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by betageek 584 days ago
I think that's a bad misreading of the article, and life in general. When the author is saying "better" he's talking about the whole makeup of a person, not just a single advanced skill. Being amazing at maths is extremely useful, but it can be quite a narrow area of expertise, and I would imagine the author wants his child to be a good person, not a hyperfocused maths machine with no social skills. The children's achievements are combination or talent, effort and nurture that other children may not have, it doesn't make other children lesser, and they will have talents of their own.
1 comments
nextlevelwizard 584 days ago
Two are not mutually exclusive.

Why is it always either or with you people?

They can be good at math and still have social skills.

All else being equal knowing advance mathematics and having the ability to think through a problem critically and analyze your mistakes is huge benefit and makes you objectively better functional than your peers.

Of course just like everything there are trade offs - like the time your kid spends doing math they wont be running track - and that is fine.

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groby_b 584 days ago
It makes you better at math. That's it. Which means you can function better in environments that rely heavily on advanced math, sure.

It does not, however, make you "better" than other people.

As for "better functional", many of my classmates from university (math majors) were absolutely brilliant at math, and could barely exist in normal life. And they were cognizant of that - brilliant folks are usually aware that they're brilliant along a specific axis, it's the B tier of almost brilliant folks that needs to harp on about how special they are.

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nextlevelwizard 583 days ago
>It makes you better at math (...) [w]hich means you can function better in environments that rely heavily on advanced math

Except is also makes you better at basic math, which means you don't get fooled as easily with advertisement dark patterns.

It also makes you better at problem solving and logic, which are very generalizable skills that can have profound effect on your life regardless of other circumstances.

This all enables you to better function in society, making better decisions, and just understanding how the world works.

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