9 ms·

This kind of comment contributes nothing to the discussion, it's just cheap outrage points.

jjj123 4y ago
I had the same thought as OP. Not outraged or anything, I just find it interesting. It reveals the bubble that I’m in more than anything, that the language stood out in the first place. I’m a man, and my partner is a man, basically no dinner I’ve been to in adult life has been boy-girl-boy-girl. If I was a mathematician this would never in a million years be the example I’d come up with.
- gweinberg 4y ago
  Well, how could they have been?
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    If they dined with a lesbian couple (or simply two female friends), they could sit alternating M/F with no one sitting next to their partner.
- bawolff 4y ago
  I was wondering if the implication was it was some sort of [straight] swinger party. With menage being the first part of menage a trois
  - whygender 4y ago
    Probably the word menage meant something sexual? I'm still confused why he/they/she would be upset by OP's comment
  - ghayes 4y ago
    ménage (Fr.) 1. (=nettoyage) housework faire le ménage - to do the housework une femme de ménage - a cleaning woman faire des ménages - to work as a cleaner (in people's homes) 2. (=couple) couple (=personnes mariées) married couple se mettre en ménage avec - to set up house with monter son ménage - to set up house faire bon ménage avec - to get on well with heureux en ménage - happily married 3. (Administration) (=famille) household [0] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/m%C3%A9nage https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/...
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Words can have connotations beyond their dictionary definitions.
  - menage 4y ago
    This association with the French word that happens to be my surname is something that I've encountered more since moving from the UK to the US. Possibly due to the proximity to France resulting in a lot more UK people learning French in school than those who grow up in the US?
- nullc 4y ago
  You can state this abstractly but it wouldn't have a clear purpose. This kind of seating where you alternate male and female but don't put couples next to each other is something that people have done and would like to do. > I’m a man, and my partner is a man, basically no dinner I’ve been to in adult life has been boy-girl-boy-girl Sure, if you're gay then don't be surprised to have not been at dinners where people do things that would make less sense with a gay couple. :D
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    > but don't put couples next to each other My grandfather was apparently a poor dancer, but that was never one of my grandmother's problems, because in those days, one never danced with one's spouse.
williamscales 4y ago
OK, I’m not going for cheap outrage points. I’ve read the Wikipedia article. I am honestly curious if there is a reason we still present the problem this way, or if we could just change it up a bit in its presentation.
- Taywee 4y ago
  Can you come up with one? Given the specific problem, I find it challenging to come up with a different analogy for the same concept.
  - williamscales 4y ago
    Sure. I’ll quote from Wikipedia and modify it. “In combinatorial mathematics, the ménage problem or problème des ménages asks for the number of different ways in which it is possible to seat a set of couples, labeled “A_n” and “B_n” accordingly, at a round dining table so that the A and B alternate and no two couples are sat next to each other such that A_n = B_m”.
    - hobo_mark 4y ago
      And this improves the problem statement how exactly? You are just doing the "parent 1" "parent 2" gymnastics that get (deservedly) mocked and (unfortunately) weaponized at any possible occasion.
  - waqf 4y ago
    You're organising the office dinner party and each employee has brought exactly one spouse (who is not an employee). You wish to seat the attendees alternating employees and spouses, perhaps so that the spouses feel maximally included and nobody starts a work-related conversation.
    - Taywee 4y ago
      Pretty corporate for my tastes. Maybe it's just coming from Advent of Code, but a whimsical framing with elves and dwarves sounds nice.
whygender 4y ago
some languages distinguishes words or phrases between male and female. French for example is very strict about it. Thai as well. I don't understand why you are upset.
bawolff 4y ago
Person wasn't neccesarily advocating for the change, just wondering why it is the way it is. I don't think its an unreasonable thought and the naming of things and the history thereof can certainly be interesting discussion points.
- amluto 4y ago
  It seems like it would be at least mildly complicated to reformulate, and a reformulation would be pretty fundamentally hetero-something. For example: There are n pairs of people. Each pair has a type A person and a type B person. How many ways can they be arranged at a table such that the seats’ occupants alternate A,B,A,B etc and no one sits next to the person with whom they are paired. If you are paired with someone of the same type, you don’t fit into the problem statement :). If everyone is the same type as everyone else, and everyone is allowed to sit next to anyone else except their partner, then the answer will be different.
