The uselessness of mathematics

Veeky Forums exists because of math otherwise it would be /alch/

The important thing about school math is to introduce kids to a world of logic and proof. The ability to differentiate fact from lies is one of the most importants and helps them through all their lives.

Math and reading are the only useful things I learned in school.
The only subjects that should be taught are mathematics and philosophy, everything else can just be studied after primary education in university. Everything else is literally just applied math and philosophy anyway.

I didn't think algebra was useless, it just wouldn't click on my head.
Yeah, I struggle with money.

no retard the most important thing about high school math is calculus

>y=ax+b => b=ax-y, I can now rationally evaluate arguments for gun control.

I've never understood this meme.

Alcoholics?

False. Science could exist independent of mathematics

High school math teachers don't understand what math is, they memorized a process by rote and now expect their students to memorize in the same manner.

This comic is strange to my way of thinking.
Is the person dumb for questioning a system?
Is obedience the primary virtue in learning?

Why is it wrong to question the usefulness of information?
Is the boy wrong for questioning, or is he wrong for questioning an authority figure?

What is engineering

Everyone takes knowledge for granted. You don't even know what you're capable of with the knowledge you don't have

He's just making a joke autist.

But as to what should someone respond to such a question? Well a teacher should probably find different ways to motivate the student. But sometimes, even with all the motivation in the world, we take pride in a alot of irrelevant shit or are plain comformists of what we know/have. While you can't just go and become useless, we have enough time to try and find joy in learning. And it seems that people that dont value this are usually stupid.

??
It's a teacher dissing a dumb student.

it doesn't come as a surprise to me, brainlet.
Try learning logic and see for yourself if the meme holds.

i TA freshmen and nobody understands how weak the average student is mathematically when they enter college
for the sake of everyone involved i wish i could just kick some people out of the class and put them into a high workload remedial course

Veeky Forums is already rife with alcoholism

>Is the person dumb for questioning a system?
Yes, actually, because the system was put in place far before the kid was born and worked fine ever since, and he doesn't posess enough knowledge and experience to actually challenge its flaws.

It is useful for engineering and software engineering, the subjects that everyone on this board talks about because they offer good jobs.
Also even œconomics needs math so claiming to be a business "chad" won't help either. And high school mathematics is quite basic especially if you live in the United States of America. Even at Princeton you have some people taking pre-calculus in college.

>you don't need math to evaluate statistical research on political issues

desu, anything past algebra two most normies are never, ever going to touch again.

That said, I personally wish I had actually studied trig formulas and identities then rather than just cramming and forgetting for the exams because all my classes now talk about them constantly.

>Is the person dumb for questioning a system?
No, the person is merely dumb, regardless of anything you call a "system".

Wrong; the natural universe is inherently mathematical to varying degrees, and science wouldn't get far without a way to precisely and exactly describe natural phenomena.
Science requires math, or it would soon independently develop math.

Being able to do napkin math right is the first step on exploring any idea; if the raw numbers are interesting, then you go into detailed analysis.

>You could learn more useful math with the foundation.
The worst lie ever told in modern day.
You learn the foundation in elementary school.
You learn to hate math because it has no practical application in high school.
They should be learning basic physics instead of useless shit like memorizing the quadratic formula. Application > memorization.

This makes me wonder; how far into the foundations of math can elementary kids go? What's the limit on what they can intuitively learn before they're just not developed enough?

memorizing the quadratic formula shouldn't take you more than 1 day at most user.....

what said tbqh; hell, I still think the jingle when using it.

No reasonable responses. Don't look at just math courses. K-12 has been a joke for a long time. It could theoretically work with great teachers and great students, but teachers aren't hired for their aptitude. Its a piece of paper and nearly an endless demand caused apparent right or authority to impose taxes. Same reason police force is shitty, or politicians.

t. anarchokiddy

alchemy, brianlets

>not to just count but to optimize your labor.
>10th grade
>Didn't realize this when learning multiplication

>They should be learning basic physics instead of useless shit like memorizing the quadratic formula.
What is this meme where brainlets assume that non-pajeets actually spend time on math let alone memorizing formulas as opposed to "learning".

