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  1. #21
    I am not a fundamentally mean person, but when someone tells me, "I am bad at math" I have to suppress a chuckle.

    Mathematics, at its core, is about problem solving - your skill at math directly translates to your ability to solve problems for your entire life. Accounting for unknowns, looking at things from a different angle, deconstructing an issue layer by layer... and, unless you make enough dough to pay for your future house cash, you are going to need to know some motherfucking geometry to build and maintain your own house!

    At a most basic level, claiming that you are bad at math is tantamount to claiming that you have difficulty feeding yourself. I'm in agreement with this video.

  2. #22
    The Patient Luperca's Avatar
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    This is rather stupid, I know someone who speaks (and reads) 5 languages and he can't do multiples of 11 past 9 (11x9) without paper. I can do Algebra in my head but can't speak more than a few phrases in another language. Also that BS about painters using formulas to paint and sculptors using it to make sure their statues don't fall over is also BS. Sculptors make small models then scale them in a computer and the computer will tell them if it will work or not, they have programs for this.

  3. #23
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by nanook12 View Post
    You're not bad at math...

    you're just lazy.

    People who say that they are naturally bad at math are the same people that claim they have a gluten allergy, and they are both complete BS.
    Coming from somebody who can't even think of form their own opinion, they need to be spoon-fed it through a YouTube video. You're correct, people are lazy.

  4. #24
    In my experience, most people who say they're bad at math simply don't like it and don't want to do it, and hence are not as good at it.

    I get that the video is trying to get at that, but I have met a handful of people who are exceedingly bad. And by exceedingly bad, I mean that they put in a lot of work, go to every office hour, take meticulous notes, but at the end of the day still manage to misunderstand concepts as fundamental as what a variable is.

    Edit: To clarify, the second half of this post are my thoughts on what it means to be 'good' at math. I realized just now that if I didn't clarify, then the whole thing taken together sounds bizarre.

    Since calculus is basically the standard mathematics beyond algebra that almost all students are subjected to, I'll go a step further and say that even people who are supposedly good at calculus are actually bad at it. What's the derivative of sine, measured in degrees? Many people who can do all sorts of calculus questions will fail to answer that question correctly. People who forget what the derivative of some common function is and can't look it up (e.g. during an exam) typically fall apart, despite the fact that the derivative can be deduced quickly from theorems they were taught.

    And here's my point. Hard work and practice are necessary, but not enough. You also need patience, attention to detail, and a firm grasp of logic. These are not qualities that everyone possesses.
    Last edited by Garnier Fructis; 2017-02-18 at 06:26 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
    There are no 2 species that are 100% identical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by nanook12 View Post
    occams razor: The simplest solution is usually the correct one.

    Yeah, mostly people are just lazy.
    That's not what occams razor means. Stop getting your education from Hollywood. It's generally interpreted as meaning that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lansworthy
    Deathwing will come and go RAWR RAWR IM A DWAGON
    Quote Originally Posted by DirtyCasual View Post
    There's no point in saying this, even if you slap them upside down and inside out with the truth, the tin foil hat brigade will continue to believe the opposite.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by nanook12 View Post
    I honestly don't believe you at all. I am a math and physics tutor and I see the same shit everyday. Students come complaining to me that "it's just too hard" and that "they worked so hard" then I look at the work they have done and find out that they haven't even attempted the first problem.
    Except I have. I took the class twice, shit didn't change. I'd do semi-well and then start being mediocre.
    I excel at chemistry calculations, but not at a pure math course.

    Why don't you fake tutor me and see that I'm telling the truth. I'm calling your bluff and challenging you.

    PS: I didn't say it was hard, I said I didn't understand well.
    I was a Death's Demise.
    Those were the good old days.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Luperca View Post
    This is rather stupid, I know someone who speaks (and reads) 5 languages and he can't do multiples of 11 past 9 (11x9) without paper. I can do Algebra in my head but can't speak more than a few phrases in another language. Also that BS about painters using formulas to paint and sculptors using it to make sure their statues don't fall over is also BS. Sculptors make small models then scale them in a computer and the computer will tell them if it will work or not, they have programs for this.

    It's as if we never had sculptures before computers were invented. /sarcasm

    Maybe some will use computer software but the good ones don't need it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lansworthy
    Deathwing will come and go RAWR RAWR IM A DWAGON
    Quote Originally Posted by DirtyCasual View Post
    There's no point in saying this, even if you slap them upside down and inside out with the truth, the tin foil hat brigade will continue to believe the opposite.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Luperca View Post
    This is rather stupid, I know someone who speaks (and reads) 5 languages and he can't do multiples of 11 past 9 (11x9) without paper. I can do Algebra in my head but can't speak more than a few phrases in another language. Also that BS about painters using formulas to paint and sculptors using it to make sure their statues don't fall over is also BS. Sculptors make small models then scale them in a computer and the computer will tell them if it will work or not, they have programs for this.
    To be fair, being good at arithmetic is not the same as being good at math.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
    There are no 2 species that are 100% identical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

  9. #29
    Deleted
    some people barely remember there own name, but are expected to hold complicated functions in there head ? otherwise they are lazy ? BULLSHIT

