Originally Posted by
Damiăo de Góis
I don't think petty theft justifies having someone handcuffed face down on the asphalt and then choking them for nine minutes.
Smeagol might be trying to justify it but I'm not. I'm just saying mathematically there is no case to be made that this is a significant event that occurred in the world if it were not for innumerate journalists and innumerate rioters blowing it out of proportion. Tragedies happen all the time in human societies. For instance, there was a woman that skinned to death by a male in a domestic violence assault but I did not see people rioting over that. Here is your math assignment : prove that police brutality is a more significant issue than other things such as domestic violence against women and drunk driving etc... yes, these are usually not sensationalized but that does not logically mean they are not more important.
Knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world. Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, sounder, and more meaningful way.
Math is like an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength. Despite the power of mathematics, and despite its sometimes forbidding notation and abstraction, the actual mental work involved is little different from the way we think about more down-to-earth problems. I find it helpful to keep in mind an image of Iron Man punching a hole through a brick wall. On the one hand, the actual wall-breaking force is being supplied, not by Tony Stark’s muscles, but by a series of exquisitely synchronized servomechanisms powered by a compact beta particle generator. On the other hand, from Tony Stark’s point of view, what he is doing is punching a wall, exactly as he would without the armor. Only much, much harder.
To paraphrase Clausewitz: Mathematics is the extension of common sense by other means.
Without the rigorous structure that math provides, common sense can lead you astray---Jordan Ellenberg.
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