Even in that context, having a basic mental math model improves the quality of your results when you're trying to understand the world.
For instance, a job offer. One job offers you $28/hr, the other offers you $55,000 a year with 2 weeks paid vacation time
Simple math shows that $28/hr, with 2 weeks unpaid vacation time, is $56,000/year. ($28*2000), and can be ~$2.3k more if you don't take vacation.
Understanding of the world and yourself may make you realize that earning $1k-~$3.3k less a year would be worth it to have a set income that doesn't change even when you take vacations, but it's nice to be able to quickly compare the stark math so that you don't immediately think "big number better".
That's not the best allegory to explain the utility of math, but the basic concept has rung true in many situations anecdotally in my life.
I totally agree. I find people that can’t ball park various numerical things are perpetually astonished by things that are perfectly obvious if you see the numbers.
We primarily understand the world in terms of numbers and equations. Human intuition for people only sees individuals, it doesn't see the scale of a population or a country. For example the war in Ukraine, people talk a lot about Putin and Zelenskyy and the emotional parts, but the best way to see what really happens is to look at a lot of logistics spreadsheets and how the numbers evolves. Then you understand better what Russia can do, how reasonable their threats are, get a feeling for timeframes etc.
On the other side of the spectrum, many people don't even understand percent. So if an article says "1% of corona patients died", they don't understand what that actually means. They understand some people died, but not really what the probabilities are or if they should be worried. They don't really understand much at all about the world as even the simplest of analytical articles are beyond their understanding. They can pick up the emotions in the article and understand that 1% dying is bad, but if you told them that 1% dying isn't a big deal they would trust you as well, as the number doesn't tell them anything its just how you say it.
A worryingly (to me) large number of people can't tell you what 3% of 200 is.
Should we care? Should people have a clue about this? Rates of interest are quoted in percentages. Deaths from diseases are quoted in percentages. Growth rates of economies are quoted in percentages.
If you have no idea about them, how can you make properly informed decisions?
And yet people survive, so maybe it really doesn't matter.
> And yet people survive, so maybe it really doesn't matter.
They survive thanks to people who knows math. We can't run modern society without a lot of people who knows math, we would regress centuries, every natural science requires people who are good at math. There is a reason why the people who are decent at math are valued in every modern society, even soviet understood that part.
Also, if you can't do 3% of 200, you can do 200% of 3 and get the right answer. (6). As far as I know this seems to hold true for all (percentage of integer) combinations.
Most people would just grab a calculator on their phone to do it. We invented calculating machines because doing arithmetic ourselves is annoying and error-prone. It's the smart move because we know the calculator is better than our heads for arithmetic.
I think we should care if kids can't do it because they learned it recently, but who cares if an adult does it in their head vs. uses a calculator correctly?
> "being able to do quick approximations in mid-conversation is a superpower."
So here's something to think about:
* People who can do quick, rough estimations in their heads say that they find it useful, and that the experience is that they have a sort of superpower.
* People who can't do it say that there's nothing special about it, and using a calculator is just as good.
Perhaps people in the second group don't have the information needed to make an accurate assessment.
I don't know, if your superpower only saves a minute or so during a conversation compared to pulling out a calculator and getting an estimate that way, I wouldn't really call that a superpower.
The math doesn't add up for me, and I'm hesitant to believe anyone who says it feels like a superpower because that sounds like an exaggeration. What does that comparatively make people who use calculators to do estimates? Simple primates using an iPhone?
Plus the article's reasoning is really bogus to me too: "When I’m on Zoom with a client, I can’t say “Excuse me a second. Something you said gave me an idea, and I’d like to pull out my calculator app.”"
This feels like a forced problem to justify his conclusions. It goes away if the other party is willing to wait for you.
The bit about the Zoom call was one instance. For me, the ability to do rough estimates and calculations permeates everything I do ... it's everywhere, all the time, and when I'm with people who don't do it, they seem to be missing something indefinable. It's not about pulling out a calculator to do some sums in the middle of a Zoom call, that's just a hint, just a flavour.
But we're repeating ourselves. I'm saying I agree with the submitted post, that it's everywhere, and in everything, and feels like a superpower. You're saying you don't understand, therefore it can't be that important. That's fine, the post (and my replies here) have tried to give you an insight into this experience ... you don't have to believe it.
Back in a previous job we'd be in a meeting and people would be discussing strategies. The ability to sketch out options, choices, rough costs, and expected benefits on the fly meant that it all flowed without pause, without hesitation. Pulling out calculators and working out the numbers would have made things horribly staccato ... I've been in meetings where that happened.
> What does that comparatively make people who use calculators to do estimates? Simple primates using an iPhone?
It makes them ordinary people (in this sense) without this superpower. They may have other skills that people find extraordinary and don't understand, they might not.
>The ability to sketch out options, choices, rough costs, and expected benefits on the fly meant that it all flowed without pause, without hesitation
I think the issue that we're leaving out is how right were those calculations? You can throw out a number to move the conversation on, but if you have to double back because you got something wrong, you lost time there maybe some further conclusions were also wrong. I'd rather just try to get it right the first time, and I know I'm flawed as human, which is why I rely on devices rather than gray matter. But I feel like this is optimizing for the wrong thing: flow of conversation vs. accuracy of calculations. That really starts to seem like the same tradeoffs as experience vs. raw speed.
Part of this entire thing is to know when a number is "right enough". Anyone can choose to just throw out random numbers ... we're talking about being able to come up with numbers that are right enough.
I don’t know if the calculations are essential (tho I guess they are) but having the feeling for the numbers and the ways things become inevitable because of numeric truths and relationships is essential for understanding reality.