You could legitimately trow this exact criticism at physics "They just memorize the quadratic formula that was given without proof to solve this problem." There is no tangible difference in applying the quadratic formula whether its a physics problem or a math problem other then the relation between the quadratic formula and the a physics problem being obscured.

I have a degree in Statistics and Philosophy. The philosophy courses were much more helpful in learning logic than any of my math classes ever were.

If you want students to learn logic, you should explicitly teach them logic, rather than hoping they implicitly learn it through the problem solving process.

>working at amazon packing boxes
>managers are always incompetent but deal with it
>eventually become the best on my team and get interviewed to become a mangers assistant
>fellow ambassador employees warn me about a hard problem on the interview that you have to get right
>ambassador is basically a position that people too stupid to pass he managers assistant role get
>go into interview and present myself adequately
>the supposed hard question comes up
>its about if you have ___ workers showing up and you have to have two different jobs (packing and stowing) meet the same rate, with packing having one rate and stowing having another, how many people would you need to assign to each role to have an even split.
>its basic fucking algebra
>managers also said the problem was hard
>work always understaffed or overstaffed in one area
>tfw i realize that the entire workforce incompetence is based around the fact that my managers can barely do algebra
>tfw i answer the question with little to no thought put into it
>tfw promoted to managers assistant

the "you don't need mathematics in real life" meme is just regurgitated by people who never reach a level of employment that uses these processes on a daily basis.

Did you get it wrong in purposes? Was that the joke here?

Yeah I'm with you on this one. Even learning zero/first order logic doesn't really help you argue against anything but some of the most simple, stupid arguments. Real life and language is nuanced and complex. Critical thinking is about practice and intuition, not applying formulas to arrive at a 100% 'correct' solution (which is why AI is still so far behind where the general population expects it to be). Math/CS doesn't teach that side. English classes try to a little bit, but I think high school students would benefit from full on philosophy classes

This is mostly true in my experience. I went to a wealthy public high school and luckily a few of the math/physics teachers were retired engineers or something, so they had a good idea of what's important, and pushed for classes like engineering physics. It helped a lot, sadly that's not the case in most schools though

And this is a whole other problem. Of course you'd think something is useless if you don't understand it and don't understand how to solve real problems with it. Most of society is walking around with hammers and hammering screws in like retards while saying "See? all that bullshit screwdriver stuff we learned in high school really was useless!"

>t. peasant

Well when you simultaneously demand college education but pay peanuts for it, there's not really any surprise the ones who agree aren't good at what they do.

Most kids simply don't have the life experience for literally anything learned in school to apply outside if class.
Questioning why like the kid does implies the kid already "knew" the answer was no, and the teacher can't exactly say "go get a fucking job"

>English is fucking useless, all you do is just look at words, it has no application in the real world lmao
>History is fucking useless, all you do is just memorize dates, it has no application in the real world lmao
Fucking brainlets.

>inherently mathematical to varying degrees
There is no mathematical formula that'll give you different output with the same exact input, but according to quantum physics, the universe can.

The vast majority of political issues involve using logic (the father of math), specifically of the verbal variety.

[math]x = /pm 1[/math]
Tell me, boy, how many outputs does this give me?

Math is useful though if you're doing any sort of finance, accounting, actuarial, science or engineering work. The problem is that for the large majority of people at a high school level, they're never going to use it.

>This makes me wonder; how far into the foundations of math can elementary kids go?
Pretty deep honestly.
Linear algebra in particular is really well fit to a developing child's brain.
If you have kids, I recommend teaching them a bit of lin alg on the side. Not even a lot, but that will put them a long stride ahead when they get to college and those concepts are already in their head.

You can't be a good philosopher or theologian if you don't know math too.

If math is the most useless than what is the most useful?

Stats is pretty useful. Bullshit artists love their graphs.

I use math to get around doing my paperwork properly at work.

Exercise and consume protien.

I've been out working for a few years, what do you suggest I do to catch up/re-learn?

