Comment on Haha that's really cool, funny number man
happybadger@hexbear.net 1 day ago
:yea:
me: “I would have job stability if I studied a harder physical science, but there’s no way I could do all that maths. I should study plants. I can touch them, so surely they aren’t just maths.”
plants: exist in fucking calculus
fossilesque@mander.xyz 1 day ago
I unironically wanted to do chemistry or biology back in the day, but couldn’t make the grades in maths and had trouble with the calculations. Hell, even I took Stats 101 3x in college… but any time I used it in applied science I was a wizard… Then, after 30 I realised I had dyscalculia. 🤦♀️ You have talents to contribute, but the hard part is figuring out where you belong. That kind of thing takes a little luck, though, not merit.
happybadger@hexbear.net 1 day ago
I’ve suspected a dyscalculia diagnosis for a while. Everything up to elementary algebra clicks with me in some fundamental way where I can intuitively do a four digit multiplication table in my head or a pharmacological weight calculation in an ambulance. It’s just like any other knowledge base to me. But then everything after that, at least through the high-level trigonometry and general calculus classes I took along with the sciences that are equation-heavy like chemistry/physics, feels like I’m illiterate no matter how much I read. Meanwhile classmates in those labs were doing the same work as intuitively as the practical side of medicine comes to me.
Applied science is definitely the route for me to take either way. I like doing anti-Cartesian science with a sense of praxis to it. I’d be shitty at the level of programming or biochemistry it takes to be a good research horticulturist, but I can interpret those studies and use them as best practices while turning my city into a living lab for my politics.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 23 hours ago
Oh man, do I have some books for you. I haven’t forgotten about you. I defend my thesis next week so my brain is crazy rn, but I have your message pinned. In the meantime, find Seeing Like A State by James Scott. Then if you Iike that one, check out his other one called Against the Grain.
happybadger@hexbear.net 23 hours ago
No worries at all! I like Scott’s work a lot. Weapons of The Weak is one of the books that got me into peasant studies and changed my whole urbanism outlook.