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Sky High View Post
    ok, but what about the people with gluten allergies? they really exist ya know. I've been friends with someone who deals with it for years.
    No its fake. I spent years creating false medical studies and articles to create the totally fake celiac disease so I can pretend to have it because its fun to go to restaurants and pretend I can't eat certain menu items. This is a thing that I enjoy and makes sense to do for no reason.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by nanook12 View Post
    I honestly don't believe you at all. I am a math and physics tutor and I see the same shit everyday. Students come complaining to me that "it's just too hard" and that "they worked so hard" then I look at the work they have done and find out that they haven't even attempted the first problem.
    Your arrogance at supposedly being good at something that some other people aren't so great at is laughable. Of course, one look at what your avatar picture is tells me that this is just another bland attempt at a troll post. I say posting a Youtube video as proof of some sort of concept is laziness. If this isn't trolling, then who the hell are you or anyone else to pretend to know why someone is bad at a particular thing? But hey, at least you tried to look cool and smart on a forum where people regularly talk about magic gnomes, space goats, and dancing cows.

  12. #32
    Mechagnome Xenyatta's Avatar
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    Math is calculated on the left side of the brain, creative thoughts are done on the right side. Some people's sides are stronger than others. I am an artist. I think conceptually. I can't understand music to save my life but I draw out songs and rhythms in my head. I have an extraordinarily hard time with math. I always have even with some of the best teachers. I simply just don't get it, I don't understand it and it's one of the only things I can't conceptually draw out in my head because math isn't done that way. I hate puzzles, mysteries and surprises. I'll read the end of the book first to see how it ends and then read it from the beginning to see how they got there. My mother was the complete opposite. She was FANTASTIC in math but can't visualize any concepts. I'm not going to call her lazy because she can't draw and she's got an aptitude for math and puzzles. That's what makes us great. If we were all great in everything, we wouldn't need one another to survive. Our survival depends on us working together with what we're stronger in.

  13. #33
    Elemental Lord callipygoustp's Avatar
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    As soon as I realized the speaker was some guy rather than the kind of cute blonde shown in the preview pane, I turned off the video.

  14. #34
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    what about people who are good at math but still lazy like me?

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Sail into the wind View Post
    At a most basic level, claiming that you are bad at math is tantamount to claiming that you have difficulty feeding yourself. I'm in agreement with this video.
    Mathematics isn't just problem solving. It's also abstraction and language. People can have an innate intuition for geometry, can be good at arithmetic, but still be bad at math because they struggle with abstraction and/or the language of mathematics. If I take a puzzle you know how to solve but ask you the puzzle in Spanish/French/German/etc., can you solve it? Most likely not, because it's been cast in a form that you don't understand.

    So no, saying you're bad at math is not saying that you can't feed yourself. Because people who get a bowl of cereal don't need to calculate the volume of the bowl and then solve for an inequality governing how much cereal they can put in before it overflows.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
    There are no 2 species that are 100% identical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

  16. #36
    Deleted
    I've always been bad at math, from day 1, I always fell behind with it in class. Feel free to call me lazy, it doesn't really matter.
    I am however strong in artistic skills, always was way ahead of other kids and was pointed on the matter too.

    I am an artist, still learning, but I've drawn things in a year most people probably couldn't in 2, if not more. Some people are naturally better at certain things than others, but most things can be learned with times.

    With art people always say, " I can't even draw a stick figure" well you could if you took some time and try, and some people can draw something better than a stick figure, without even trying and without having had any real practice.

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Garnier Fructis View Post
    Since calculus is basically the standard mathematics beyond algebra that almost all students are subjected to, I'll go a step further and say that even people who are supposedly good at calculus are actually bad at it. What's the derivative of sine, measured in degrees? Many people who can do all sorts of calculus questions will fail to answer that question correctly. People who forget what the derivative of some common function is and can't look it up (e.g. during an exam) typically fall apart, despite the fact that the derivative can be deduced quickly from theorems they were taught.

    And here's my point. Hard work and practice are necessary, but not enough. You also need patience, attention to detail, and a firm grasp of logic. These are not qualities that everyone possesses.
    That's not really a good example though. The derivative of sine is usually just something that most people would be told to memorize, the actual derivation is rarely something that would be taught in a basic calculus class. Granted, these days we have Wikipedia so that anybody curious can just look it up, but how many people would bother?

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Nexx226 View Post
    Maths is just as correct as saying math. They're both abbreviations for mathematics. Also, these people played the lottery but weren't bad at math.

    http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/07/...for-8-million/

    Quite the opposite.
    It's sort of disingenuous to call this playing the lottery, since they didn't just buy a couple tickets and hope for the best but instead found a way to game the system to guarantee winning.

    'People who play the lottery are bad at math' is a statement about people who honestly play the lottery, because their expected gains are actually negative and their probability of winning are essentially negligible.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
    There are no 2 species that are 100% identical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by nanook12 View Post
    occams razor: The simplest solution is usually the correct one.

    Yeah, mostly people are just lazy.
    actually the simplest explanation is that most people aren't smart relative to those that are.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Macaquerie View Post
    That's not really a good example though. The derivative of sine is usually just something that most people would be told to memorize, the actual derivation is rarely something that would be taught in a basic calculus class. Granted, these days we have Wikipedia so that anybody curious can just look it up, but how many people would bother?
    That's not my point. I'm actually supposing that people know that the derivative of sine is cosine. But the question is asking about what happens when you measure in degrees.

    The point is that many people will still answer 'cosine' because that's what they've memorized, and they would be wrong.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
    There are no 2 species that are 100% identical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

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