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[scriver]

Then explain to me why psychology doesn't have anything to do with physical punishment instead.

[kaijyuu]

I'm pretty sure non-answers are closer to common trolling than what he's doing.


Dare I ask what motivates one to avoid punishment other than fear? If it's respect, that's one seriously twisted form of respect.

[darkrider2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement

This really belongs here as this is mostly what we're talking about except with children. (This is one of the times I wish vector was here, she'd up and fix this thread in one post).

[Flying Dice]

I'm pretty sure non-answers are closer to common trolling than what he's doing.

This is what has been running through my head as I read through this.

In either case, that sort of anecdotal-evidence based asspull "I know beatings don't affect children because I don't think they affect me or my child" is hardly a compelling argument.

[Putnam]

Why the hell do people only say "when will we use this" about math? How about social studies? Are you ever going to use the fact that Booker T. Washington started the Tuskegee institutes in a real job? Hell no! But why don't you complain about it? Why don't you complain when you're taught about haiku?

Haiku are useless.
This is but one fact of life.
They're still fun, though.

And that's why people say "when will we use this?" about math and the various maths. Because it inconveniences them. Because they don't want to learn how the universe works.

Instead, they prefer to stick with their 440*2^(x/12) or their .

That first one is the formula for how musical notes are calculated. The second one is the equation for lighting in Team Fortress 2.

[kaijyuu]

I remember complaining to my trig teacher in middle school that I'd never use any of this sine cosine silliness.

That summer I started dabbling into 3d modeling. Getting those polygonal triangles at just the right angles was hard... sure wished I'd remembered all those trig functions

[Leatra]

Psychology should never have a single thing to do with physical punishment.

You know nothing about psychology...

Why the hell do people only say "when will we use this" about math? How about social studies? Are you ever going to use the fact that Booker T. Washington started the Tuskegee institutes in a real job? Hell no! But why don't you complain about it? Why don't you complain when you're taught about haiku?

Haiku are useless.
This is but one fact of life.
They're still fun, though.

And that's why people say "when will we use this?" about math and the various maths. Because it inconveniences them. Because they don't want to learn how the universe works.

It's because teachers don't give a damn answer to the "when will we use this?" question. Student thinks "if it's not going to have a practical use and I'm being forced to memorize all this crap no matter what, screw maths" Students don't complain about lessons like history and psychology because it's real. Maths just seems fake. Crapload of meaningless numbers and letters on a paper that doesn't even symbolize anything, according to them. They don't know what it means because their teacher doesn't tell them. Teachers begin the lesson by roughly saying "alright kiddos, here are the meaningless and useless list of forumlas you must memorize today, don't ask what they are for". So you can't blame the students for not realizing the real meaning of maths and calling it a crappy lesson. They just see maths as another realm that doesn't have anything to do with the real material world.

[Patchouli]

I don't know what level of math you've taken, so your mileage may vary, but I've thought the same thing before.

But nowadays, I sometimes think about how I'd go explaining something I'm learning in math to any of my friends who haven't taken it yet, and it's honestly a lot more difficult than I thought. Especially as far as the application of something, what you say will depend on your field on interest and study. When you have to describe the use of a specific mathematical tool to people of varying interests and levels of understanding, it's difficult to balance it out and not explain something too specific that requires other knowledge to understand, and something too trivial that just seems like a stupid application. Math builds up a lot before you see the applications for a lot of things.

Plus, I wouldn't doubt that some mathematicians are unfamiliar with those applications, or only use them for MORE MATHS.

From what I've seen in word problems on homework, they seem to do an okay job of showing some reasonable applications that people can relate to.

[Fenrir]

I would think the answer to “When will I use this?” would be “I do not know, but it is employed in so many professions and fields of study that it would close half the world to you if you did not know it.”

[thegoatgod_pan]

I used to find the "when will I use this" issue really pressing, but really the issue is an ideological one: knowledge is not utilitarian.

