By David Futrelle
I‘m going a little off-topic tonight because I’ve found, well, one of the most creative conspiracy theories I’ve run across in a long time.
In the midst of a discussion of transgenderism on 4chan’s famously antisemitic /pol/ board several months ago, one apparently drunken anon let slip a little theory he’s been kicking around involving Jews, math, and the flat earth:
I did Nazi this one coming, as they say.
Drunkish Anon’s comment inspired a bit of a discussion in the thread, as several math-loving Anons, momentarily setting aside their antisemitism for the greater good, attempted to convince their confused colleague that, yes, negative numbers are a real thing, and the earth really is a sphere — while all around them the other Anons spewed assorted terrible thoughts about trans people.
Such is the state of debate in 2018.
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Whaaaat???? I use that every DAY! I don’t see how you can make lunch with out using quadrangic… uhh… bi-funtionated… uhhh… that stuff!!
I’m so bad at math that I mostly can only do plain old arithmetic. Anything slightly more I mostly forgot. I never learned the big stuff like algebra or trigonometry.
“Judenphysick”: For when you’re an antisemite and refuse to admit that some Jewish people are smart and got a better ideas than you (After all; That would mean Mighty Gentile Whitey is not ‘The Master Race’).
Same logic applies to White Bigot vs. Black people, “Black Wall Street” and Rosewood, FL.
BIGOT: “There go all my theories of them darkies being stupid lazy subhuman hominid thingies who eat watermelon and chicken 3 meals a day!”
So “Black Wall Street” and; Rosewood got zoarched out of existence.
Perhaps The Shoah was the same deal with the Nazi jerks.
Self-Reflection and considering they may be wrong is anathema to bigots….for it’s not really about self-preservation….it’s about power. Deep down, most know the groups they hate are humans and their equal, they just want their “tribe” to dominate. They’re bullies.
Heh. Math was the bane of my scholastic existence. I think my late sister got a double helping of math proficiency – her own, plus what was meant for me. Ah well, I got the healthy heart.?
I used to kid around with her, about imaginary numbers. I mean, c’mon – there are an infinite amount of numbers. What the hell do we need Imaginary ones for? And, don’t get me started on irrational numbers.
@ Kiwiwriter: Yep, cats would have a go at it, for sure.
This is a good point. I have personally never seen a negative number. Explain that, mathematicians, if you dare.
Prepare to have yer mind blown, channers.
I’m pretty sure I learned trigonometry and algebra, even some calculus, but I’ve entirely forgotten how to do it.
Given the math-challenged people here seem to be of one sentiment, I hereby push forward the motion to drop the name “Algebra” altogether, and rename it something more accurate. Given that “corrupted math” is a Nazi thing now, I suggest we adopt the term “Fucking Evil Math”.
What say ye ladies and gentlemen?
@Dormousing_it:
Yeah, can’t we just imagine no one ever thought of them?
@Kiwiwriter:
If the universe might be shaped like a donut, why not?
Every time I hear the term “Imaginary Numbers”, I think of this….
Cats are smarter than flat-Earthers AND Nazis combined.
@Dormousing_it
Making pretty pictures, obvs.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Mandelbrot_set_image.png/330px-Mandelbrot_set_image.png
@Dormousing_it:
Not just “an infinite amount”, but different amounts of infinite. Rational numbers: infinite. Irrational numbers: moar infinite! In fact, there are an infinite number of infinities! And we can’t even blame the Jews for this: it was a Lutheran!
“Negative numbers clearly do not exist” sounds almost suitable for Conservapedia. I recall that Andrew Schlafly has various weird obsessions about maths, such as complex numbers being a liberal hoax.
Small brain: Negative numbers don’t exist
Galaxy brain: Numbers don’t exist
😉
There’s a point there though. Negative numbers aren’t any more or less real than imaginary numbers. The whole reason they exist is someone said “Hey, I defined this operation and there’s numbers in my set where it goes kablooey if I try to perform the operation on them… maybe I should create a new set of numbers to represent the result of those operations”.
math, on the other hand, is….
