Nobody is going to like this, but the secret to doing arithmetic: repetition.
You're not going to get it right the first time. And you're not going to remember it long-term unless you've been drilled on it so much that you've been in tears over it.

Math isn't natural for our brains, so it's rather difficult to learn at first, but everyone needs some basic grasp of arithmetic in this society. We're not hunter-gathers anymore, we have bills, taxes, and far more complex lives than we did 1000's of years ago. And we can't just sit in front of a phone and watch videos roll by and expect our lives to amount to anything. You learn by doing, and you get better with practice.

I would have thought they had the best lawyers, given how often the litigate. But maybe Disney's lawyers should focus on writing better contracts instead of billing Disney for costly litigation efforts.

In the long-term, consumers don't benefit. But the con is in the short-term gains and the benefit is to investors that get out in time, or otherwise have instruments that manage risk of a soon-to-be toxic asset.

Your average 401K or retirement fund manager isn't going to keep people's retirement safe, their focus is on the commission they earn for selling retirees extract things they probably don't need, like term life. Or doing almost nothing if they aren't using commission-based or hybrid compensation. I bring up 401Ks because that's where the significant fraction of the free money that fills these worthless investments comes from. It's ultimately the middle class that gets the short end of the stick in stock market fluctuation. We've seen people's retirements hit hard in previous bubbles, and there is less regulation now than there was in the 2000's and 1980's.

To American oligarchs the kids' ability to do math is undesirable, because that ability would give them a) an appreciation of how badly they're being screwed over and b) the beginning of the means to do something about it.

IMO anyone who thinks that the dumbing down of society and the sabotaging of education aren't part of a plan, simply hasn't been paying attention. Or they've already fallen for the propaganda coming from the would-be architects of neo-feudalism...

> quantum frequency converters, which compensate for residual frequency differences between the photons

Would it be too much to ask to call them Heisenberg Compensators? Please, it would be fun.

China's geology is really bad for petroleum production. A bad lot in the luck of the draw.

They are building a monster pipeline and rail system across Mongolia and Siberia to Russian reserves but it's a decadal project.

Electric transportation is a smart option for their situation. Their necessity has become their Mother of Invention and they are dominating the world in electric power systems innovation.

If we're graduating Seniors with Junior level math skills that's hardly "Can't do Math."

I suspect even that claim is wrong and we're also teaching the wrong math for an informed electorate. In undergrad we need people sharp in probability and statistics more than matrix algebra. So they can be numerate against politicians' bullshit. I guess we should ask politicians to work on that.

I *knew* you were way down the rabbit hole, and the fact you don't believe a million died based on nothing but your own gut instinct -- which, hilariously, you think is data -- is all the proof I required.

The only difference between you and an anti-MMR anti-vaxxer is that you haven't yet rammed Robbie's cock quite all the way to the back of your slavering gullet. But you'll get there in the end. Enjoy the rancid taste.

To learn maths properly, you have to enjoy it, love it even.
You need to be stimulated by the curiosity of the unknown,
and the challenge of problem solving. You need to know
the hit your brain gets when you manage something.
It is like this with music: if you want to learn an instrument
over the years to a high degree of skill, you need to love
the instrument and enjoy the many hours of practice it takes.

Remove that positive reward-driven learning, and replace
it by fear-of-failure-driven learning, and as soon as the opportunities
to fail dry up, so does the motivation. So you get the people who
passed maths at 16 and then promptly forgot it all and never
touched it again.

Fixing that fear-of-failure problem by just removing the
fear-of-failure doesn't fix it. If the positive connection isn't
there, and there is no fear of failure, the student simply
won't be motivated to learn.

It's not rocket science. It's simple psychology.
But the people running the education system are
as inept at doing that, and understanding the psychology
of learning, as the kids are getting inept at doing
maths because it's being forced in the wrong way.

In an industry obsessed West, we want the school
system to reliably manufacture units of educated
teenagers who can be put to use by industries
that can't be done by robots and AI. This is tragic.

Some of us are neither Republicans nor Democrats but would support a strong 10th Amendment with strict observance of Article I limitations.

But nearly all the Democrats and Republicans want to selectively choose which parts of the Constitution to ignore. There is no will for Rule of Law.

The Congressmen get elected on the principle of stealing money from one person to give it to five. That's a guaranteed win in a Universal Suffrage system with no strong moral foundation.

The trick is they inflate the money supply to actually do it so everybody pays. The five "winners" suffer the most in real numbers.

I'd rather see a stable Constitutional order but it's fantasy to believe that's achievable. We'll see fiscal collapse, likely War and a Draft, and chaos instead. All because oligarchs and the poor want "free stuff". And it's hard to blame the poor when everything they want is unachievable for them because the markets are all rigged against them.

The Gini Coefficient is too damn high, so don't get between them and the guillotines.

Thanks, that's informative. If I had mod points they would be yours.

"States rights!"

"No, not like that!"

This is the internet. I figured that since they tried to censor it, someone would have made copies.

We need to compete in the AI slop war? Let them have it. How about we use all that VC and bubble cash to fund healthcare?

So are we going to cheer for states rights on this one or not?