(January 15, 2019 at 11:48 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(January 15, 2019 at 11:24 am)Yonadav Wrote: I'm not necessarily looking for agreement from you. I'm just pointing out that we can't be sure of what else is lost when rudimentary mathematical literacy is lost. When I was young a lot of rebellious teenagers who didn't like to go to school and were thinking about dropping out, asked questions exactly like the questions that you are asking here. I guess those mid-20th century rebellious teenagers were ahead of their time (even though they could convert a decimal to a fraction).
*shrug* Most people in the world couldn't foresee the ramifications of the loss of hunter/gatherer skills, but we seemed to have coped pretty well.
My point is that what we call 'basic life skills' changes constantly, always has done. I refuse to get all fatootzed that little Johnny can't solve second order differentials in his head the way grandad could.
Boru
Boru
You might be right. It might not matter. But it might matter.
We do not inherit the world from our parents. We borrow it from our children.