 As Oscar Wilde put it --all art is quite useless.  That is not to say that art cannot be turned to utilitarian  (pedagogical, propagandistic etc) uses, but that usefulness has nothing to do with the quality and significance of an artwork. 

The notion that everything should or must be useful seems to resonate with capitalist, Calvinist and similar values which generally reduce a human subject to the amount of work s/he does, and the amont of capital generated.

At the same time, if we do a mental exercize and imagine our lives deprived of the useless (e.g sex without eroticism--procreation only, food without flavor--nutrition only etc)  we end up with a terrifying dystopia.

In truth we cannot guage the usefulness or uselessness of most fields of study-there are no empirical means of measuring the value of an idea, an artwork or even a scientific formula-- e.g. there is no pragmatic use to literary analysis, yet the thought processes involved in literary analysis demand critical thinking, empathy and all kinds of other great stuff.  Conversely there is a lot of good uses for chemistry that seem problematic the first time someone applies chemistry to building home-made explosives.

Put plainly usefulness or uselessness are terrible ways to measure actual value

[Lagslayer]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I used to find the "when will I use this" issue really pressing, but really the issue is an ideological one: knowledge is not utilitarian.

 As Oscar Wilde put it --all art is quite useless.  That is not to say that art cannot be turned to utilitarian  (pedagogical, propagandistic etc) uses, but that usefulness has nothing to do with the quality and significance of an artwork. 

The notion that everything should or must be useful seems to resonate with capitalist, Calvinist and similar values which generally reduce a human subject to the amount of work s/he does, and the amont of capital generated.

At the same time, if we do a mental exercize and imagine our lives deprived of the useless (e.g sex without eroticism--procreation only, food without flavor--nutrition only etc)  we end up with a terrifying dystopia.

In truth we cannot guage the usefulness or uselessness of most fields of study-there are no empirical means of measuring the value of an idea, an artwork or even a scientific formula-- e.g. there is no pragmatic use to literary analysis, yet the thought processes involved in literary analysis demand critical thinking, empathy and all kinds of other great stuff.  Conversely there is a lot of good uses for chemistry that seem problematic the first time someone applies chemistry to building home-made explosives.

Put plainly usefulness or uselessness are terrible ways to measure actual value

I agree except on one point. The notion that "everything must have productive value" has no governmental or social boundaries. It's more of a spiritual thing, associated with ideology. Who is to say morale-boosting artwork does cannot lead to increased production?

[thegoatgod_pan]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I used to find the "when will I use this" issue really pressing, but really the issue is an ideological one: knowledge is not utilitarian.

 As Oscar Wilde put it --all art is quite useless.  That is not to say that art cannot be turned to utilitarian  (pedagogical, propagandistic etc) uses, but that usefulness has nothing to do with the quality and significance of an artwork. 

The notion that everything should or must be useful seems to resonate with capitalist, Calvinist and similar values which generally reduce a human subject to the amount of work s/he does, and the amont of capital generated.

At the same time, if we do a mental exercize and imagine our lives deprived of the useless (e.g sex without eroticism--procreation only, food without flavor--nutrition only etc)  we end up with a terrifying dystopia.

In truth we cannot guage the usefulness or uselessness of most fields of study-there are no empirical means of measuring the value of an idea, an artwork or even a scientific formula-- e.g. there is no pragmatic use to literary analysis, yet the thought processes involved in literary analysis demand critical thinking, empathy and all kinds of other great stuff.  Conversely there is a lot of good uses for chemistry that seem problematic the first time someone applies chemistry to building home-made explosives.

Put plainly usefulness or uselessness are terrible ways to measure actual value

I agree except on one point. The notion that "everything must have productive value" has no governmental or social boundaries. It's more of a spiritual thing, associated with ideology. Who is to say morale-boosting artwork does cannot lead to increased production?

I agree completely, a morale boosting artwork can lead to increased productivity.
 However that does not make it a good artwork.

