Woke Mathematics is a Thing

James Lindsay Tweeted this Tweet from an “ethnomathematics teacher.”

Somehow, mathematics became a “white” thing, despite A) it’s usefulness and availability to anyone who wants to use these principles and B) its worldwide origins, which extend to Greece, Egypt and the Middle East, among many other places.

From 3000 BC the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, together with Ancient Egypt and Ebla began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for purposes of taxation, commerce, trade and also in the field of astronomy and to formulate calendars and record time.The most ancient mathematical texts available are from Mesopotamia and Egypt – Plimpton 322 (Babylonian c. 1900 BC),[2] the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 2000–1800 BC)[3] and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 1890 BC).

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Avatar of Steve Grappe
    Steve Grappe August 4, 2020 Reply

    I am amazed a little more every day. Thanks for posting these finds.

  2. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth August 4, 2020 Reply

    James Lindsay, at New Discourses:

    Thus began a relentless attempt by a band of petty Crits to discredit me that has included a professional and academic defense of “2+2=5” that has been raging through the entire month of July 2020. Now, at the time of writing in early August, it seems to have begun to make the leap into the mainstream, necessitating this silly explanation. . . .

    From here, the entire “2+2=5 discourse” really started to get silly. Activists desperate to satisfy Shraddha Shirude’s demand to find a way to make “2+2=5” into “a true statement” employed a number of positively stupid tricks and manipulations.

    To quote a few examples:

    “There are two factories. Each factory has 2 fully operational machines, as well as half the parts to build another one. If the two factories were joined into one and the two halves of parts were built together, there would be 5 total machines. A case where 2+2=5.”

    No, a case where 2.5+2.5=5, which everyone knows is true for the exact same reason that 2+2=4.

    “Have you ever bought 2 and gotten the 3rd free? Or at least seen such an offer? price of 2 = price of 3. Buy 1 for $2, buy 3 for $4. 1 costs $2, but also 1 costs ~$1.33”

    No, this is a case where the unit price is variable depending on the number purchased but addition is stable given that unit price.

    And also see this paragraph toward the end of Lindsay’s long article:

    So, now I’ve written well over 8000 words on the stupidest topic I could possibly have imagined ever having to write about, but it matters—and there’s a point to take away from all this. It is that postmodernism, particularly in the hands of the ideology of Critical Social Justice, is not at all interested in truth. It is only interested in power, which it will establish through its attempted revolution, which it in turn knows it can only achieve by turning otherwise intelligent, well-meaning people into “accomplices” by manipulating their good will, charity, fear of being disliked or ostracized, and, especially, unawareness of what is actually going on beneath the rhetorical tricks they’re being served up with intentionally limited context.

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth August 6, 2020 Reply

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