re: #557 Obdicut

I think these were the missing terms in this thread:

Necessary vs. sufficient

Understanding vs. doing.

I think Cato does understand algebra, even if he couldn’t sit down at a formal problem and do one.

If someone really can’t do algebra, they really will spend their whole life getting ripped off and making bad decisions when it comes to financial transactions, etc.

So, simply by rote memory if nothing else, most people learn algebra defensively. Even if not formally.

Bullshit.

Many people who don’t know algebra spend their very profitable lives ripping off those who do.

It’s got nothing to do with math, and everything to do with ethics.

If I’m a ripper-offer, I don’t have to know algebra, I just hire some math weenie who does. And then I show him what happened to the last math weenie who tried to rip me off.

And then I hire an even more hungry, stupid math weenie to do the math on the new one.

If I’m a likely rippoffee, I do the same, without the threats part.

Ludwig would make an aptitude into a requirement, and I do not hold with that.