I think that the relevant distinction is “is it really horribly unpleasant and I make no progress no matter how long I spend and I don’t find correct output aesthetically pleasing.”
“Weird” is a statement about your understanding of people’s pride, not a statement about people’s pride.
Proud of not learning math includes math like algebra or conversation of units. That sort of math, which might be taught in elementary school, is practically useful in daily life. Being proud of not knowing that kind of math is profoundly anti-learning. The attitude applies equally to learning anything, from reading to history to car mechanics.
Then how do you explain, in your model, the comic’s implicit observation that people do not apply this same attitude to to learning to play music, cook, or speak a foreign language? Let’s try to fit reality here, not just rag on people for being “anti-learning” in the same way others might speak of someone being “anti-freedom”.
Briefly, cognitive bias of some kind. Compartmentalization. Belief that what I like and enjoy is good and worthwhile , and what I dislike is bad and useless. It’s the failure to apply the lesson from a favored domain to an unfavored one that is the worthwhile point of the author’s statement.
Not many people are required to take cooking classes, hardly any goes through 20 years after graduating without ever needing to cook, and there are lots people “proud” of not learning foreign languages. And playing music is higher-status than doing maths.
http://xkcd.com/1050/
I think that the relevant distinction is “is it really horribly unpleasant and I make no progress no matter how long I spend and I don’t find correct output aesthetically pleasing.”
“Weird” is a statement about your understanding of people’s pride, not a statement about people’s pride.
Proud of not learning math includes math like algebra or conversation of units. That sort of math, which might be taught in elementary school, is practically useful in daily life. Being proud of not knowing that kind of math is profoundly anti-learning. The attitude applies equally to learning anything, from reading to history to car mechanics.
Something a not-especially-mathsy friend of mine said a while back:
Then how do you explain, in your model, the comic’s implicit observation that people do not apply this same attitude to to learning to play music, cook, or speak a foreign language? Let’s try to fit reality here, not just rag on people for being “anti-learning” in the same way others might speak of someone being “anti-freedom”.
Briefly, cognitive bias of some kind. Compartmentalization. Belief that what I like and enjoy is good and worthwhile , and what I dislike is bad and useless. It’s the failure to apply the lesson from a favored domain to an unfavored one that is the worthwhile point of the author’s statement.
Not many people are required to take cooking classes, hardly any goes through 20 years after graduating without ever needing to cook, and there are lots people “proud” of not learning foreign languages. And playing music is higher-status than doing maths.