canuckistani
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Everything posted by canuckistani
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Having a mix does not make it that there is a lack of priority or heirarchy, either. Things can be optimal in a mix and that mix can still have more/less important members to it. There is nothing to prove, because the discussion is not about imaginative problem solving vs memorizing X amount of pre-planned solutions. I said that math is far more important a life skill than art. Your example does nothing whatsoever to contrast the two.
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Sure. That is irrelevant to my point. THat music can augument math skills passively is true. However, it is not required. I picked up music in my 20s and given that I can do most music pieces on my chosen instrument, is a testament to the fact that music can be learnt later in life. My point is simple - it is easier to learn science, math & language at a younger age than as adults compared to arts. The objective evidence of that, is there are plenty of professional musicians who picked up music later in life and succeeded but hardly anyone picks up science & math later on in life and succeed professionally. I don't love math at all. its boring & dry. I am good at it, because it is an objectively greater life skill to be good at than art. Being able to do quick tally on my head and compare prices based on weight objectively helps me shop every single time for food, my ability to play a musical instrument does nothing of that sort, except please me. Its a luxury, not a requirement. 'Like me' is how curriculums in Japan, India, China, Korea, Singapore are run and they out-number the soft high school education systems of the western world. If you think that I think poorly of western education system to be soft in high school level, you are 100% correct. Well if its anything you want it to be, then objectively it lacks qualitative standard and is easier than something that has qualitative standard. This makes realist paintings harder than modern art painting, it makes ballet tougher than modern dancing, etc. It does make me right in the simple statement that learning more math helps develop rational skills more than any other subject known to mankind and therefore, should be an object of focus in educating our children. Ok. Well, your opinion seems to be that all subjects are perfectly equal in its difficulty level, mine is, they most definitely are not.
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i know music is based on math but being good at music doesn't make one good at math. Nothing is being under-estimated here, they are simply not of equal value in the workplace and they are also not equal in terms of difficulty of learning at a given age. Your conclusion does not make sense to the observations i pointed out ( which does). If math was as easy as art to learn, we'd have just as many 40-something first time engineers as musicians. More so, especially since its easier to get a job as an engineer than a musician. Disagree. Objective data shows us that there are hardly any late lifer people in science & math compared to in arts. Ergo art is easier to learn later in life. I am a fairly competent musician in my instrument of choice. I have tried many art, especially 'modern art' painting, they are NOT equal in skills required as science & math. Except i don't believe i am being backed into a corner just because you believe the nonsense that all subjects are equally hard as each other. They are not. Well i can find plenty of people too who do not believe in equality of difficulty in all subjects of intellectual and artistic persuit. I certainly do not ascribe to the belief system that all subjects are equally easy to learn or master for the average populace.
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1.Feel free to point out what is nonsensical. 2. some things ARE black and white. Math is a superior life skill than ability to draw for specie homo sapiens. All the power to them. I never said anything about place in the world, i am simply talking about what should be taught in schools as skills to improve the education of a person.
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Most of them picked it up in their late teens/early 20s, especially the musicians i am thinking of. Well that is a first world entitlement issue. One does not have to be miserable if they don't truly enjoy their line of work for what it is, beyond taking joys at being good at what they do. This makes no sense. If there is more money in science than arts- which there is, and if there are way more failed artists ( from the professional sense), which also there are, then it'd make sense for the failed artists to pick up science and segway into greater paying jobs. But this hardly ever happens, because science and math skills are far harder to be self taught in, learn later in life, etc. Well you've spent most of this afternoon arguing on why math is relevant if it is not required for work. I am simply pointing out by that rationale, art is even less relevant and so is history. It isn't end-all, be-all, but it is a far more important subject for teens and young adults than music , painting, sculpting or history.
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Disagree. There are plenty of artists - professional ones i know of outside of North America who are doctors and engineers and have done just fine in their later life choice of arts. Disagree. Art can be developed at a much later age, evidenced by the far greater # of prominent and successful artists who chose arts later in life. The # of scientists and engineers who've gone the other way is a far lesser number, indicating that art skills are easier to learn later in life than Science and math skills. I simply don't see why you are so anti-math. Maybe because you want our kids to be less rational and have it easy. And if your POV is that greater math skills unless required in the work force are unnecessary, then for the vast majority of people, ability to paint, draw, sing, play instruments are also completely unnecessary skills in the workforce. So your argument towards dilution of math on a 'needed for workplace' basis, makes art an even bigger casualty. Rational thinking doesn't have to involve math. Building muscles also doesn't have to involve lifting weights. Both activities however, are optimized for the said skill and help more than virtually any other mechanism. If you have a mathematical ability to represent real life situations as math equations of some sort, you have a better success rate of analyzing the relevance of a given variable to the outcome as opposed to the other.
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the point being made, is how math skills are not required towards training a rational brain and only required for when it has direct application to the job force. By same rationale, bye bye arts, bye-bye history, etc. If someone's point is how its okay to give children less education and less skills in science & math, that is shameful position to have.
