Notices by myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win), page 2

@jadag88 @jredlund @danilo @mastodonmigration

From whom do you feel isolated?

BLACK PEOPLE

@danilo

I think you are not realizing how many people on the fedi fail to see this as a problem or a "failure" this place does what they need and that's enough. They aren't trying to save the whole internet or whatever.

I would like to save the internet, please.

I generally agree with everything you say, but want to point out part of the reason it may fail to connect.

This is in part "failure" by design.

@eosfpodcast @HumToTable

"Great point, but that's not the case with Mastodon and the Fediverse. "

Not if people want to keep it from becoming more popular. Not if that's a "feature"

Like how am I supposed to pitch this place to anyone with that floating around on here? Should I just not bother?

Everyone forgets that ants make silk (as do bees who also make wax... the show offs) ants don't just use silk to protect their eggs and pupae like many arthropods. Some ants use silk in nest construction. Which puts them in the company of spiders. The way that ants use silk also requires TWO or more ants to pull it off. Several weaver ants hold leaves close together. Then another ant picks up her baby larvae sister and taps her to tell her to make silk. She then cements the leaves together.

@whknott

And where has treating statistics like "the lesser math" gotten us? I blame the messy way LLMs and other tools are being slathered around on everything on the general neglect of statistics by "serious math people"

It's an unsupervised area and it has fallen into chaos. And they have the powerful tools that claim to do the magic that the people want.

@JorgeStolfi @dymaxion @whknott

Part of understanding these systems and their tremendous power is recognizing that there are undefined terms and knowing exactly what you have assumed through the consensus of language and conventions of meaning.

Do you want to purge subjectivity from mathematics? Good luck with that.

But I think it's also worth asking WHY so much of the mathematics of a century ago was focused on this goal? Why did otherwise brilliant people burn up so much time chasing it?

@JorgeStolfi @dymaxion @whknott

At the base of every axiomatic system are terms that cannot be defined using the system itself. Terms that require consensus and should be recognized as such. And these are always worth re-examining and removing, changing to see what other systems we may develop.

It is still a human endeavor, based on language. And I think that's a feature not a bug.

@JorgeStolfi @dymaxion @whknott

The foundations of set theory are a mess? This is news to me.

There have always been mathematicians interested in pipe dreams like universal axioms or more minimal sets of axioms. But if you need to get things done you *can* ... you just need to be honest about what you are assuming, and it might not be as minimal as some want.

Different assumptions create different mathematics that have their own uses.

Maybe I'm not understanding what you are saying.

@dymaxion @whknott

When you've wished you knew more about stats what was it that you wanted to do, find out, or know?

@dymaxion @whknott

So, more experience with the creation of data visualizations and summary statistics (where do they come from?) Methods to access their quality and predictive value?

I ask because I've had many people say something along these lines "why did I learn so much calculus, everything I need to do with math is statistics?"

This can confuse me a little because understanding distributions is so much easier if you know calculus. (To find maximums and areas under curves.)

@dymaxion @whknott

I realize that mathematicians can make everyone very tired because we are more interested in the foundations and shape of the containers than their contents.

We teach students how to complete the square to solve quadratics ... mostly so they can prove the quadratic formula for themselves.

But often these students don't even really understand that if a*b=0 that means a, b or both must be 0 or how that is at all relevant to "finding x"

1/

@dymaxion @whknott

Because what mathematics really is are the *proofs* not the solutions, not the algorithms, but that unbroken chain from a minimal set of assumptions to the solution.

Over and over we work to demonstrate this unbroken chain, though in most undergrad statistics courses this is just something we give up on in favor of getting the students competent enough with the algorithms to mostly apply them correctly. And that's part of why such courses aren't seen as "real math." 2/2

We are proud to announce the new mandatory rules for table construction. Please see your local Cat Office of Cat Happiness for information on compliance with these stunning and well-thought-out changes. Congratulations to the design team on solving the problem!

This was NOT posted by #PicaTheCat I, a human agree and support this fully of my own free will. #picalaw #picacrime

@mekkaokereke

It's pretty wild to expect police to be this way, but in some schools young people can't even expect this much from teachers.

There are a host of reason for this that go beyond just "bad teachers." Schools set up in a way that makes this impossible. Just like police departments.

I'm certain these officers were following "policy" in their minds and that, had they made an exception for a child with clear adult support, (who wasn't wealthy or white) they could have consequences.

@mekkaokereke

Thinking about how baked in to the folk story (Leave it to Beaver! Andy Griffin...) of a child having a "talking to" with a wise stern reasonable police officer are parallel lessons:

* Power structures must be respected, but ultimately will recognize your humanity.
* The law is good and the police are good, an extension of adults who give you firm boundaries because they love and value you.
* You belong in this community and power structures will guide & support you.

@DaleHagglund @Jirikiha @whknott

All that and combinatorics and probability too. It's exceedingly nontrivial. My graduate advisor said "in combinatorics the questions are all easy to understand and impossible to answer"

So then why is there is notion that statistics is for "lightweights" ? Part of it is all of the barebones rough and ready recipe based stats courses for business and social science majors... but there are calc classes like that too so why does it stick only to stats?

@whknott

They know a little calc before they get into physics. And they often tell me about how they used it in my calc class.

But, what I wish we could do is stop treating Statistics like it's... the math class for "weak" students who couldn't do calculus.

Part of the problem is there is still a tendency to classify kids as "math people" and "not math people" although I'm breaking my peers of this notion every chance I get. Part of it is this snobbishness pure math people have about stats.

I teach at a very academically rigorous school. But, there are a few things this school does that might surprise people:

1. Many teachers teach a wide range of grade levels. So you could have a teacher who *could* teach Linear Algebra teaching you in 4th grade math.

2. The school makes time for creative math and CS in addition to the regular class. So I get to work with students without pressure to get them past any particular test or goal posts.

The elites will be fine. The people MAGA hates will be just fine. They may cry out and bluster. Maybe that's fun to watch. But they will be just fine in the end.

I don't think they really see or know the people who will hurt most. It's not the sort of people who get talked about very much who will be hurt most. People that hardly anyone centers, regardless of politics.

There is some irony some are among MAGA themselves, but I don't find that amusing at all.

I also think it's important to remember that, although spite and hate were powerful forces in this election the most powerful forces were the apathy, confusing, alienation, anger and helplessness that lead a near plurality to not vote at all. To look at the political circus and decide it wasn't relevant, or worth their time, or to be so harried and exhausted by surviving they had no time to look at all.