Xiangqi - Higher Level Strategy Than Chess

Caught some of the Bellishness. The guest was Matt Savinar, the oil guy. I don't know whether to believe what he talks about, but I'm open-minded. I'd like to know where people like this get their information. I'd like to be ablel to verify this stuff.

One thing that intrigues me is that these folk who make uncommon claims say things that I find to be true. Does that mean the rest of it is true? Not necessarily. It is easy to see that it is a trick of inference, if that's the right word. A false deduction can be easily made by a lazy mind that if a person says one thing that's true, then the rest of what that person says must be true, too.

Not necessarily so.

That said, here are some things he said that I believe to be true:

Money seeks the highest return and creating new killing technology makes more money than creating energy-saving technology, so the government and industry spend much more money on making bigger, badder weapons.

That seems to be the case, but it's hard to know full facts. The general knowledge most have is that we've used up the surplus and are back in massive debt due to the war. Who knows how much more is spent on the R&D end. And all the news that I can find on energy-saving technology, even the hard-to-come-by stuff, shows that it's private companies who are made up of folk who are socially and environmentally conscious individuals (which tends to mean they have limited funds) that are doing all the R&D here.

That money seeks the highest return fits the capitalist model. That's why teachers don't get paid much while there are grown folk who are being paid millions to play games (called sports). It seems backward, but I understand the process: The athletes generate much revenue, so they are rewarded in kind. Teachers don't bring in any profits, at least not directly. I like the quip that if teacher received residuals for the amount of profits their teaching produced (meaning the incomes of their past students), they'd all be multi-millionaires.

He also spoke of Cheney talking in '92 and '94 about how invading Iraq would be a huge and costly mistake. That's easily proven with footage that is easy to find.

Most notable to me is his mention of a game of strategy that is played all over China. He said that the Chinese think strategically far ahead of Americans. This is in large part because they grow up playing a game of strategy that is even at a higher level than chess. He said that the Russians grow up on chess, the Chinese play this game called Xiangqi, and Americans grow up on television.


This is what prompted me to play another game of chess (the four queens game) and look into this game called Xiangqi. I even found a way to play it on-line.