• BanMe@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      It became a meme a few years ago, people would post problems like this and argue about whose was right, as if there were no objective truth. It hurt to watch.

      • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.de
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        20 days ago

        Arguably, there is no objective truth, since the symbols and rules of mathematics are assigned arbitrarily, and are basically a social contract, just like language!

        …Wait, that means there’s no objective meaning of “objective”, crap

        • Arguably, there is no objective truth

          Yes there is, just look in Maths textbooks

          since the symbols and rules of mathematics are assigned arbitrarily

          The signs are, the rules aren’t.

          are basically a social contract, just like language!

          Nope and nope. It’s a tool for calculating things, nothing like a language at all.

          no objective meaning of “objective”

          There is, in a dictionary, just like the rules of Maths are in Maths textbooks

        • BanMe@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          Well yeah take enough shrooms and everything is suddenly exposed as the artificial construct that it is. But we don’t have time to wake up and reinvent language every morning ;)

      • bountygiver [any]@lemmy.ml
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        21 days ago

        ya this one is super unambiguously PEMDAS, the one that has more of an argument is the one with the division of whether a/b(c) is a / (b * c) or (a / b) * c

    • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      21 days ago

      In the rest of the world: yes.

      In the US: I highly doubt it.

      This is just basic math, if you can’t figure this out you’re probably 8 years old.

        • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 days ago

          Yeah, but even worse, you’re just talking about schools. You forgot about all the kids being home schooled, taught the earth is flat and an imaginary friend created everything in 7 days. Taught by parents who lack proper education themselves.

          Also, it’s kinda obvious the rules of math aren’t different in the US. Even when they use an idiotic measuring system. If people don’t know how to use math properly, the issue clearly is the education and not math itself.

          • Yeah, but even worse, you’re just talking about schools

            I’m talking about anyone at all in the U.S. is allowed to teach Maths without any Maths qualifications

            You forgot about all the kids being home schooled

            That happens in other countries too, and yet it’s the U.S. which has been sliding down the world rankings for more than a decade, the country that doesn’t require Maths teachers to have Maths qualifications.

            Also, it’s kinda obvious the rules of math aren’t different in the US

            That’s right, as proven by U.S. Maths textbooks

            If people don’t know how to use math properly, the issue clearly is the education and not math itself

            Partly right. there’s also people who just outright forgot the rules.

            • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              4 days ago

              Partly right. there’s also people who just outright forgot the rules.

              It doesn’t really matter, who needs math anyway? If the president can claim medicine prices will go down 1200%…

                • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  4 days ago

                  I was joking. I was being sarcastic. I was making fun of the US president because he doesn’t understand the concept op percentages. You know, something you learn during basic math in primary school. All while being the freaking president. A potato as a president is tearing down the already fucked up education system, replacing it with his propaganda.

                  The president’s net approval rating is -16%, up 2.3 points since last week. 41% approve, 57% disapprove, 4% not sure.

                  Source: The economist

                  This means only 57% consists of people who knew he was criminal pedophile piece of shit, or recently realized because they trusted his lies over facts before. That also means the rest (except the 1% of people who hold all the wealth and actually love him for getting even more rich at the cost of everyone else, thanks to him) are too dumb to understand what 2+2 is. Also the journalist from The Economist, even though the paper is British, because when you add up those percentages you get a total of a 102%.

                  By now the movie Idiocracy is no longer a comedy, it’s a prediction of the very near future of the US. An optimistic one, because in the movie they didn’t kill themselves or blew up the entire world.

                  • 💡𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌📱@programming.dev
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                    4 days ago

                    I was joking

                    Ok, fair enough, but you know some of his followers are dead serious about it, right? I’ve seen Dr. Oz defending him as being correct. A smiley goes a long way

                    A potato as a president is tearing down the already fucked up education system

                    Yep, and a large number of his followers think that is a good thing, because they think teachers are brainwashing children 😂

        • banshee@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          In all fairness, I grew up in a small town in a very red state, but the education system there proved better than larger, more progressive parts of the state. The education I received was likely an outlier and not representative of the norm, but it did teach me that educators in an area do not necessarily mirror the rest of the population.

        • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          20 days ago

          Fix? It’s a duster fire. It may be hard to deal with, but a total collapse and completely rebuilding it feels like the better solution to the problem (so not based on a constitution made in completely different times with muskets and without internet etc).

          So you were taught math. What languages did you learn besides English? What history did you learn, just US or also of other countries and the rest of the world? And talking about the rest of the world, how much did you learn about that? Countries, cultures, cities, geographic features like mountains, seas, etc. and how they were formed? What religions were taught about? What about history of music and art?

        • banshee@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          Thanks for confirming. I probably sounded too condescending but I wasn’t sure if it was a false memory.

          I loved math as a kid though, so I ran through the curriculum as fast as I could to get to the good stuff. I think having older siblings helped - it gave me a preview of more interesting material.

        • TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          20 days ago

          My memory is shit, it was apparently 27 years ago if you’re right but I have no recollection to when it was. But it’s like cycling: it’s simple and once learned you never forget it.

          Now I’m learning how to weld. We’re learning Ohm’s law, which is the same as order of calculation: easy basic shit, a bit far in my memory but you never forget it. But others in my class are really struggling with it. I don’t get it.

          U = I R so R = U / I and I = U / R. P = U I so U = P / I and I = U / P. U=Volt, I=Ampère, R=Ω(Ohm), P=Watt

          This was first year in high school if I remember correctly.