Should Presidents Be able To Spot Three Move Forced Checkmates?

[David Sklansky]

People bend over backwards to dispute my contention that those who believe that silly religious stories actually make objective sense, or that those who are weak in mathematical reasoning, are not apt to be as as good a president as the best of those who don't have these attributes.

I think part of their disagreement is a reflexive desire to avoid some sort of prejudice or elitism.

To avoid this knee jerk response, I'll change the question.
Anybody who learns how to play chess and has a few hundred games under their belt should be able to solve just about any three move checkmate puzzle in a reasonable amount of time. You don't have to be a master or anywhere close to it. But some people who have fully understand the rules of chess and play it regularly still struggle with these puzzles.

Obviously no presidential candidate is going to learn chess, play it awhile, and then submit to testing. But if we assumed they did, isn't it clear that those candidates who had the greatest difficulty with these forced checkmate problems, to the point of not being able to do many of them, almost automatically disqualify themselves from being as good a president as those who can do these problems and are otherwise qualified?

[luckyme]

You're on the right track and it doesn't seem too much to ask but it's not the main skill lacking in a president....too focused. The ability to see the big picture and how all the seemingly separate issues influence and play into it is relatively scarce in people in general.

Playing a strategy game, even Risk, decently would hint at having such skills. Gates and buffet play bridge, for example.

luckyme

[ALawPoker]

I guess, but it wouldn't matter much. Because someone who proves himself to be smart will not necessarily govern according to his wits. He (like every politician who is good at getting elected) will be more likely to govern in a way where he's perceived to be solving problems rather than necessarily actually solving them. So he is no better than the whims of his masses.

For example, if nobody cared about illegal immigration, a rational legislator would do nothing about it, even if he saw some option which was +EV for the country. He would rather wait until the problem reached crisis stage and people cared so that he could get credit for solving the problem, or even just for aggressively fighting it. His being smart doesn't really help us in the way you're implying it does, because the name of the game is just satisfying knee jerks anyways.

But sure, it wouldn't hurt, all else being equal. I happen to think that being a fellow human means he should be disqualified from making decisions for me. But if we're talking from the assumption that the President actually solves problems and is a +EV thing for us, then sure, I agree with you that it would help for him to be analytically smart.

[eMbAh]

I think presidents should be able to solve the chess problems, but I don't think there should be a test

[tame_deuces]

No, I don't think there is any correlation between being a moderately skilled chess player and being a good leader. I think good leadership on that high level would be more along the lines of seeing when you need different skillsets and perhaps hire a 'skilled chess player' to be his advisor should he ever need that specific skill.

[thylacine]

DS, your missing the real point. A president needs to be able to delegate someone who can solve these problems competently. A bad president appoints someone who is terrible at solving these problems, and blindly sticks with them no matter how obviously bad things get.

[JayTee]

[ QUOTE ]
DS, your missing the real point. A president needs to be able to delegate someone who can solve these problems competently. A bad president appoints someone who is terrible at solving these problems, and blindly sticks with them no matter how obviously bad things get.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the point is, if the president can't solve this reasoning problem that most people can, how can you be assured that he can competently delegate authority?

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
DS, your missing the real point. A president needs to be able to delegate someone who can solve these problems competently. A bad president appoints someone who is terrible at solving these problems, and blindly sticks with them no matter how obviously bad things get.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the point is, if the president can't solve this reasoning problem that most people can, how can you be assured that he can competently delegate authority?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because seeing that a problem is there is not linked to being able to solve it in most cases. Also you must assume that a well put together organization will have capable advisors and people acting as 'eyes and ears'.

Now, if the cabinet and administration as a whole is unable to solve a 3-move puzzle given some time, then you can start worrying. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[JayTee]

[ QUOTE ]

No, I don't think there is any correlation between being a moderately skilled chess player and being a good leader. I think good leadership on that high level would be more along the lines of seeing when you need different skillsets and perhaps hire a 'skilled chess player' to be his advisor should he ever need that specific skill.

[/ QUOTE ]

A direct correlation isn't necessary.

All people who can solve the 3 move problem can't be good Presidents.

All people who can be good Presidents can solve the 3 move problem.

A good president doesn't have to be able to solve the problem without spending a sufficient amount of time studying chess.

A good president, who has devoted sufficient time to studying chess, should be able to solve the problem.

[BlueBear]

Solving 3-move checkmates is a skill that lacks much similarity to any real life problems.

The hardest 3-move checkmates problems can also be very abstract problems.