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I think this goes too far, but I do think math is… overrated? Kinda? Overrated isn’t exactly the word I want, but there’s definitely something weird going on.

I think this goes too far, but I do think math is… overrated? Kinda? Overrated isn’t exactly the word I want, but there’s definitely something weird going on. 98% (I’m being generous) of people can no longer work almost math past early algebra and maybe a handful of finance-related plug-in-the-numbers formulas by age 35 because, assuming they ever learned any, they have never used it, so it’s gone by then. And that state of things seems to be entirely Ok. Like, if they needed it, they’d have used it and the many of them who could once at least kinda work with calculus, or what have you, wouldn’t have lost that skill. Meanwhile, I’ve not found the “it teaches problem solving skills, that’s why it’s important even if you never use 80% of it outside of school” thing to really hold. Maybe for the kinds of courses math majors take in college, I dunno, but not for the rest. If it does teach any, they don’t seem to generalize well for almost all people who learn them, and the rest, I think that’s more about who they are than that they took some math courses. Ultimately, it’s not clear to me that if we taught quite a bit less math to most kids and even college students, anything bad would happen. I think there are probably ways to approach math in primary and secondary school, and maybe also math courses for undergrads who have a small load of math courses anyway, that would temper its evident uselessness quite a bit—namely, a laser-focus on applications past the very earliest grades—but most math majors seem to want math education to go exactly the opposite way. Maybe they’re right and I’m wrong, I dunno.

WalterBright 2y ago
I used calculus a lot in my mechanical engineering job. As a programmer, not. But as a programmer, I use a different kind of math (such as 2s complement arithmetic, boolean logic, floating point math, vectors, graph math, etc.) all the time. Knowing math has blocked many attempts by salesmen, contractors, bankers, etc., from ripping me off. If I didn't know math, I never would have even realized that my tailfeathers had been plucked. As for "anything bad would happen", bad things probably happened to you that you were not aware of. An anecdote: years ago, it used to be popular to run 30 minute seminars on TV called (my version) "Get Rich In Real Estate Using Scams". I recall one that bragged about making a quick $10,000. I figured it was a con, and so watched the show carefully, noting each transaction. And yes, it did net a $10,000 score for the person. But how it worked was through a confusing combination of transactions meant to obfuscate what was actually happening. The key in it was getting your mark to accept a bond that would be worth $XXXX in the future while you got the $XXXX today. In essence, it was exploiting the mark's failure to understand the concept of current value vs future value. The beauty (if you could call it that) was there was nothing illegal about this. With my math knowledge, it stunk from the outset, even though it took me a while to find the dead rat. Just like with my knowledge of physics, when it was posted on HN that electric cars were 90% efficient, that set me off immediately, and sure enough, there was a rat corpse in it. (The actual efficiency is 60% on a good day.) I was shocked at the well-educated people who bought that article hook, line, and stinker. (The cake topper on that one was the author was a ski instructor!)
mamcx 2y ago
> it’s not clear to me that if we taught quite a bit less math to most kids and even college students, anything bad would happen. My grandparents never passed grade 4 of primary school. They absolutely *crushed* anybody, including university people with supposedly strong math inclination, in math and solving skills. Basic arith and probably a bare-acquired intuition of some algebra. They could do everything in their heads, buy things, make deals, and could dance around most people with riddles and stuff like that some were math-related. I remember one of them that around 15 people of later generations were trying to solve (like for a week), and only one did it. (remember, there was large family and friends, I have 6 uncles) Even those around 80-90 years old still crush it. No, they were not savants. Other grandparents of that generation were like that. And their sons could do better than grandsons. I need machines to help me. And I was the #1 in school.

WalterBright 2y ago

I used calculus a lot in my mechanical engineering job. As a programmer, not. But as a programmer, I use a different kind of math (such as 2s complement arithmetic, boolean logic, floating point math, vectors, graph math, etc.) all the time. Knowing math has blocked many attempts by salesmen, contractors, bankers, etc., from ripping me off. If I didn't know math, I never would have even realized that my tailfeathers had been plucked. As for "anything bad would happen", bad things probably happened to you that you were not aware of. An anecdote: years ago, it used to be popular to run 30 minute seminars on TV called (my version) "Get Rich In Real Estate Using Scams". I recall one that bragged about making a quick $10,000. I figured it was a con, and so watched the show carefully, noting each transaction. And yes, it did net a $10,000 score for the person. But how it worked was through a confusing combination of transactions meant to obfuscate what was actually happening. The key in it was getting your mark to accept a bond that would be worth $XXXX in the future while you got the $XXXX today. In essence, it was exploiting the mark's failure to understand the concept of current value vs future value. The beauty (if you could call it that) was there was nothing illegal about this. With my math knowledge, it stunk from the outset, even though it took me a while to find the dead rat. Just like with my knowledge of physics, when it was posted on HN that electric cars were 90% efficient, that set me off immediately, and sure enough, there was a rat corpse in it. (The actual efficiency is 60% on a good day.) I was shocked at the well-educated people who bought that article hook, line, and stinker. (The cake topper on that one was the author was a ski instructor!)

mamcx 2y ago

> it’s not clear to me that if we taught quite a bit less math to most kids and even college students, anything bad would happen. My grandparents never passed grade 4 of primary school. They absolutely *crushed* anybody, including university people with supposedly strong math inclination, in math and solving skills. Basic arith and probably a bare-acquired intuition of some algebra. They could do everything in their heads, buy things, make deals, and could dance around most people with riddles and stuff like that some were math-related. I remember one of them that around 15 people of later generations were trying to solve (like for a week), and only one did it. (remember, there was large family and friends, I have 6 uncles) Even those around 80-90 years old still crush it. No, they were not savants. Other grandparents of that generation were like that. And their sons could do better than grandsons. I need machines to help me. And I was the #1 in school.