Math is just an evil place all-around. It’s hard to do, and if you can’t do it, you suck. It’s never a liberating experience. I became a programmer so I can have the computer do all the math for me so I don’t have to waste my brain cells thinking about it. And while I’m on the topic of how shitty math is, I’d like to reference a few things from an article from Maddox – Math Doesn’t Suck, You Do.
Maddox is my favorite author, so this article had a lot of good points. It defended math, or rather it insulted people who can’t do math and talk about math as though it’s a useless subject. It also panned the idea that being bad at math was hip or cool.
However, Maddox, you are wrong in places.
Take this quote for instance:
“when will I ever use this in life?” …You’ll even nod like a happy idiot when you learn what a haiku is, and you never complain or whine about how you’ll never use this in your “life.” When is the last time you wrote a haiku, asshole?
Well, I have this to offer in rebuttal: When’s the last time you used natural logarithms or arctangents, asshole?
I enjoy writing more than math because writing is a medium in which I can offer point-by-point rebuttals and fallacy exposure to make someone look like an idiot. I can use writing to teach someone something by writing tutorials. I can use writing to explain philosophy, which can challenge the way you approach the world. What can I use math for? Realistically speaking, the only thing I’m going to use math for is something I can use my 4-function calculator for with regards to making purchases at the supermarket. Everything else has already been done on a computer, and there’s no need for me to bother.
That being said, I’ve never written a haiku, and I do think haikus are ridiculous. In fact, I hated having to learn haikus in school because I thought they were stupid. I took a zero on the assignment that called for them, because instead I wrote a letter to the teacher explaining how worthless haikus were. That’s what a real writer should think. Haikus are fast-food garbage for people who have trouble fully expressing themselves.
The one thing you failed to mention is that 90% of the math you learn is merely the basis for learning a higher level of math. Only until you’ve reached the pinnacle of understanding some maxed out specialization of math do you finally have a use for it in certain applications. That, or you get a computer to factor that shit out for you. In the meantime, you’re stuck in a giant turd-stack.
That’s what mathematics really is… stacks upon stacks of turds. And as an insight into how unforgiving math is, you’re forced to climb that stack of turds… Because if you can’t, then you’re stuck at the bottom… That’s right, you’re beneath a stack of turds. And when you get to the top, what do you have? A stack of turds to support you.
Do you know what use a small stack of turds has (aka basic algebra)? None. Ok, let’s put more turds (i.e. more complex mathematical concepts like trig and calculus) on top of those turds. Any use now? No? Bring in more turds! Turds upon turds stacked as high as a mountain! Now does it serve a use?! Yes! We now have a way to block the sun from giving us melanoma: stand in the monolithic shade of shit-stack mountain!
It’s just a horrible place all-round. Damned if you can’t do it, and have fun with the aneurysms as the math mind-fucks you until the end.
“People didn’t invent this stuff because they were bored. They invented it to solve real-world problems. Problems that real men had to deal with before your stupid ass was born, like building oil platforms, delivering the correct dosage of medicine and going to space. Not so your dumbass can play “Gardens of Time” on Facebook, although you wouldn’t be able to do that without math, either.”
No, the real reason people invented this stuff is because nobody had computers at the time this shit was invented. Now that we have them, the knowledge of them is completely moot. Do you think the average programmer gives a shit about what his code is doing for the user? As long as no one’s complaining, who cares? Nail the process down, draw your flow charts, code it, debug it, and call it a fucking day. If doing math is as simple as “following instructions”, then let the fucking computer do it for me. In the end all I want is the value at the end of the equation so I can make an educated decision about something. You want me to blow my damn brains out trying to figure out some complex ridiculous equation all so I know, for instance, how far to adjust a lens on a remote microscope? What kind of shitty payoff is that?
Math: The Needlessly-Overcomplicated Means to an End
That’s all math really is… a middle-man. It’s not even truly a means to an end… just one part of it. I used math to obtain the value of something, and from that value I can make a real decision. The means to an end here was looking at that value to make a decision. Getting the value was the asinine part.
Oh, and regarding your recipe analogy:
“I’m tired of eating shitty food because you’re too much of a dipshit to follow a recipe… Math is exactly like cooking: just follow the recipe.”
I agree with you Maddox: cooking and following a recipe is not hard.
I can see why people get confused at it though… “What the hell is a leek? What the hell are coriander seeds? Star anise? Cardamom pods?”
I wasn’t raised in a garden, so how the hell am I supposed to know what all this is? Shit I could list all kinds of weird-ass ingredients. Where the hell do you buy ‘em? What do they look like? With capitalism the way it is, there are bound to be multiple brands, so how do I know which one’s the best one? And even when I’ve got this damn ingredient, how strong of an ingredient is it? By that I mean should I eyeball the measurement, or act like a damn chemist? And what fucking store do I buy this from?! It seems like only certain stores bother to fucking stock it!
Thankfully, youtube exists with videos on what these things are, so there’s no excuse for you to not know how to cook something. Watch the damn video, and take notes.
Math, however, is nothing like a recipe. If you’re speaking of the order of operations, then yes, it’s exactly like a recipe. If you’re talking about advanced trigonometry, algebra, and calculus (more applied math), then no, it’s nothing like following a damn recipe. The majority of that math can be described as “how many different ways can I write this?” You write things a different way, apply some applied 4-function math to it for a bit, then take that state and write it another way, then apply math again. There are so many ways to do it, and so many ways you can write something, that it can’t possibly be as simple as following a recipe.
“it’s about as straightforward as thinking gets.”
No… no it’s not. It’s a lot of hypothesizing is what it is. If I choose to write this equation in equivalent form A, then i’ll get 4 steps deep before having to rewrite it. If I choose equivalent form B, i’ll get 9 steps. Straightforward? If it were straightforward, there’d only be one way to do it, and that’s it. But math is so wide open and free that there are literally infinite ways to solve something. That’s not straightforward; that’s a never-ending pissing match for efficiency.
Math feels as dull and as ancient as it actually is. We’ve found easier, more efficient, and smarter ways of doing things rather than playing with pencils and graph paper. Someone’s already gone to the trouble of getting it right, so we put it down in the best documentation possible: computer application. What better way to show your mathematical proof than to run it as a program and see it in action? And whatever solution that solved, we can now use the value returned by it to solve a better problem.
Maddox, I agree that if people can’t seem to do basic 4-function math at all, they’re idiots and deserve to “live in shit huts” and “take the stairs, asshole[s]”. But don’t think for a minute that doing it at all is worth the brain power exerted to make it happen. It’s not.
Welcome to math: proof of needless mental overexertion to achieve social standing. It’s the academic equivalent of a pumped penis and breast implants.