this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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[–] minibyte 36 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

There’s a fair portion of people 21+ that have difficulty playing blackjack because they can’t add to 21. Last night I was asked by a grown man what 9+1+3 is.

You’d be surprised how incompetent some people are.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I worked in customer service for 7 years. I am aware... so very aware...

To give you an idea, when I worked for Verizon mobile, it was a few times a week that I came across a client who did not know how to hang up their cellphone calls. No joke. It took such a while to get them off the hook it wasn't funny. And if you ask me why I wouldn't hang up on them, it was because Verizon had a strict no hang-up policy. You were not allowed to hang up on a client no matter what. It was grounds for immediate termination.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe it was a HR call to test your patience with customers

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Holy shit. I never put this together.

Last time I was at a casino I kept asking myself: who honestly thinks any of this is a good idea, or thinks that any of these are "games" in the conventional sense? Now I know.

Edit: I have also been confronted with people that simply cannot do addition, period. It's wild.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Funny you should mention a casino. Remember when Donald Trump bankrupted multiple casinos? That is actually quite impressive given how often casinos attract people even during recessions as they get stressed and desperate.

[–] minibyte 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The quickest and easiest way to win at a casino is not to buy in, don’t play. You’ve got the right idea!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Even if you're competent at arithmetic in school, those skills can definitely atrophy. I say this as someone who's unreasonably slow at basic arithmetic despite being an ex-mathlete; I got complacent because I've been learning and using graduate level maths, so I thought that would keep me from getting rusty. Nope — it turns out that basic arithmetic that you'd use in daily life is a different "muscle" to the kind of maths you use in academic research (which is obvious in hindsight)

I can't imagine how much I'd be struggling if I didn't have a good foundation to be starting from

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You aren't alone. Historically before calculators were common, engineers and mathematicians would actually have books with basic arithmetic answers already done, or they would hire people (usually women) called 'computers' (no joke, that's what the term was used for before computers as we know it were invented) to do the basic calculations for mathematicians so they can focus on the more complicated stuff.

So even a highly talented mathematician from the 1910s and 1920s would still struggle as you do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is only tangentially related, but I'm reminded of a thing from Plato where he was complaining that communicating through writing was a bad way of doing philosophy. His concerns weren't just around communicating ideas between people; he was even opposed to writing as an introspective tool to help a person think through their ideas, or make notes to come back to.

"And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.”

  • Plato, "Phaedrus" ^([citation needed])

It's interesting because I don't think he's necessarily wrong about the skill atrophy angle of it. It's just a question of to what extent we need those memory skills in the modern era.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

There is a question of just how much better or worse human memory was in the old days. Some say it was better because there just aren't that many things people need to remember, so they can remember what they consider to be important more easily.

Laws were generally far more rudementary and easier to remember. People didn't need to remember as many numbers as we do now, and as a general rule, the amount of news and events that the average person contended with within their lifetimes was also far fewer. I remember learning a fact that the average amount of news and information a person gets in just one week today is actually more than what the typical farmer would get in their lifetimes. That is mind boggling when you think about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Math anxiety is real tbf, I can add that up real fast without the pressure of someone looking at me waiting for me to solve it, but the second another person is watching I can't even think about the math I just obsess about how I should be solving it faster and how they now think I'm dumb because instead of doing the math I'm thinking about this bullshit and it's taken 10 whole seconds which is a lot longer than it sounds..