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1. yep, i'd rather a person learns empiric & rational skills before the age of 20 than artistic expression. Learning rational and empiric skills, along with language skills, are predicated by age - the 6-20 age group is a far stronger learner on these topics than the 40+ crowd. This is proven in science. 2. Art is important, but it is a luxury. Rational skills are far more integral to survival and functioning than artistic expression- be it creative or non-creative. Rational is not a subjective definition, especially when it comes to decision-making relating to choice from a pros and cons axiom towards stated objective. The person who's reasoning is mathematically consistent is by default more rational on the issue than a person who's position is mathematically inconsistent.
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The benchmark being used is benchmark for accomplishing analytical thinking, not benchmark for use in employment. My issue isn't regarding not having benchmarks, its the idea that a benchmark for education is usability at work. By this logic, entire arts curriculum can be trashed for many, as well as history. Well the countries where such stringent math standards are part and parcel of high school life, they have greater proportion of people capable of doing it than here. That means zilch, really. In a public system, there is a vested interest in not having drop-outs, owing to the money angle. What i am saying, is already being done in many countries for decades and as i said, i find their generation population to be far more rational than the Canadian one in general.
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Again, need to use is irrelevant benchmark when the objective is to build greater rational capacity. I hardly ever use insanely complex algebraic reductions in my entire tenure as an engineer- especially the crazy looking ones i learnt in grade 10 trig ( the ones that take 3 lines to write the initial expression alone!). But it helped a lot in developing analytical skills. The line i draw, is every highschool grad should at the very least be a master of triginometry, basic algebra ( which means reducing almost any algebraic equation that do not involve special functions) and know virtually all of basic geometry, while knowing the basics of differential and integral calculus ( ie, fundamental theorem of calculus, differentiation and integration prior to double or triple integrals).
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Sure, but everyone has the ability to get better at something by doing ti more and more. Practice makes perfect, remember ? Using math is not about careers only, as i said. Its mostly about having the rational ability to make decisions and improving rational capacities. Sure, but I'd say that in my experience, the average westerner is far less rational these days than the avereage non-westerner precisely due to this lesser focus on math.
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well school being on hard more vs easy mode is a commentary on social hard work or lazyness. I remember when i went to school, outside Canada, there was no such thing as part marks in math. As the teacher put it ' there is no half right or half wrong in math & sciences. You are either 100% right and you built a solid bridge or you screwed up, built 1 pylon wrong outta 100 - which is 99% perfect- and still ended up collapsing the bridge and killing people'.
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Sure. But WHEN you get knocked off has a lot to do with how hardworking and elite your standards are. Germany got whacked twice in the last 100 years worse than Canada and they are still at the top for the last 120 years of engineering excellence because they are not living off of nature's luck card like us. Without changing our attitude, we will be knocked off as soon as our kitty runs dry, because we have not built much merit in high end anything. They are already causing us more pain because Canadians are getting poorer by the day and the developing world is getting richer by the day. All because we won't build our own crap and let them build it for us.
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Thats not sustainable. Just like America is coming to grinding halt due to them being qualitatively inferior economy and having relied on the 'plenty' paradigm, so too will us. Right now, Canada is like the uneducated trust fund kid who's dad left him a million dollars. The developing world are poor kids who went to university. Sooner or later, if not this generation, then by the next generation, those who are living like trust fund kids will run out of their kitty, while those who got there due to their own merits, will continue to be there. Who would you want your kid to marry ? a trust fund kid with no worth ethic & education that comes with a million bucks or a hard working, well educated one who comes with 50K in the bank ?
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If they make our crap for us, then their economy grows faster than ours. Oh look....it is. And they won't follow it. They hold the advantage by building our crap for us. We don't build our crap. If we don't buy their crap, they will sell it to someone else. We will be stuck without crap if we don't buy it. We don't have leverage power as a consumer - the leverage power always rests with the producer. No, it isn't. Its hurting our own economy far more than it is hurting theirs.
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but we consume less than a dozen+ nations on the planet by your logic. We are at the top because we have a big empty country and too few people. This is not advantage due to merit ( like the Germans or Japanese) but advantage due to luck. And sooner or later, the luck will run out as our population increases.
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slowing down their industrial growth by importing all foreign made goods ?!? China's economy exists because we have too many restrictions towards manufacturing here, hence its cheaper to make it in China and import it here. you are not just slowing down industrial growth of foreign developing nations by stopping export of oil, you are also slowing down Canadian economy. Its the classic case of chop your nose to spite your face.
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No, because there are countries doing far better than us while polluting less. Canada is high in pollution not because they are the top, but because they are anti-industry, because we want to cater to NIMBYs who don't want a smoke belcher in their backyard. This is precisely what makes us far worse polluters than 90% of the planet.
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Yeah. But we canadian as a whole don't even compare to India or China in almost anything really - total educated people, total wealth, total military might.....Canadians also don't compare to India or China in consumption of any particular product/good. Being on top and being one of the worst offenders at pollution are two seperate things. There are richer countries than us, also on the top, who are lesser polluters than us. What is really not on, is being one of the worst polluters on the planet but acting like we are somehow better at pollution than 90% of the planet. Being a smaller population does not give the Canadian individuals a free pass on polluting more than other people while pretending we don't.