I don’t know if I have dyscalculia, but this is certainly what the operational (actually working out problems) side of math feels like:

Reading the stories of other people in the post, I probably do have dyscalculia I’d guess. Their experiences seem so similar to mine — trying 100x as hard in math as any other class, and still understanding nothing and failing completely.

Like many in that thread, I’m great with reasoning but just abysmal with numbers and figuring out any problems in math. It all just looks like utter chaos to me and always does, no matter how much I practice or study. On the 1600-point SAT, I got an 800 on the reading/verbal portion (highest score you can get). And I did not study for it for a single second. I got a 480 on the math part and studied for that for six months straight for 2-3 hours a day. All that effort for a fuckin’ 480. What a waste of time. I would’ve gotten the same math score if I’d done nothing.

People have told me that I’m lazy and just not trying in math. But I’m very stubborn and was definitely trying. Did not matter even a little bit.

What is one ugly truth you learned as you got older?

Most people do not get smarter or wiser as they age — they just get older. I sort of realized that as a kid, but it really hit home as an adult when I mainly had to deal with other adults. Age does not in fact produce wisdom. Often, quite the opposite as people lose their innate curiosity and drive to improve themselves that they possessed when younger. This causes de facto decline.

To put it more crudely, and contrary to popular belief, dumbasses generally stay dumbasses and many get worse as they age, not better.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

This person is a dumbass. A very huge and very wrong dumbass.

This advice will steer your very, very poorly indeed. But it’s a common misperception of reality due to many people’s lack of ability to understand that coherent abstractions behave differently and can have completely divergent priorities from any of the people of which they are composed. Admittedly, this is a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around. But it is vital to not being an enormous dumbass about how reality and our sociocultural system works.

A company is a real thing, however. And it does not care about you. It does not have your best interests at heart except where they coincidentally align with its own goals. It does not love you and does not know about you at all. To a company, you are merely a part, and a replaceable (and disposable) one at that.

What the Reddit poster above is claiming is like saying there is no “human.” You’re just a bunch of cells that want to metabolize ATP and eliminate waste. This contention is exactly as ridiculous as what that Reddit doofus is claiming. And yet, many people do think that poorly. I feel sorry for their wasted brains.

It’s not easy having the mandate of heaven, but it’s a burden I’ll just have to live with.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

Basque! The only song I have in this language, I believe. Good song and vid.

Just such a great, tight action sequence. It’s perfect. It’s dramatic, funny, doesn’t have crazy cuts and it is its own little story. The half-silent argument via CCTV is just so well-done. What I love about the entire setpiece is that there is nothing you can add or take away to make it any better. The amount of artistry, great editing, actor talent and painstaking direction that it takes to create something like this is staggering to think about.

What the Kids Are Reading.

This is sad but it also means there is no real competition emerging from younger generations for my job. These people are incapable of anything resembling thinking. It also partially explains why no one under 35 or so can troubleshoot at all. Their brains are optimized for clicking and drooling. You’ll never be able to puzzle out a thorny OSPF config issue if TikTok and YouTube is all you know and you can’t even read anything longer than a “Subscribe” button.

We, as they say, have done fucked up.

STEM education should be eliminated from most colleges and universities, with a few special-purpose ones remaining such as MIT.

Instead, those interested in such fields should go to two-year trade-like schools that intensively teach those fields and the math if any (etc.) needed for each one. However instead of the students paying for the school, these would be two-year apprenticeships that pay enough to live on. If everyone insists the nation needs STEM so very badly, then fucking act like you mean it.

The remaining colleges and universities would revert to teaching the humanities and social sciences as they should, and would be free or low-cost (but not paid like the STEM ones). However, to go to the paid STEM trade school, any student would be required to graduate from one of the non-STEM unis and actually learn how to think and not just continue to be some autist goofus for life.

This would be far better than what we do now.