braingenious 4y ago
Out of curiosity (and I mean this sincerely), could you explain how if I were to copy and paste this post as a response to this post it wouldn’t apply equally? Aren’t you kind of just pointing out your personal feelings about a different cause of outrage? It certainly does not have any bearing on this mathematical problem or sequence.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  If a comment is off-topic, and bringing gendered language into a thread about mathematics surely is, then it’s OK to point out that it’s off-topic. In an ideal world everybody would read the guidelines, but practically we all need a reminder every now and then.
  - braingenious 4y ago
    I didn’t ask if this was within the rules, I asked if this post about pointless outrage points was in and of itself a post about pointless outrage points. I worded it in a way that is easily answered in a yes or no fashion.
- notjoemama 4y ago
  Neither are you referring to the topic and as such adding to the conversation. At least I'll be up front for other readers and say neither will I. I agree with the previous comment that it adds nothing but will further expand that it is someone else's imposition of their will and perspective on society, a form of forced ideology. I say while yes it adds nothing I think it is modern facism that seeks to control and silence anyone that would prefer to discuss alternatives to its supposed social validation. Or, to suggest, narcisism and histronic personality disorder are being elevated to a dysfunctional level using empathy as a weapon and that acceptance is the exact opposite of an appropriate response. And unlike the proponents I have spoken to thus far, I am at least willing to also say that is my opinion. Yes, based on some fact and my own personal experiences. But neither is this intersectional theory being explained and sxientifically supported. What's so hard about having conversations like these is knowing a mere rhetorical statement from the other side can paint me or anyone else that might think differently than "the message" as racist, sexist, or whatever convenient negative moniker has been utilized by the proponents. Were we to engage in a real discussion about the underlying cause of the great generfication of society, we'd have to be open to going back to the origin and questioning (at this point) assumed outcomes. That is the willingness of a truly wise person who wishes to seek truth, whether improper or inconvenient. That kind of person is willing to be wrong on a path to becoming right. And I question whether there is anyone being a proponent of genderfication that would be willing to enagge in such dialog. They would have to be either confident or comfortable with admitting possible outcomes and alternatives have been discarded in favor of the progress of someone else's ideas. The problem is a very human one; assuming that admitting you're wrong means you lose power. The truly wise son't wish for or seek power in the first place. Only the truth.
LastTrain 4y ago
Honestly if I'm judging on "who's looking for something to be outraged about" it is you. At least OP's comment can be taken to mean "how else could this problem be applied". Yours is just airing grievances. I also noticed you didn't chastise the user with the name "Menage" who simply gave a joke reply "I prefer to be the problem and not the solution". If you've chosen to be out here on boxing day policing who is on topic and who isn't, why'd you miss that one?
groby_b 4y ago
Let's reformulate this in a mathsy way, because the underlying question is interesting. We'll start from gender binary, and let's see where we go from here. First change: If you have n male/male couples, m female/female couples, and k male/female couples, how many seating orders can you produce. This both makes a more complex mathematical problem (possibly it's even more interesting, YMMV) and it puts a bit more light on the underlying assumption of "pair by preference". For this example, we've gone to "pair by sexual preference", but I think we can agree that for most parties, that isn't the primary factor in seating your guests. (I mean, maybe it is for some people, but my life isn't that exciting ;) So, this raises the question "if we don't pair by gender, what the heck do we pair by". Usually, if you throw a party with seating arrangements, you pair by "how well do these folks get along". So, reformulated, given a set of people and a set of "good" seating neighbor combinations between them, how many valid seating combinations exist? And from there, for bonus credit, let's realize that there is no binary in "good seating neighbor" either - so, for each pair of people, there exists instead a goodness-weight of their neighborhood. How do you compute the maximally good seating order? (God, now I have flashbacks to wedding seat charts ;) That sounds like a reasonably interesting problem, and I'd really like to hear if anybody tackled it.
shard972 4y ago
[dead]