 Conversely a good work of art can lead to thoroughly unproductive and even anti-social behavior (e.g catch 22, farewell to arms and other books of the kind are really really unhelpful if you want a productive wartime populace, whereas any hollywood action movie is probably great at encouraging people to join the army. the former are no less important as artworks, just as the latter is no more important, just for being useful)

the fact that something may or may not be utilitized productively has no bearing on its actual value

George Bataille wrote a very interesting book called the Accursed share, where he argued that humans confirm their sovereignty and freedom only in acts of unproductive expenditure: e.g. the only satisfaction one gets from earning money comes when you blow that money on the people you care about: gift giving, parties, festivals all suspend the useful and utilitarian for the sake of sovereign freedom.

it is infinitely more productive to be scrooge on christmas, but nothing is further from genuine human needs

[Leatra]

You are also not likely to use anything you learn from history lessons. I'm not talking about pragmatism. Students don't like maths because it seems fake. History happened and it's real. It's interesting because you can read it like a novel. Art is something else. It has a point. People like doing art and looking at art. It's something enjoyable.

I don't know what kind of methods are used around the world while teaching maths but I don't think it's neccesary for a graphic designer to learn trigonometry. If you want to learn it, you can learn it. If you don't want to learn it and are being forced to learn it, you will understandably hate it. It doesn't have anything to do with having a productive value or not. Students hate maths because it doesn't have any practical use AND they are not interested in it. I'm not suggesting students shouldn't learn anything they don't want to. I'm saying maybe we should teach children more valuable and important things rather than calculus. There are calculus-studying students who don't know where the sun rises from.

A philosopher is on a little rowboat with a fisher. Philosopher always mocks and insults the fisher because of his ignorance and lack of knowledge while the fisher calmly rows. A moment later, boat starts sinking. Philoshopher asks the fisher what to do and tells him that he doesn't know how to swim. Fisher replies "Maybe you should have learned swimming rather than mocking me for how unlearned I am. So... caio dude!" and swims away while the philosopher drowns and dies.

[Frumple]

I think you mixed up "philosopher" with "asshole"

On the other hand, I can pretty easily see that as the sort of perspective that folks with little to no understanding of philosophy would take... but yeah. The ratio of swimmers to non-swimmers vis-a-vis philosophy students I've met is higher than non-philosophy students. Tearing apart everything you personally believe in to look at its systemic insides as a job description tends to make folks fond of relaxing practices Then existentialism and all its related kin: The answer to existential angst is either beer or chill-th'-fook-out (or suicide, which comes if they don't choose one of the two. Ehn.). Asshole philosophers tend to either get ignored or come from other disciplines first, in my experience.

Also, unfortunately, you don't get to murder people because they're assholes. Fisherman swims to shore, gets thrown in jail for 20-life. Joke's on him~ Philosophy gets the last laugh; eat social contract, ohohoho.

Anyway, re: Math; I'd have had a lot more luck learning if people would have actually taught it as what it is, namely a language. Major problem being that fluency in mathematics is something that most ground level math teachers frankly lack -- when people say "What is the point of this?" they're basically asking "Translate this into <Spoken Language> for me." A person with a very limited understanding of the language can't really do anything but throw their hands in the air, unfortunately.

Now, there's problems justifying a second language to people who don't plan on speaking it, but that's a different issue; the whole 'shutting off half of world' thing applies as your justification there. Pretty much everyone (in places with compulsory education, anyway) is at least limitedly conversant in math.

[Leafsnail]

I don't know what kind of methods are used around the world while teaching maths but I don't think it's neccesary for a graphic designer to learn trigonometry.

I'm not sure if you're really unlucky with your examples or joking, but trigonometry seems like one branch of maths that would be extremely useful to a graphic designer.  Because, y'know, they will end up drawing a lot of triangles (or angles that can be treated like triangles) and will have to get them precisely right or look really unprofessional.