demonshalo

>Actually our society has decided that that is not the case.

Yet society could easily have decided the other way around. I bet you wouldn't be calling the majority rule moral at that point. The argument of "social morality" is only used here because it is convenient for you and aligns with your own values. Just think about those "societies that decided on policies that you disagree with". Those are the ones you would call immoral. Saudi Arabia, Iran, N.K. and Afghanistan comes to mind (?)

> When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people.

True. It's not most people. But then again, it's not about the number of people. It's about the idea that I owe you something simply because you breath.

> I don't see the problem.

That's the problem.

> I don't see the problem.

Again, that's the problem.

> we solve the freed up resources by not hiring people when someone retires...

If we define technology as doing more with less, automation then because the greatest technological feat of humanity.

> Today western society is build around income tax, and as long as that doesn't change, we're not heading for freedom but for oblivion.

Nailed it!

> It's a fight for a fundamental right to privacy.

Where did this right come from? and since when is this a thing? Don't mean to be condescending but "the right to privacy" isn't really a thing in this particular domain (legally speaking)

> Everyone is striving for what's called maximum information density, communicating as much data with as few words as possible, and they do so in the jargon of their respective fields of interest. The problem is, those that are not specialized in that field cannot decipher the language well enough to gain anything of use from their efforts at being succinct. Quite the contrary, the field of potential interest becomes even less appealing for having appeared so mentally taxing to parse.

That sums up my frustration perfectly. When talking to the general public, information density is your enemy not your friend. I have been trying to get mathematicians to understand that for years but they almost unanimously actively refuse to do so. I can list the reasons as to why I believe they refuse to do so but one thing is clear in my mind: you don't understand a concept unless you can ELI5.

For an expert to be able to dive into a dick measurement competition with his PhD friends about who can use the most fancy jargon possible is of no use to society. I just wish more people in the sciences could understand that!

Thank you!

I am 100% certain that had authors of a lot of papers that I have read included some examples and perhaps even calculation results, I would have understood and perhaps even been able to reason about some of their publications a whole lot better than I currently can.

Just the mere inclusion of a few examples makes a world of difference. The idea that X is clear to everyone and therefor we do not need to exemplify it for the reader is really back-breaking. Especially when you are not coming form a background that includes years of expertise within said domain!

what the f... is this sorcery?! this thing exists? O_o

If anything, this should be promoted and slapped on every page as a big green button!

a-fucking-men!

Same thing happened to me. I picked up math at 25 after not having done a single math related thing in almost 10 years. I picked it up after realizing that a lot of the things that I do on daily basis are heavily related to concepts such as triangular numbers and other sequences. My life would have been completely different had my teachers communicated math in better ways than simply saying here is an equation, solve!

>I once heard maths described as something like "a person sees a category of something that exhibit a certain behaviour and then abstracts away the specifics to be left with a set of "general principles" that let the something exhibit it's behaviour". Thing is, it sounds like you start from the specific and abstract towards the general, but it is taught as a general and I am left to my own devices when dealing with the specific.

You made my point far better than I ever could. When I am faced with a general abstraction I have to conceptualize it in terms that I understand (the specific). Yet when the general case is presented, very little is said about the specific so I have to grind for months until I can finally maybe understand what was being meant. All of that could have been prevented had the concept been communicated in a more friendly, yet still mathematical, manner.

>All for good reasons I'm sure, but then who is making a case for how we lesser mortals learn it? I was nearly in tears by the end of the course, convinced of my own stupidity and incompetence, because it was as if the class was communicating in their own language, and I (and other aerospace guys) were the village idiots who accidently made it in.

That's how I felt constantly in college and it is actually part of the the reason I dropped out. It almost felt as if this alienation is intentional. Which makes me somewhat sad!

>in effect what you are asking for is magic, a stone floating in the air with nothing to support it.

Isn't that how we all learn math? in fact, isn't that how we all learn anything really?

When you are in 2nd grade, you don't start by learning about Riemann hypothesis. You start at the tip of the pyramid and drill downwards into complexity.

I am not asking for something magical here. I just wish that more math was communicated in a simplified manner that would help bring in people from all walks of life into the world of science.