I had the same thought as OP. Not outraged or anything, I just find it interesting. It reveals the bubble that I’m in more than anything, that the language stood out in the first place. I’m a man, and my partner is a man, basically no dinner I’ve been to in adult life has been boy-girl-boy-girl. If I was a mathematician this would never in a million years be the example I’d come up with.

gweinberg 4y ago
Well, how could they have been?
- sokoloff 4y ago
  If they dined with a lesbian couple (or simply two female friends), they could sit alternating M/F with no one sitting next to their partner.
bawolff 4y ago
I was wondering if the implication was it was some sort of [straight] swinger party. With menage being the first part of menage a trois
- whygender 4y ago
  Probably the word menage meant something sexual? I'm still confused why he/they/she would be upset by OP's comment
- ghayes 4y ago
  ménage (Fr.) 1. (=nettoyage) housework faire le ménage - to do the housework une femme de ménage - a cleaning woman faire des ménages - to work as a cleaner (in people's homes) 2. (=couple) couple (=personnes mariées) married couple se mettre en ménage avec - to set up house with monter son ménage - to set up house faire bon ménage avec - to get on well with heureux en ménage - happily married 3. (Administration) (=famille) household [0] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/m%C3%A9nage https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/...
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Words can have connotations beyond their dictionary definitions.
- menage 4y ago
  This association with the French word that happens to be my surname is something that I've encountered more since moving from the UK to the US. Possibly due to the proximity to France resulting in a lot more UK people learning French in school than those who grow up in the US?
nullc 4y ago
You can state this abstractly but it wouldn't have a clear purpose. This kind of seating where you alternate male and female but don't put couples next to each other is something that people have done and would like to do. > I’m a man, and my partner is a man, basically no dinner I’ve been to in adult life has been boy-girl-boy-girl Sure, if you're gay then don't be surprised to have not been at dinners where people do things that would make less sense with a gay couple. :D
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  > but don't put couples next to each other My grandfather was apparently a poor dancer, but that was never one of my grandmother's problems, because in those days, one never danced with one's spouse.

williamscales 4y ago

OK, I’m not going for cheap outrage points. I’ve read the Wikipedia article. I am honestly curious if there is a reason we still present the problem this way, or if we could just change it up a bit in its presentation.

Taywee 4y ago
Can you come up with one? Given the specific problem, I find it challenging to come up with a different analogy for the same concept.
- williamscales 4y ago
  Sure. I’ll quote from Wikipedia and modify it. “In combinatorial mathematics, the ménage problem or problème des ménages asks for the number of different ways in which it is possible to seat a set of couples, labeled “A_n” and “B_n” accordingly, at a round dining table so that the A and B alternate and no two couples are sat next to each other such that A_n = B_m”.
  - hobo_mark 4y ago
    And this improves the problem statement how exactly? You are just doing the "parent 1" "parent 2" gymnastics that get (deservedly) mocked and (unfortunately) weaponized at any possible occasion.
- waqf 4y ago
  You're organising the office dinner party and each employee has brought exactly one spouse (who is not an employee). You wish to seat the attendees alternating employees and spouses, perhaps so that the spouses feel maximally included and nobody starts a work-related conversation.
  - Taywee 4y ago
    Pretty corporate for my tastes. Maybe it's just coming from Advent of Code, but a whimsical framing with elves and dwarves sounds nice.

whygender 4y ago

some languages distinguishes words or phrases between male and female. French for example is very strict about it. Thai as well. I don't understand why you are upset.

bawolff 4y ago

Person wasn't neccesarily advocating for the change, just wondering why it is the way it is. I don't think its an unreasonable thought and the naming of things and the history thereof can certainly be interesting discussion points.

amluto 4y ago
It seems like it would be at least mildly complicated to reformulate, and a reformulation would be pretty fundamentally hetero-something. For example: There are n pairs of people. Each pair has a type A person and a type B person. How many ways can they be arranged at a table such that the seats’ occupants alternate A,B,A,B etc and no one sits next to the person with whom they are paired. If you are paired with someone of the same type, you don’t fit into the problem statement :). If everyone is the same type as everyone else, and everyone is allowed to sit next to anyone else except their partner, then the answer will be different.

