with limonov's national blolshevik party [wikipedia.org]. they are nazi communists [seriously, read the link] and linked to violent and terrorist acts. they're exactly the kind of group that would be banned in the US. of course because russia is now an official enemy it's 'restricting free speech'. thank the lord americans have a 2 minute attention span, otherwise they'd forget how putin was anointed by yeltsin and how the US gave both of them money and free campaign advisors to make sure they'd win against exactly the same people we're supposed to shed tears for. the naivete of basement dwellers when it comes to international politics is clearly limitless.

Re:Someone sieze that bitch Hillary

[neomunk]

Move to Saudi Arabia then you too-scared-to-live-in-a-democracy little pussy. I can't stand Clinton either, but I'm not so pussyfied that I'd wanter her arrested for scaring me.

If you can't handle freedom, go somewhere where you can have big-daddy-authority-figure hold your hand and change your diaper. Scared little bitch.

Do YOU have a problem with THAT, you anonymous little shitstain?
 

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[account_deleted]

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In Soviet Russia...

[turgid]

...under Gorbachev, at least, people had much more freedom of speech than this.

This is a personal tragedy for Kasparov, but dangerous for the rest of the world too.

Re:Since slashdot is also against free speech

[Synn]

Free speech doesn't apply to private property like Slashdot.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:In Soviet Russia

[blackest_k]

then there is the polonium option for when in the uk. followed up by a run for political office.

In putin's russia they deny shooting dissidents.

To be fair though you can be accidently shot in the head five times in the UK If your french you can blow up boats in new zealand and if your mossad you can pretty much do as you please. Of course if your in bhopal then even corporations get to cause bloody mayhem.

depressing isn't it.

Re:Since slashdot is also against free speech

[neomunk]

Yeah, damn slashdot for being so against freedom of speech that they removed your post. I'm outraged! I REALLY wanted to reply and tell you how right you are, but now I just CAN'T because slashdot has gone and censored you. ...

Show me the censorship. That's all I ask. Back that childish whining up with some bruises from the abuse you've taken. Oh, that's right, slashdot doesn't censor.... ever. That's right, I said it, EVER, as in being an absolute (I'm the kind of guy that likes to tack qualifiers and quantifiers on everything). That's why it's one of the few places I actually post instead of lurk. (I know, it looks like I'm saying I troll alot, I don't, I troll alittle, (and almost exclusively non-anon) I'm just principled about free speech like that)

As far as your list of topics goes, you're not being censored, you're RIGHTLY being pushed to the back of the room by the CROWD (not the site) for being a... well... what IS the right-wing equivalent of a tin foil hat wearer? Oh yes, a Kool-Aid drinker. Very few of the little factoids you present have any basis in real-life at ALL, and those that do have a tenuous connection to reality at best.

To sum up: You're not being censored for being 'edgy', you're being ignored for being ridiculous. You don't get to be a martyr for that.

Re:gratuitous IBM inclusion

[TheMiddleRoad]

They weren't invited. Candidates who haven't a snowball's chance in hell of winning are usually barred from major debates seeing as their inclusion would be a waste of time. The Peace and Freedom, Communist, and leading Nazi candidates wouldn't have been allowed in either. This is totally different from arresting them for just being opposition candidates.

Nobody is watching.

[moxley]

Now that the US has become transparently hypocritical to it's own citizens and the rest of the world in regard to "democracy" and civil liberties, there is no country to serve as the example/beacon/leader of "democracy."

Obviously it isn't quite that simple; I don't for a minute think that the current administration (or many before) even cares about the rights of it's own citizens tpo petition for redress, let alone the citizens of Russia - but now they can't even pretend to pressure these other countries to allow freedom of speech and respect the rights of the individual.

Unfortunately it seems like things are trending toward the corporations and governments getting all of the rights, basically becoming untouchable - while the individual is is losing rights, control and even "having a say" by the day.

Thug-ocracy

[MajorBlunder]

I spent a couple of years living in Russia back in the Yeltsin years of the mid 90's. Overall Russians are extremely friendly and hospitable, but they have a long sad history of instituting governments that are in effect a legitimized mafia. From the 10th through the 19th centuries the rule of the Tsars were essentially a gang of thugs with pretensions of royalty. The better part of the 20th century they switched to a government that was another gang of thugs with pretense of communism. And now they have switched to a new band of thugs with pretensions of democracy. (Actually this is still the same band of thugs as the communist ones, they just switched pretensions). It seems that Putin is slowly dropping any pretense of democracy.

Re:Don't Worry

[fastest fascist]

3. It was an honest opinion, expressed in support of a guy doing things how Bush would like to, if he could.

A *hard* challenge for AI

[rbrander]

When an AI can mimic *this* aspect of human intelligence and decide to risk a change from "well-off and greatly respected", to being shut in a concrete box, all for the greater good of its fellows, THEN I'll be impressed with AI.

Until then, its just a glorified calculator brute-forcing its way through a mechanical computation, as impressive as a newspaper press making 500,000 copies of todays celebrity news faster than 50,000 human scribes.

Help, help, he's being oppressed!

[roystgnr]

There's a difference between being "against free speech" by imprisoning the speaker and being "against free speech" by posting things which contradict a speaker's arguments. I'm sorry if you've been emotionally scarred by the latter experience, but my advice is to try sucking it up, accepting that some of your opinions are unsubstantiated and unpopular, and moving on.

Claiming that it's cowardly to protest Bush and get stuffed into the Pier 57 cages just makes it seem more pathetic that you're simultaneously whining about Slashdot users modding you down. Somehow I'm guessing you're not battling the evil Modstapo from an airport wifi connection on your way to Darfur.

