You know what's REALLY offensive? Saying poor, uneducated people can't do math

[mudesi]

I do not respect ignorance, especially when it's willful ignorance, and anybody (not just poor white folks) who still cannot accept that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee is being ignorant.

It is ignorance at the root of racism and homophobia. It is ignorance that allowed George W. Bush to "win" the presidency twice (and allow Diebold to steal it for him). It is ignorance that the Republicans have exploited for the last 30 years.

The people in West Virginia who will vote for Hillary Clinton tomorrow will not be doing it because they are poor, or uneducated, or white. You don't need money to know how to add and subtract, you don't need an education beyond grade 2 (I'll give those who don't have a grade 2 education a pass), and you don't need to have a certain skin color either.

It is mathematically over for Hillary Clinton, and if you don't believe that, you either don't know any better (bad) or you do but don't want to admit it (worse).

If Hillary supporters what to continue to live in deluded ignorance, they certainly have a right to, as it's still (apparently) a free country. But that doesn't mean they deserve respect.

[BlooInBloo]

1. I'd like to see one of them solve a variational problem.

:P

[NewHampshireDem]

2. I'm an effette snob for Obama

and I don't even know what that means! :P

[BlooInBloo]

3. It's a high-falootin type of optimization problem. It's one aspect of the "normal" way physicists...

think about things. As a pure mathematical tool, it's used in a variety of situations.

1st quarter calculus optimization problem: set the derivative to 0 and solve easy equation.

Variational optimization; set the derivative-like-thing to 0 and solve a diffeq (either scalar or matrix).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_of_variations

[NewHampshireDem]

8. Oh, yeah ... THAT variation problem ... heh ... heh ... of course I can do that

As long as you have no follow up questions.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I'd like to see ME solve a variational problem.

:rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

7. Is straightforward once you learn how to take Gateaux or Frechet or whatever derivatives.

(Yes, I just wanted to say "Gateaux or Frechet")

[Raine1967]

5. They can do math

They just need to be shown HOW it works.


;)


I am so over all of this, we HAVE a candidate.

Let's move on to the GE.

[TahitiNut]

9. It's NOT 'math' they can't do. It's arithmetic.

:shrug:

[chascarrillo]

6. If anybody was saying that, you would have the right to be offended.

Since no one is, eh, not so much.

Everyone has should vote for whomever they want. It's a Presidential preference primary. If folks don't vote for who they think is best for the job, I don't know what they're smoking.

Plenty of folks voted for Edwards after he shuttered his campaign. Same with Kucinich. That's great. Plenty of folks will continue to vote for Clinton. That's great. Doesn't change the fact that Obama's the nominee, but this is a way for folks to make their voices heard. And that's great.

[TahitiNut]

10. Again, it's NOT 'math' they can't do. It's arithmetic.

:shrug:

[depakid]

11. People who play the sorts of math games I see here

are often innumerate, IMHO.

And understand little in the way of higher maths (arithmetic isn't math) much less social sciences, though they're typically quick to decry "ignorance" in others to support their agenda.

[cboy4]

12. Please don't trivialize homophobia by drawing insulting

parallels between it and something so ridiculously unimportant as people "who still cannot accept that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee is being ignorant."

Thanks in advance for your attention to this matter.