braingenious 4y ago

Out of curiosity (and I mean this sincerely), could you explain how if I were to copy and paste this post as a response to this post it wouldn’t apply equally? Aren’t you kind of just pointing out your personal feelings about a different cause of outrage? It certainly does not have any bearing on this mathematical problem or sequence.

zarzavat 4y ago
If a comment is off-topic, and bringing gendered language into a thread about mathematics surely is, then it’s OK to point out that it’s off-topic. In an ideal world everybody would read the guidelines, but practically we all need a reminder every now and then.
- braingenious 4y ago
  I didn’t ask if this was within the rules, I asked if this post about pointless outrage points was in and of itself a post about pointless outrage points. I worded it in a way that is easily answered in a yes or no fashion.
notjoemama 4y ago
Neither are you referring to the topic and as such adding to the conversation. At least I'll be up front for other readers and say neither will I. I agree with the previous comment that it adds nothing but will further expand that it is someone else's imposition of their will and perspective on society, a form of forced ideology. I say while yes it adds nothing I think it is modern facism that seeks to control and silence anyone that would prefer to discuss alternatives to its supposed social validation. Or, to suggest, narcisism and histronic personality disorder are being elevated to a dysfunctional level using empathy as a weapon and that acceptance is the exact opposite of an appropriate response. And unlike the proponents I have spoken to thus far, I am at least willing to also say that is my opinion. Yes, based on some fact and my own personal experiences. But neither is this intersectional theory being explained and sxientifically supported. What's so hard about having conversations like these is knowing a mere rhetorical statement from the other side can paint me or anyone else that might think differently than "the message" as racist, sexist, or whatever convenient negative moniker has been utilized by the proponents. Were we to engage in a real discussion about the underlying cause of the great generfication of society, we'd have to be open to going back to the origin and questioning (at this point) assumed outcomes. That is the willingness of a truly wise person who wishes to seek truth, whether improper or inconvenient. That kind of person is willing to be wrong on a path to becoming right. And I question whether there is anyone being a proponent of genderfication that would be willing to enagge in such dialog. They would have to be either confident or comfortable with admitting possible outcomes and alternatives have been discarded in favor of the progress of someone else's ideas. The problem is a very human one; assuming that admitting you're wrong means you lose power. The truly wise son't wish for or seek power in the first place. Only the truth.

LastTrain 4y ago

Honestly if I'm judging on "who's looking for something to be outraged about" it is you. At least OP's comment can be taken to mean "how else could this problem be applied". Yours is just airing grievances. I also noticed you didn't chastise the user with the name "Menage" who simply gave a joke reply "I prefer to be the problem and not the solution". If you've chosen to be out here on boxing day policing who is on topic and who isn't, why'd you miss that one?

groby_b 4y ago

Let's reformulate this in a mathsy way, because the underlying question is interesting. We'll start from gender binary, and let's see where we go from here. First change: If you have n male/male couples, m female/female couples, and k male/female couples, how many seating orders can you produce. This both makes a more complex mathematical problem (possibly it's even more interesting, YMMV) and it puts a bit more light on the underlying assumption of "pair by preference". For this example, we've gone to "pair by sexual preference", but I think we can agree that for most parties, that isn't the primary factor in seating your guests. (I mean, maybe it is for some people, but my life isn't that exciting ;) So, this raises the question "if we don't pair by gender, what the heck do we pair by". Usually, if you throw a party with seating arrangements, you pair by "how well do these folks get along". So, reformulated, given a set of people and a set of "good" seating neighbor combinations between them, how many valid seating combinations exist? And from there, for bonus credit, let's realize that there is no binary in "good seating neighbor" either - so, for each pair of people, there exists instead a goodness-weight of their neighborhood. How do you compute the maximally good seating order? (God, now I have flashbacks to wedding seat charts ;) That sounds like a reasonably interesting problem, and I'd really like to hear if anybody tackled it.

shard972 4y ago

[dead]