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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11125 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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I was a bit skeptical about the 30-fold increase, because this does tell us little about the absolute numbers. It would be very easy to get such an increase by going from 0.01% to 0.3%, which would probably not herald the decline and fall of the Occident.

But the text confirms that 12.5% go to remedial classes, and a whopping 85% of those (e.g. more than 10% of the freshmen) were unable to expand (1+s)^2.

My heart goes out to their mathematics department whose professors are now busy designing special classes to fix this.

Now, I am not sure how the US university system works. Is this some weirdo sadist thing where university students enrolled in medieval English literature have to take math classes and the students enrolled in CS have to take PE and analyse poems? Or are these unlucky 10% of children left behind actually enrolled in a subject where they will need some math (e.g. anything at least as STEMy as psychology)?

If it is the former, then the solution would be to stop torturing students with subjects which are irrelevant for them. If it is the latter, remedial classes will not qualify the students, it would be like giving a class on the alphabet to fix freshmen who enrolled for law school while being illiterate. Much kinder to point them to jobs which do not require math instead (I don't think the US military would want you if you can not expand quadratics? OnlyFans? ICE grunt?).

At the risk of my inner elitist shining through, in Germany you do not find people who can not expand quadratics at universities. I had and have a low opinion on the mathematical ability of my high school classmates, math class was always more about training monkeys into following algorithms to solve problems than it was about exploring the structures of mathematics and proving theorems, but the ones which were unable to be trained to that modest standard simply did not pass the class.

But the text confirms that 12.5% go to remedial classes, and a whopping 85% of those (e.g. more than 10% of the freshmen) were unable to expand (1+s)^2.

This is actually not as horrible as I was expecting. 87.5% don't need remedial math is impressive!

... at UCSD?

This is the internet and people lie, but scout's honor I got perfect scores on the math section of the PSAT, the SAT, and the GMAT. I could not for the life of me remember how to expand (1+s)^2. I run a business, lots of accounting-type math, but haven't given the slightest thought to quadratics in two decades.

Kinda scary how you just... lose stuff over time.

It's easy enough to just multiply it out if you forgot the formula.

Yeah my hungover brain realized that a moment later, but I decided to leave the post as written anyways.

Now, I am not sure how the US university system works. Is this some weirdo sadist thing where university students enrolled in medieval English literature have to take math classes and the students enrolled in CS have to take PE and analyse poems? Or are these unlucky 10% of children left behind actually enrolled in a subject where they will need some math (e.g. anything at least as STEMy as psychology)?

I'm not sure that that specific college is like. Back when I was studying studio art a lower tier state college, they suggested that I should take the kind of math that centrally featured the golden rectangle and spiral, and interesting facts like people who used to calculate in a base 60 system. We did have to learn the quadratic formula, but nobody really expected us to do much with it.

I don't think the US military would want you if you can not expand quadratics?

I suspect the veterans in our midst can provide more specific anecdotes, but I think the minimum ASVAB score doesn't require this generally, and is probably lower than you seem to be thinking. But you might not get a desirable specialization.

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