@Moggie:
Yes, I was just about to mention that too! http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia:Conservapedian_mathematics#A_digression_on_complex_numbers
This despite (Conservapedia founder) Andrew Schlafly being a qualified electrical engineer (and holding a number of patents in the area, no less), a discipline that makes such heavy use of complex analysis, it would be impossible to work in it otherwise. But then, he is the same fool who thinks the Theory of Relativity and “cultural relativism” are the same thing… ?
“Corrupted Math”, eugh. Same old horrid Nazi nonsense.
“This art doesn’t look like a photo! It’s clearly corrupted by them.”
“Men, attracted to other men? Women who don’t need no man? That’s unnatural, it’s clearly corrupted by them.”
“What is this, ‘negative-i’ stuff? These are maths, there shouldn’t be letters in. It’s clearly corrupted by them.”
“Movies with deep plots about complex topics? And weird camera angles? Where’s the hero standing victorious over the bodies of his foes? This whole Hollywood thing is clearly corrupted by them.”
“Comic books with women as the main character? And with some sort of deep meaning about the human condition? What? No, comic books are about strong men punching villains in awesome fight scenes. Comics have been taken over by them.”
I am so tired of the same old racism swaddled by the same old retrograde nonsense. Yes, you fascist dorks, there’s more to the world than what you can see on the surface. Deal with it.
Maths are lovely and deserving of praise and adulation. Yes, even the complex numbers and the deep reverberations of aleph.
I understand if anyone is intimidated by mathematics, though. The language of the universe is worthy of that if anything is.
“I won’t be able to respond coherently because I’m drunkish.”
I don’t think being drunk is your problem, son.
By coincidence, I’m currently reading the very book you linked to an extract from! And although I am less than halfway through, it shows the situation as more complicated than the extract at your link (which comes early in the book) might suggest. Lenard and Stark were both experimentalists, largerly motivated by their own inability to understand the new physics, which meant they did not get the professional advancement they thought they deserved – which they then blamed on a “Jewish conspiracy”. They never reached the kind of dominance in physics under the Nazis as Lysenko did in genetics under Stalin. Most German physicists continued to work with relativity and quantum mechanics despite Einstein’s key role (and those of other Jewish scientists) in developing them. Lenart was for two years in a position to block funding for theoretical physics (the main “idea” of Aryan physics was that “Jewish physics” was too abstract, physics must be purely experimental), but then lost the position that gave him this power due to rivalries between Nazi functionaries, and the funding was resumed. Nor were the Nazi leadership strong partisans of their “Aryan physics”. They were largely satisfied, once having expelled Jewish scientists from their posts (very few “Aryan” scientists objected to this), if universities and scientific institutes toed the Nazi political line and made ritual obeisance to the party through Hitler salutes and swastikas. Which they did, without serious dissent.
From earlier reading, I’m pretty sure that although the German physicists did make mistakes in their pursuit of nuclear weapons, there was never any serious chance they could develop them in time to affect the outcome of the war, and the Nazi leadership was right not to prioritise the effort. The USA, with vastly greater resources, only managed to produce a nuclear weapon after the war in Europe ended.
@BlackBloc: “God created the integers, all else is the work of Man” — Leopold Kronecker ?
@Diego Duarte: it’s worse than that! The word “algebra” is Arabic and therefore super-evil! It comes from the title of the book “Kitab al-jabr” by the mathematician Muhammad (ZOMG!) ibn Musa al-Kwarismi[1]! MERZLIMZ! ?
[1] Which is where the word “algorithm” comes from! It all makes sense now! That’s why you get pictures of The Donald when you type “idiot” into Google! It’s a 1,200 year old liberal/Jewish/ Muslim conspiracy!
@Cat Mara
I’m well aware, after all Math books in Peru precisely bear the name “Baldor” and depict the same mathematician wearing a turban. I’ve always been of the opinion that the only terrorism Muslims are responsible for is Algebra.
That is a beautiful quote, and I’m going to use it elsewhere, if I may.
With attribution, of course.
I don’t think that guy has EVER been sober.
OT: I must apologise for spoiling this discussion of conservative maths, but I just read something so cartoonishly evil that I had to share it. Totally Non-Evil ICE Arrests 170 Immigrants Trying To Save Babies From Baby Jails. Seems someone in the government thought “hey, remember those migrant kids we have locked up, separated from their families? Why don’t we use those as bait and arrest people who try to help them?” They’re literally using people’s empathy against them.