It has never, in history, been less important to be able to recite your times tables It has never, in history, been less important to be able to take out a piece of paper and perform long division by hand
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Even in the olden days before everyone was carrying a powerful computer with them in their pocket everywhere they went "Math errors" as the result of *conceptual* errors were far more common and damaging than actual arithmetic flubs
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Forgetting to carry the 1 while multiplying two numbers gets you a wrong answer within the same order of magnitude as the right answer Multiplying the *wrong two numbers* is a far more consequential mistake
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And the best way to build a foundation to avoid such errors is to start off teaching children to THINK To understand that mathematics, including even simple arithmetic, is a CONSTRUCTED TOOL Which is what all that newfangled nonsense about set theory and whatnot is about
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof
That CONSTRUCTED TOOL creates a meaningful SHARED UNDERSTANDING
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Replying to @Aya62335284 @perdricof
Yes And it is VERY IMPORTANT that our society have a SHARED UNDERSTANDING that of the LIMITS OF THE TOOL
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It is therefore of GREAT SOCIAL VALUE for educators to talk about circumstances in which "2 + 2 = 5" might be true, and of NO SOCIAL VALUE to go on angry Ayn Rand rants about how people who deny eternal verities like "2 + 2 = 4" are heretics and anathema
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof
How utterly irrelevant Ayn Rand is here, and your discussion of educators/ education is a continued deflection. You’re still deflecting. Why?
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Replying to @Aya62335284 @perdricof
I'm not deflecting, this is the topic at hand You are arguing against a ridiculous strawman and acting like the people who want to advance human understanding are somehow the ones delaying it
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I know what you think you're arguing against, you're arguing against a horrible PoMo bogeyman who wants to say that measurement is impossible and quantities don't exist so I can beat someone up and take all their money and go "But you don't have any less money than before!"
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This is fucking stupid No one is saying that The understanding that language is arbitrary and infinitely many languages exist besides your own will not destroy language
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