What Makes the Cubing Community Special?

[cashis]

Lol, I wasn't trying to be deep, but thanks.

Yup, or like when a solve has super good flow or fast TPS.

Or when you get a six move X cross and see all three pairs in inspection and get a 4.2 *cough* feliks

 

[Rocky0701]

Or when you get 3.72 with a 24 move solution because of a lolscramble. *Cough* Drew

 

[sneaklyfox]

Average age and gender of our community could have easily been adult women

No way. Because 1) yes, most adults have a lot of more important things to do and 2) (someone's going to shoot me for this but fortunately I'm a woman) men and women are different in the head and men do normally have a greater natural affinity for cubing and related things. I think it's really silly for people to either not think so or be afraid to say so for the sake of political correctness.

 

[tseitsei]

7. That unlike something such as soccer or baseball or something, anyone can become pretty good at cubing with some practice.

This is just untrue.

You just need less practice hours to become "pretty good" at cubing (or any smaller sport that doesn't have millions of active people seriously training to become good) than at soccer (or any other popular sport with huge pool of talented people to choose the best from. And huge amounts of money too)...

This is nothing special. That's just how things work for obvious reasons. The more popular the sport or hobby is the harder it is to become world class in it... But anyone (with normally functioning body and brains) can become "pretty good" at any hobby they practice enough. Of course someone will always be more talented but practice means so much more than pure talent in (almost) every hobby...

 

[Nukenin16]

J. Fridrich
Guus Razoux Schultz
Marc Waterman
Anneke Treep
Lars Petrus
Jeffrey Varasano
...

All these people developed methods when they were teenagers, I believe.

J. Fridrich did not invent any methods, she popularized the "CFOP" method thats why some people call it "Fridrich Method". But she did came up with some algs. for it

 

[Nukenin16]

There is nothing special or unique about our community. You could take on any other hobby that you are passionate about and get involved in an identical community there. For example, before I got into speedcubing I was really into Age of Mythology. I was very involved with one of the main international forum communities then and it was much the same as this community (although significantly more developed).

That's not really true because there is something unique about cubing community the fact that we solve cubes, no other community that I know do that. But every community has something "unique" because there isn't 2 of the same community which doesn't really make it special but unique.

 

[rybaby]

J. Fridrich did not invent any methods, she popularized the "CFOP" method thats why some people call it "Fridrich Method". But she did came up with some algs. for it

Yes, that's why I included the word "developed." Several people's ideas formed the method; s/he found some algs for it (independently I believe). Guus Razoux Schultz was actually using CFCE at WC1982 while Fridrich used LBL strategies for the F2L. This is probably beside the point of the thread though.

 

[cmhardw]

2) (someone's going to shoot me for this but fortunately I'm a woman) men and women are different in the head and men do normally have a greater natural affinity for cubing and related things.

I don't think boys have a natural affinity for cubing that girls don't. More boys practice cubing regularly than girls, but I don't see how that means the boys have an affinity for it that the girls somehow lack.

 

[Dene]

That's not really true because there is something unique about cubing community the fact that we solve cubes, no other community that I know do that. But every community has something "unique" because there isn't 2 of the same community which doesn't really make it special but unique.

Ok but that's retarded for the very reason you said. Obviously the fact that we solve twisty puzzles fast is unique to our community, but every community forms around some common hobby. So in a way, every community has that one "unique" aspect, therefore there is nothing unique about it.

 

[IRNjuggle28]

no other hobby or sport (to me) has the unique rush of excitement from a PB or a finished blindsolve, and that's why I love this community and what we do.

Juggling has a hundred times more excitement from breaking PBs than cubing does. There are a lot of jugglers on here, and I bet they'll all tell you that. With cubing, it's a matter of how long it takes you to successfully solve the cube, so success is on a spectrum. With juggling, you either keep succeeding, or you drop. The line between success and failure is much more sudden in juggling than in cubing, and that makes succeeding more satisfying, and failing more agonizing.

 

[tseitsei]

Juggling has a hundred times more excitement from breaking PBs than cubing does. There are a lot of jugglers on here, and I bet they'll all tell you that. With cubing, it's a matter of how long it takes you to successfully solve the cube, so success is on a spectrum. With juggling, you either keep succeeding, or you drop. The line between success and failure is much more sudden in juggling than in cubing, and that makes succeeding more satisfying, and failing more agonizing.

I also juggle but I would say BLD solving is even more exciting. At least for me...

The moment when you know you did an amazingly fast solve and you still have your blindfold on. Then you slowly remove the blindfold and see a fully solved cube and look at the timer to see a new PB time :tu AWESOME

or you remove the blindfold to see 5bld dnf with 2 centers that would have been PB by a lot not so awesome...

 

[minstorm340]

I am part of the competitive gaming community, and can say that that community is much different than this.

 

[Seanliu]

I think that the answer is very simple: We can solve a Rubik's Cube and other puzzles that the average Muggle wouldn't have even dreamt of, faster than they can eat a potato sandwich with peanut butter in the middle.

 

[Tim Major]

I don't think boys have a natural affinity for cubing that girls don't. More boys practice cubing regularly than girls, but I don't see how that means the boys have an affinity for it that the girls somehow lack.

Why are the best cubers male? Because of physical genes? Then why are the best chess players, poker players etc male?

Men and women do not have identical brains

 

[JemFish]

Why are the best cubers male? Because of physical genes? Then why are the best chess players, poker players etc male?

Men and women do not have identical brains

Women and girls (often) say "oh I couldn't do that! It's too hard" whereas boys (often) go "let's give it a try."

 

[newtonbase]

I think the difference is less about ability and more about interest. If there were as many females as males who wanted to be good at speedsolving we would see the records shared much more evenly.

 

[Ingo]

There would be a lot more female cubers if cubes had a soft fur

 

[Tim Major]

Women and girls (often) say "oh I couldn't do that! It's too hard" whereas boys (often) go "let's give it a try."

Wouldn't that support what I, and sneaklyfox have stated?

 

[JemFish]

Wouldn't that support what I, and sneaklyfox have stated?

Er...yes...? Is that a problem?

 

[Dene]

I am part of the competitive gaming community, and can say that that community is much different than this.

Which community? I've been involved in several different gaming communities and I see little difference.