Posted on 03/01/2021 7:01:47 PM PST by Rummyfan
I am not at all qualified to introduce today’s guest writer, Sergiu Klainerman.
I barely eked out a C+ in high school calculus, while Sergiu is a professor of mathematics at Princeton who specializes in the mathematical theory of black holes. He’s been a MacArthur fellow, a Guggenheim fellow and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences
Mathematics allowed a young Sergiu, who came of age in Ceausescu’s Romania, to escape to a world where right and wrong couldn’t be fudged, and, ultimately, to a life of freedom in the United States. Without math, his life quite literally would not have been possible.
In the piece below he explains how activists are destroying his discipline in the name of progress. Worse, they are robbing poor children of the opportunity to raise themselves up by mastering it — with untold effects on all of us.
Math, with its seemingly unbiased tools — 2 + 2 always equals 4 — has presented a problem for an ideological movement that sees any inequality of outcome as evidence of systemic bias. The problem cannot be that some kids are better at math, or that some teachers are better at teaching it. Like so much else, the basic woke argument against math is that it is inherently racist and needs to be made antiracist. That is accomplished by undermining the notion of right and wrong answers, by getting rid of the expectation that students show their work, by referring to mathematical testing tools as racist, and by doing away with accelerated math classes.
(Excerpt) Read more at bariweiss.substack.com ...
How about we round up a few thousand white BLMs and systemically throw them out of a helicopter?
Test to see if gravity is racially biased...
There’s the problem,.Blacks and Hispanics do poorly,whites and Asians don’t...The woke group needs to find a reason for that other than some people are just smarter than others....
It’s cultural, as I found in college. There were some fellow students in electrical engineering from Nigeria and Kenya who were handling the math competently. Yet among certain “minorities “, doing well academically was “acting white”, an earlier term for the current SJW word salad “white adjacent “. A Marxist would call it “siding with the oppressor class”.
This kind of crap will send us past pre-industrial, past subsistence farming, all the way back to hunter gatherer pre civilization. I’d like to see how the soy boys and ghettos handle that.
“There Is No Such Thing as “White” Math”
I guess some have not heard of the million man march.
wy69
Alas, no math allows division by zero but complex math does allow taking the square roots of negative numbers.
It is cultural but only if you persist in the belief that merit based test results must reflect the same as the society averages in the population. It should be most unkind to say that anything can be attributed to a group. There is nothing so racist as to infer that just because a guy stands out at playing golf therefore he may be low skilled at driving a rented SUV.
During an IRS audit of my taxes, which I beat, I was going over a form with IRS clerk. I showed her that the box said put the lesser of $5000 and the value in Box 14 (e.g.). Box 14 was $30,000. She got confused. I said “$5,000 is less than $30,000, right?”.
She said she was not sure and needed to check with her supervisor.
All of this white bashing is growing out of the black inferiority complex.
To many stupid people on TV and elected to public office.
Excuses have to be made for their obvious stupidity.
Quit participating in this stupidity.
I can understand that. It’s a form of compensation.
What I can’t get my mind around is why so many Whites are joining in on the bashing. Must be some kind of media-induced guilt thing.
“Oh, why did I perform well in school and graduate?”
“I’m just too responsible and law-abiding!”
“I’m so ashamed of my relative competence!”
LOL. You would think someone as wealthy and busy as Mr Woods would have someone to drive for him.
IF even the poorest of us in the USA cannot count correct change when making a monetary transaction, they are going to forever be cheated out of a decent life.
WE do not need any more dependents who are illiterate.
The problem of poor education isn’t necessarily new—the ATTACK of education in MATH is.
I remember many long winter afternoons & nights when Mother would pull out the 2 quart jars of Indian Head pennies she had & we would play poker...
We learned how to count & how to handle small sums of money.
IF YOUR KID ha a hard time with basic mat-—teach them how to play cribbage...
Counting is necessary in every hand played, and it will sharpen their skills.
Funny how thee same ‘math idiots’ can do drug deals to the microgram.....
HAHAHA...Hadn’t thought of that....
"We learned how to count & how to handle small sums of money."
Table games were a real hoot, weren't they... All the kiddies wanted to play. But, to do that you had to be able to count..
There was a whole lot more learning done at home in the parlor in those days then happens in any grade school nowadays. I don't think kids play table games anymore.. :(
My Granddad never went to school a day in his life. He always said he couldn't read or write. He was a ships Carpenter and could look over the prints for the job and tell you how many parts, pieces and board feet of lumber you needed and the final cost, and would rarely miss the mark..
One could say, you get back in life what you put into it.. I also believe that necessity was and still is the best teacher.. :)
In a gifted and talented group I tutored, I asked how many played board games. Of 11 kids 9 played board games with their families.
I wonder how many freepers have actually studied mathematics..beyond just an entry level perusal.
I’d wager not over 1-2%...
Most folks studied rudimentary arithmetic not mathematics
Real math is hard......very hard
I was unable to klep 1-200 level college math and had to take 3 hours of finite mathematics 101 which was high school algebra on steroids and calculus 102
It was a struggle on par with statistics or spanish lit 400 level where English is forbidden and you read Cervantes or Marquez all semester And must be able every class to discuss it like you are fluent and have read the 100 pages per class or organic chemistry or applied Physics where you learn things like Strange or Chaotic Attractors
Some folks found political theory hard ....too abstract ....any one here can tell how I ramble that shit was a snap..lol
Socrates to Hobbes To Hayek and A little Zeno and Anaximander to Fromm and Camus ....I’m in
Blue book was my friend
I did the entire four years stoned..mostly ...it can be done....After first two years I quit going to class high....classes were smaller and intimate and folks could tell or smell
It was the 70s....I was destined for law school....or so I though..life has doors that open you least expect
I want to see how they would handle the war between the states or the spanish civil war or the French terror and committees for public safety.lol. Or. Lithuania civil violence between alternating soviet and alternating nazi subjugation
I think Lithuania in the 37-44 period is the most raw violence amongst whites in the post monarchy era I’ve seen....civilians brutally killing by the 10s of 1000s the perceived enemy in reprisal with men women and children piling on like Rwanda
Truly awful and often in pristine snow draped forests ....
Rural versus urban....coasts versus heartland
That’s where we’re headed....it’s not north and south
And it’s not completely racial though to some degree your skin may be your uniform
Math is biracial as you just pointed out. Black ink on white paper and WHITE CHALK ON A BLACK BOARD.
Known in the music industry as “Ebony and Ivory” - together they make great music on a piano. Separately, they just make noise.
I eat Chocolate and Vanilla mixed pudding. Tastes great. A real sign of an assimilated food.
Brown rice. White rice. Jasmine Rice. You have a little UN on the rice shelf at the store. All friendly, healthy and neighbors. No problemo!
Tasty Cakes. White cream inside a chocolate flour cupcake and vice-versa.
Chocolate and Vanilla ice cream in the same container (even can have “red” strawberry” too. Taste good separately or mixed together.
There is NO “White Math”. Only Marxist racists who want to start trouble in our schools and keep our kids learning at the Stone Age level.
SAVE DR. SEUSS. STOP THE BOOK NAZIS!
Book Fascism - make Seuss’ books “Seuss-Frei”!
Seems like old times all over again!
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