... others have mistaken arguments put forth by people who are serious (but blatantly wrong) for sarcasm.
This creates a bitter storm of internet controversy.
The people who can't laugh on either side (right or wrong) are the most offended.
BTW, my own response to that thread was sarcastic.
Or maybe not. Is it possible to count the electrons in empty space?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
Is it even possible to count electrons?
John Wheeler proposed all electrons and positrons are actually manifestations of a single entity moving backwards and forwards in time.
It complicates things immensely if all the electrons we count are just the faces of a single electron that's very, very busy.
Engineering electronics today, especially on the scale of modern microprocessors and computer memories, requires a fairly sophisticated understanding of quantum mechanics. Naive interpretations of electronics, most especially the "water in a pipe" analogy where voltage is analogous to water pressure, and amps are analogous to the volume of water, turn out to be fairly useless. "Counting" electrons "flowing" through a conductor gets weird.
I've seen know-it-all techs heatedly arguing uselessly with physicists, no information being transferred in either direction, because their understanding of a problem isn't even on the same plane.
When a mathematician argues 2+2=4 they have very precise understandings of objects, integers, and operations. Other interpretations, especially those based in non-rigorous languages, can be dismissed.
The scary thing about human languages such as English -- and the most wonderful thing as well -- is that we can say things that are untrue, things that might be true, and things that are close enough to the truth for everyday use.
But science requires something more precise than "everyday use" and develops its own languages, especially the languages of mathematics.
If we don't know these languages of science we can't make scientific arguments, and it's silly to argue that 2 + 2 = 5 in some alternative context. If there really is some alternative context (not likely...) then it's up to the developer or observer of that context to create the rigorous language that explains it.
Otherwise they are simply stomping on the highly developed and precise languages of others, which may be the very crime they are accusing others of doing, the equivalent of some MAGA hat wearing fool in WalMart yelling "This is America, speak English!" to shoppers speaking Spanish in the checkout line.
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