Sure. But I hope that you can see how little access the average person have to mathematical concepts unless he/she have had years of formal training. Khan academy, Numberphiles and the likes have done wonders for lots of us out here. But it is still not enough and more needs to be done. Especially when talking about concepts that are new or truths that we constantly "take for granted".

you STILL dont get it!

You still don't get it... You are arguing against something I did not say!

Be kind and do this for me: Think of yourself as Sara, an average person in society. Put yourself in her shoes. Now click on the following link and scroll down for a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorization

Scroll as slowly as you want/can. Tell me, do you think that this is a good way to communicate to Sara why this problem is of importance? or even better, do you think Sara will ever give a shit if all she can see is that?

If you want to promote a more scientifically literate society, you should not try to render every single person into a scientists. Rather, try introducing scientific thinking into people's every day lives. The only way that will happen is if those who know the sciences learn to communicate better with the rest of us and help us get it into our daily lives.

can you see where I am coming from? I am not annoyed by math or my ignorance toward the topic. I am trying my best to combat it. But the problem I often encounter is that those who know/can rarely speak the same language as those who cannot. Khan Academy grew big because he knew how to communicate, more people should be like him imo.

> When taking a math exam, you can not contest having "misunderstood the question". The question is precise. By saying you "misunderstood it", you acknowledge that you don't understand the topic well enough to pass the exam.

This right here is completely unfair and infuriating.

Great mathematicians always find themselves taking the wrong turn and producing the wrong result(s) because they "misunderstood the question". Granted they learn form their mistake and revise and iterate until they get their theories and proofs right. But if they constantly fail, how could you then claim that they "don't understand the topic well enough". Are you telling me that Tao does not understand prime numbers well enough because he cannot solve for formula X?

This is the 3rd post that I reply to that seem to illustrate my point. You are RIGHT about the nature of mathematical language. But you CANNOT appeal to the general public with that arrogant attitude. You cannot communicate using dense language and expect non-math people to relate or even care. Granted, you might not give a fuck about that. But that is counter productive because if you want more rigor in society you should introduce more people to math rather than having them being put-off by some elitist attitude.

Once again, this is a M.SC. Exam so it should be this way. My issue is with math communication to the public in general, not this pdf specifically!

> I would argue the opposite. If more problems could be as well posed as mathematical problems, we wouldn't have people bullshitting their way through arguments that are in dire need of some scientifical rigor (see climate science, psychology, and other disciplines that are too complex to isolate phenomena completely). You can't handwave your way through a math exam and you shouldn't be able to do it in other fields of science.

Amen. I have been saying that for years. But I think you misunderstood my original post.

I am all for 100% scientific rigidity and less bullshit in society. But what you seem to classify as "clear" is not-so-clear to others. It's actually about how condensed the information is in each question. In order to unpack those questions, you need years of experience within that field in order to get anywhere.

I bet you anything that each one of these questions could be posed in a different, yet still mathematical, manner that would make most non-mathy people (such as myself) at least understand the gist of what is being asked. But that is not something mathematicians are interested in. Which is what I was trying to say.

> it might take you a few years.

My complaint was not about these questions. These are M.Sc. exam questions and it should take you years of study to undertand and be able to solve them.

My complain was about math communication in general. It shouldn't take me years of study to understand a question on a basic level. I gave the example of prime factorization earlier but you can think of how most math problems are communicated to the general public.

A great example to illustrate my point is Project Euler. The way problems are communicated on PE is vastly different than the way they are communicated by professors, wikipedia or most other outlets. Every problem there starts with an introduction followed by a set of assumptions and a posed problem to be solved. It is far more friendly and inviting of a way to communicate math problems to the general public!

I understand that and agree 100%. However, what I was trying to say is that for a non-technical person who is trying to understand a concept rather than solving a problem, accuracy is not the main concern. Sometimes you just need to understand the line of reasoning "roughly speaking". and as I said at the end, I understand that this is a set of M.SC. exam question and my issue is not with this pdf specifically.

