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'...people brag all the time about not knowing how to do math'. This is true, I think, mostly of Anglo-Saxon countries. It is quite a disgusting attitude. In what way is someone's life-chances or overall happiness degraded by a better understanding or skill in the use of numbers and higher mathematical concepts? I consider this anti-maths meme one of the most pernicious aspects of our culture.

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I think this is misunderstanding of cause and effect, and correlation does not imply causation. High math skill does correlate with nerdiness, and ceteris paribus, nerdiness does degrade your life chances or overall happiness. It does not mean high math skill alone, if you are not nerdy, will degrade your life chances, but well, they do not have high math skill to understand that. :)

I wasn't so much thinking about innate mathematical ability, more the mathematical education most kids should receive. Disparaging attitudes towards maths skills, which is a general rule, is pretty harmful to society, I think.

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