Re:gratuitous IBM inclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's a good reason to stop them from speaking... They ARE the real opposition candidates. The 2 sides of the same coin will ALWAYS make sure a third party isn't allowed to arise, because it might be slightly different from the norm...

Agreed

[einhverfr]

I would add that Iran is clearly far more democratic than Russia is today. Russia is more like Iraq under Saddam, where elections occur but nobody has any possibility of being elected except Putin. Despite meddling in the elections by the Council of Guardians, there are actual and real political dynamics which exist in Iran today. No such real dynamics occur under Russia today.

The big difference is that, unlike Saddam, Putin actually does have weapons of mass destruction.

Re:obigatory joke

[ShieldW0lf]

See, I don't see Fox News as a directly Pro-Bush station. I see it as a fear-mongering tool, used to keep the population too insane from a bombardment of propaganda intended to incite reactionary fear to be capable of voting in an intelligent and measured fashion.

The efforts of Kasparov and his ilk are after the same sort of thing. Make people too afraid to co-operate and trust in each other so they can be turned against each other and exploited, like we do here in North America.

No, I think I'd like it more if we started taking a page out of their book, instead of the other way around.

Re:Agreed

[tftp]

The big difference is that, unlike Saddam, Putin actually does have weapons of mass destruction.

And another big difference is that not much you can do about this :-)

But really all this naming game ("democracy", "dictatorship", "monarchy") starts getting silly. We now see, on US's own example, that democracy does not work (it's too easy to manipulate.) In Europe you can see that the democratic governments are pandering to the electors instead of doing the right things. So why all the surprises that for Russia a different model seems to be optimal, based on an elected, strong ruler who defends the stability of the country against all wandering salesmen of snake oil? It doesn't have to be a hereditary monarchy, of course, but people like long term stability. For example, US politicians are mostly concerned about reelecting themselves rather than about doing the job regardless of what the people think. There is a reason why US Supreme Court judges are given the job for life. But this is a delicate balancing act, obviously - a bad ruler can, and will hurt the country.

If you look around the world, there are just as many definitions of democracy as there are democratic countries. Deal with countries as they are, and not as you'd like them to be. Those countries know better, and the test for it is in popular opinion - it is somewhat harder to influence than an election.

Re:obligatory joke

[flosofl]

By comparison, rich foreign capitalists who want to plunder Russia support Kasparov

Instead, rich, domestic capitalists are not only plundering Russia, they're raping it to death. Kleptocratic oligarchy FTW!

Re:Agreed

[zzidre]

Don't get me wrong, but when a son takes the presidency after his father, only delayed by a man whose wife is likely to take it over after them all, it really looks like the difference is only that there are two elite groupings instead of one.

Re:The Deep Blue Cheated

[bussdriver]

I suggest curious people look into the chess match. I did at the time and I had a little A.I. experience and gained a little more since then. Chess is an interesting test because the problem is so vast that brute force attacks are unrealistic; although, still used by computers since it helps and they can out calculate humans. In terms of actually learning to play chess well, computers have a long way to go.

I'll consider computers as better at chess when they can honestly beat someone at Kasparov's peak WITHOUT unfair advantages such as a whole team of engineers tweaking the system DURING AND IN BETWEEN MATCHES!

The purpose of the chess exercise is to develop Applied Intelligence so it can be approximately as good as a human and hopefully learn enough to apply the discovered concepts to other areas. Any advancement in Applied Intelligence is a win since that is the true purpose for the game. Actually, 'winning' is actually a loss for Applied Intelligence as well as A.I. and sadly IBM was only thinking of themselves when they got lucky. They dare not risk losing again-- after all, they LOST ALL THE TIME until they finally beat a top human once.

Life is a non-linear approximation ;-)

Re:obligatory joke

[Foobar of Borg]

Is this guy from the KGB? Or how they call it now... FSB?

Yes, I always wondered how a former top KGB man could be elected President of the Russian Federation. It would be as dumb as, say, a former head of the CIA being elected President of the U.S.

Re:obigatory joke

[Xonstantine]

I think your country is seriously fucked up, and as a foreigner, I'd fear for my safety.

I think our country is seriously fucked up too, but then again, name me one that has a population over 5 million people and isn't fucked up. But the great thing about our country IS Fox news, or rather, if you don't like Fox news, you don't have to watch it. There are other media outlets to satisfy your progressive tastes. And if you are the type that likes Fox news or the 700 Club, well, that's available for you as well. We don't have some government autocrat dictating what's allowed and what isn't allowed and poisoning or beating to death dissident journalists that criticize the President and are anti-war (which has happened in Russia to people who criticized Putin and the war in Chechnya...short life expectancy, that carries). So, holding up Russia as something admirable because of the real life oppression that is there the way you do is stupid. Really stupid.

Re:obligatory joke

[SlashThat]

Well first of all I meant the guy from the dumb pro-Putin posts above, not Putin himself.
But you raise a good point. No, it's not as dumb, it's much worse. You can't compare CIA to KGB. As much as CIA is disliked in the US (and people really love to hate CIA, it's so "in"...), they really don't deserve this treatment. The CIA's job, and this should be really trivial when you think about it, is to PROTECT american citizens, and this is what they do every day. Often while endangering their own lives. I really don't understand just how ungrateful people can be (btw, I'm not an american citizen, so I consider myself to have an unbiased view on this). I truely believe that most of the CIA staff are really good people who do they best to protect the citizens of US. How they keep doing this in such an ungrateful environment is a mistery to me.
The KGB's job, on the other hand, was to spy on and torture Soviet citizens. So no comparison here. To elect a president from KGB is really a kind of masochism.