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Cake day: June 1st, 2024

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  • I don’t think that’s why kids hate it. Rather, teachers fail to explain the underlying motivations, the reasoning and the purpose which makes math feel like arbitrary decisions.

    I’d argue math is much more uncertain than other subjects. What’s the purpose of the endoplasmic reticulum in your cells? Just memorize the textbook. Find all X such that [statement] is true? You better have some creativity! Or a lot, depending on the problem.

    Some accompanying evidence for uncertainty: https://xkcd.com/2117/




  • I’ve found a proper approximation after some time and some searching.

    Since the binomial distribution has a very large n, we can use the central limit theorem and treat it as a normal distribution. The mean would be obviously 500 billion, the standard deviation is √(n * p * (1-p)) which results in 500,000.

    You still cannot plug that into WA unfortunately so we have to use a workaround.

    You would calculate it manually through:

    Φ(b) - Φ(a), with
    b = (510 billion - mean) / (standard deviation) = 20,000
    and
    a = (490 billion - mean) / (standard deviation) = -20,000
    and
    Φ(x) = 0.5 * (1 + erf(x/√2))
    

    erf(x) is the error function which has the neat property: erf(-x) = -erf(x)

    You could replace erf(x) with an integral but this would be illegible without LaTeX.

    Therefore:

    Φ(20,000) - Φ(-20,000)
    = 0.5 * [ erf(20,000/√2) - erf(-20,000/2) ]
    = erf(20,000/√2)
     erf(14,142)
    

    WolframAlpha will unfortunately not calculate this either.

    However, according to Wikipedia an approximation exists which shows that:

    1 - erf(x) ≈ [(1 - e^(-Ax))e^(-x²)] / (Bx√π)
    

    And apparently A = 1.98 and B = 1.135 give good approximations for all x≥0.

    After failing to get a proper approximation from WA again and having to calculate every part by itself, the result is very roughly around 1 - 10^(-86,857,234).

    So it is very safe to assume you will lose between 49% and 51% of your gut bacteria. For a more realistic 10 trillion you should replace a and b above with around ±63,200 but I don’t want to bother calculating the rest and having WolframAlpha tell me my intermediary steps are equal to zero.




  • The walls of the echo-chamber have been built up and reinforced for over a decade. No single election cycle will ever pierce through.

    These people are lost causes unless a massive culture shift happens. And it’s not looking like that will happen in the next decades. You, just like other countries, will have to deal with a growing strong block of far right, young men who will grow up to be far right seniors.

    The warning signs started being obvious with Gamergate but they were ignored. The only thing that can be done is preventing the growth of these echo-chambers but the damage is done. It’s just like how carbon capture will not solve climate change, only stopping emitting more as soon as possible.



  • That… doesn’t seem overwhelming?

    In the city council election I voted in (Germany) you had ~40 votes (don’t remember the exact number) to distribute among candidates. Each party put up to ~40 candidates on the ballot and you had to distribute your vote among the candidates. You received like 10 ballots, with each party being on a separate one and had to cast your vote in an envelope with the relevant ballots.

    Additionally, you can give up to 3 of your votes to any one candidate by putting a digit next to their name or just cast one party’s ballot without entering anything to give one vote to each candidate on that ballot.

    Sure, it sounds complicated but you received the ballots with some information two weeks before the election and were encouraged to bring them filled out to the polling station (to reduce waiting time) or register for mail-in voting. Most people probably just casted their entire vote for one party anyways.


  • I’m a cis guy, so feel free to ignore everything I said. Though I do want to comment because I have experienced something similar (except not in regards to gender.)

    My strategy to cope with it is to take a break from whatever I was watching the instant I start experiencing this and just allow myself to feel sad for some time. I don’t think ignoring these emotions helps, so I’ll bury myself under a mountain of plushies until the negative feelings pass. Once I feel better I usually don’t have any issues with continuing the video/movie/series and actually start enjoying it again. After all, I actually want to watch them. Also, after feeling like I’m capable of rational thought again it helps to question myself why I felt upset and to think of “counterarguments” that contradict the negative thoughts.

    Your mileage may vary but it can’t hurt (except momentarily) to give it a try.







  • Don’t worry, the youth will only become further right-wing.

    Here’s the result of a local German state election from September. It displays the results for people aged 18-24, divided into male (light) and female (dark). AfD is openly fascist. No other age group voted for them as much. Getting 46% in a system with proportional representation is basically unheard of by the way.

    I very much suspect this trend will continue.


  • Why then do countries with existing left parties and proportional representation elect further and further right-wing parties in Europe?

    It’s simple: They promise easy solutions for complicated problems. Banning immigration will fix all crime and the economy, opposing LGBTQ+ rights will ensure a return of the better olden days, climate change is nothing to be worried about etc etc

    And even people depending on social support will gladly shoot themselves in their feet if it means someone else will have it worse.



  • And so claimed my German ancestors.

    Yet none of them fled the country, none of them joined the small, albeit existing resistance, none of those conscripted deserted the military and none of them claimed to have responsibility. Curious, isn’t it? Everybody seemed to have clean hands because only a few thousand people directly orchestrated the Holocaust. The fact that it could only happen due to both mass support and mass toleration is ignored.