Take the problem of Integer Factorization, something that I have personally been fascinated by for years. The problem is so ridiculously simple that a 5 year old could understand it. With that said, google for a few wikipedia articles and see the notation and the way it is presented. The non-mathematician does not care about difference of squares or triangular numbers or what.have.you.

It seems to be the case that mathematicians are unable to talk about math without requiring the person they are talking to to have extensive knowledge of the topic. That's IMO why Carl Sagan and Feynman were so great. They could take complex problems and reduce them (read communicate) in a good way that most could understand and reason about without needing to traverse the entirety of the knowledge pyramid. Similarly, that is what Numberphile does so well.

Why is it that I find these questions always posed in a way that is MEANT TO make me NOT understand them? Granted, math is not my topic. However, I am interested and want to learn.

I don't mean to be a dick, but I just simply find it frustrating that the goal of most mathematicians is to pose some question/conjecture in as few sentences as humanly possible. It really grinds my gears how interesting problems are always abstracted behind confusing vertical specific language. Even when reading a Wikipedia article about some cool problem, you get hit in the face with some abstraction that makes most problems seem far more complicated than they actually are.

This is probably not a view shared by many here, but if math problems were to be communicated in more natural ways, far more people would be interested in the sciences.

Just my 2 cents!

Ps. I understand that this is an M.SC. exam. I am talking about math in general, not this pdf!

weed cures my depression. so why deprive myself of something I enjoy doing?

reverse this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqjhYmDDWlI

Depends on how you define capitalism. You'd most likely love Peter Theil's book 0 to 1. Recommended read if you got time!

yes

Don't think u can recognize a trolling post when you see one! :D

I would personally recommend you follow https://twitter.com/ArgBlatteTalar. He breaks down all the hypocrisy regarding this particular topic in his videos on YouTube. Sources for his video material can be found in the description box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1_viPSD-bY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lsoZ0uDOGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Qwr6KvmUc

Problem most often is that after you take cover, you forget to ask that question.

> Democracy means ownership and accountability, along with shared governance.

yeaaaaa no! that's not what democracy means.

> Ownership is also about economics. It is about who benefits. Right now, Facebook is in the process of absorbing huge swaths of the global advertising market, lots of our life-giving communities and now much of politics and media—funnelling the profits mainly to the founders, early investors and other large shareholders.

-.-

> This billionaire’s refusal to recognize the rise of authoritarianism as a symptom of economic inequality and insecurity is startling

Authoritarianism? Sick usage of $5 words... anything to back that claim up with? Inequality is not to be confused with inequity... They are not synonyms.

To the author:

Mark makes a whole lot of sense if you consider the fact that he is talking about a generation that considers sharing a Facebook post to be political engagement. You have to view things from that perspective. You can bash his skull off if you so wish for saying what he believes, but he would not have had that opinion had it not been supported by our shitty behavior as a generation.

Hurling insults and labels is the primary way of having a political discourse these days - prime example being the two general election candidates (basket of deplorables anyone?). This phenomenon can even be seen in this very article you wrote. Now, where do you think the best place to have such eloquent political discourse is? The answer to that is rather simple: Facebook of-course with Twatter being a close second combined with all other social networking sites such as HN.

He understands his audience and he understands this upcoming generation. You can all raise your pitch forks and talk about the awesomeness of democracy and the evil of large corporations. But in reality, every single one of us is contributing to this mess. Mark is merely someone who is capitalizing on our collective moronic behavior. And I personally cannot fault him for that.

I lack the words to describe how bad that quote is!

> If it takes off, it will kill journalism, at least on the Internet. I don't think I'm exaggerating much. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the like would suddenly have a tremendous pressure to write clickbaity articles

What makes you think that this isn't the case already? I work in this industry and I can tell you for a fact that none of those organizations are News organizations anymore. They are traffic brokers. Some of their authors still have integrity, but the organizations themselves don't care about quality. All they want is traffic. Pure and simple!

I think the best way to start is tackling a specific problem. Ex. Try building a summarizer for any given piece of text.

Start by using traditional statistical methods first in order to understand what works and what doesn't. From there, you can go on to work on an ML solution to the same problem in order to see the actual difference between the two approaches in terms of comparable output.