You know what always bugged me? People who didn't do assigned reading and then complained about a low English mark. English is the easiest shit. Just read the book once and then coast for two weeks while the rest of the class limps along. You get the fucking book for the exam, there's no excuse for not doing well on those sections. Just repeat what the teacher said his interpretation is, bam, easy 90.

>They should be learning basic physics
this. Physics are fun even if you suck at the math. You are encouraged to learn the math because you're applying it to shit you've done.

What type of math would be useful? Elaborate.

>Philosophy
Even just how to argue with people without yelling. This is basic shit that people in politics don't care to know.

The joke is him

I just dont understand why people complain about math and everyone is forced to learn about Jane Austen and Kazakhstani History and other stupid worthless garbage. It's a book. It's entertainment. That's what it's there for. I'll read it if I fucking want to.

Math is important, science is important, maaayybe history is important. """English"""" class is not important past 6th grade.

Depends on what you want. If you want something to straighten your brain out and teach you to be logical and solve problems it seems pretty good. If you want to learn something very fundamental and relatively unchanging that people or conscious entities will probably be learning for hundreds of years, math is preddy dank. If you want to understand physics or stats. If you want chemistry to be easy for you in its arithmetic/mathematical parts.

I usually tell students that's it useful to pass school and college. very few will get to use it in "real life" but if you manage to use it in "real life" then you are probably an elite mind and clearly above the cattle.

>not understanding the importance of being thoroughly erudite in most aspects of human culture, including math, literature and physics
It's like you don't want to be a Renaissance man

>You learn the foundation in elementary school.
no you don't, that's the issue.

Meme fiction has no bearing on any of those things.

You shouldn't be memorizing the quadratic formula. It's pretty easy to derive.

Once you derive it you memorize it with the little mulberry bush jingle.

That's a waste of time. Like I said, rederive it every time you use it.

That's a much bigger waste of time than just memorizing it though. I don't really see the problem with memorizing things desu but to each their own I guess.

*sigh*

failing school, user-kun?

I think students should learn tensor calculus

Jingle?

>Physics are fun even if you suck at the math.

Absolutely wrong. It’s not even subjective. Physics is all about derivations of formulas. Without a basic knowledge of calculus, a physics student is taught that *poof* a magic formula appears that they use to do mind numbing problems. Whereas if they know how to derive acceleration from velocity, for example, then the students understanding would increase tenfold.

Its useless for brainlets like you.

That's what a brainlet that thinks he knows physics from watching YouTube videos about it says. You need a solid math background to appreciate and understand physics.

To the melody of "all around the mulberry bush":
"X equals negative b
plus or minus the square root
of b squared minus four a c,
all over 2 a"

Yes, as retarded baby intuition, it would be close to pointless though, just as alchemy when compared to chemistry.

At the same time math would be pointless without science, pretty, but pointless, so it's not about trying to break them apart and compare them, but understanding their importance as a whole, math and science fit together really nicely, maybe scientist and mathematicians should too?.

False.
NOTHING can exist independent of mathematics.

>He, not considering the computer is a direct consequence of math

...

>thinking you're gonna convince anyone you're an erudite by dropping book quotes from the fucking high school reading list
all of my kekeks

You need a good foundation of beginning Math up to Algebra. Once you have a good foundation the real usefulness would be through classes like Finance and Accounting which high schools rarely touch upon. Calculus and above is completely useless for normal everyday use. Only ones who need Calculus is people who work in high level jobs that incorporate calculus. The rest will either have applications already written to do the Calculus or won't ever use Calculus.

>durrr learning math is useless for most people because you can do everyday shit inefficiently without math
It's not useless, you're just too stupid to use the tools you were given. Just like how niggers in Africa let everything whiteys gave them decay to worthless junk because they didn't understand how to use that shit.

Yeah algebra based physics is shit, but some people, girls mostly, are even more shit at mathematics due to not paying attention in high school and early undergrad. Too many dicks to insert I suppose.

Shut the fuck up user I have PDE's to solve and your mom to fuck, nobody needs to derive it

>Gender studies
>Politics
>Reading and Writing

While you can associate mathematical factors with them, they do not require mathematics.

Absolute brainlet