This video, “Alternative Math,” has been around for six years, and has won 15 awards for short features and funny videos. The sad thing is that while it’s funny, it’s also true: truer now than it was when it was made. It documents the “2 + 2 = 5” alternative-truth mentality that is represented by “other ways of knowing.” But it also has a funny ending, so be sure to watch the whole thing (it’s nine minutes long).
The IMDb summary (which also has info about the film and the cast) is this: “A well meaning math teacher finds herself trumped by a post-fact America.”
Enjoy!
Couldn’t make it all the way – I think the rest of my day is ruined. Might try again later.
That is POWERFUL cinema.
The punchline is good, but technically wrong.
Yes, but I’m not sure that they’d have been able to afford the pay out.
Shouldn’t 2000 + 2000 be 20002000 in the context of the joke?
I really wish they had done that, it would have turned it into the teacher’s win. Fine, they can fire her but she could retire in style.
There is no right answer….
I had less staying power than Thyroid. It just made me angry with the female parent-style person’s first utterance of “so-called” at around one minute. It is no joke. It is the style of rhetoric uttered by parents at our local school board meeting last night. I really see nothing to live for anymore…other than some thoughtful weit posts and comments.
With Artemis and Starship space has gotten exciting again. Lots to look forward to there Jim!
Ah, yes indeed – and giving readers insights thereof. Quite a special contribution.
Reminds me of this one:
Very good. “Stop violating me with your different opinion!”
Thanks for posting this
Not on education per se but close to the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
In the “Alternative Math” video, the TV show around 6 min. looks like Fox News.
This is so scary!
Spoiler alert!
She should have said it was 20,002,000.
OHHHHH – well, thanks, you assisted my personal TL;DW;TD*
Yeah.
My favorite nonsense number is :
Threeve
Anybody know the reference?
*TD : Too Depressed
Anyone? Anyone?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Jeopardy!_(Saturday_Night_Live)
BTW concatenation of digits together – “pasting” – as shown in the video has been given the name “monkey math”.
My wife has a T-shirt which says:
2 + 2 = 5
For extremely large values of 2
But she has degrees in maths from three universities, and she knows it’s meant to be a joke.
It is well known that 5 out of 4 people struggle with maths – doubly so for math.
Depends on when you round off, 2 + 2 = 5 for 2.3 + 2.4 = 4.7
Indeed. At one point I got into trouble with examiners for exam solutions saying things like
2.13 + 1.25 = 3.39
because of course I was calculating the exact answer and then rounding off each number individually to 2 decimal places. Which I still maintain is the correct way to do it.
2+2=5 is definitely wrong for integers, but not necessarily entirely wrong if you have rounded off like a maniac (which is a different sort of wrong).
Clever the way they presented a clearly leftist post-modernist position as being a right wing position. Gets it past the censors, I suppose.
The analogy can apply to flat earth, anti-vaxx, creationism, all sorts of conspiracy theories and “alternative facts”all of which are right wing positions.
I loved the punchline. But the story, from back in 2017, lacked contemporary touches. (1) It neglected to point out that the lemma [ 2 + 2 = 4 ] suffers from association with patriarchism, capitalism, and whiteness. (2) It neglected to point out that [ 2 + 2 = 22 ] enjoys the virtue of being Another Way of Knowing. Oops, I put (1) and (2) in sequence, as if this were the only way to do it. My deepest apologies for the harm this inflicts.
Lemma?
Lemma explain to you, it was Clay Classical Academy in Dallas, Texas.
It’s a mini theorem. In a mathematical proof, you often come across results that whilst being true statements, are not the mai point of the proof. These are often called lemmas.
My Pure Maths lecturer explained it as
“A lemma is a second division theorem. A bit like Sheffield United”.
Great ending.
Complete with video Spot-The-Kitty!
Oh, Ceiling Cat forgive me, but I—a liberal—must protest the construction of the “Alternative Math” video on the grounds of absurd politics.
The reality is, the people who would be objecting to a teacher declaring 2+2 are not the sort of “conservatives” portrayed in the video. The guy raving about violation of the kid’s rights, the people raging about suppressing the kid, etc.—those people, in real life, would be liberals, I’m very sorry to report.
But otherwise, I thought it was hilarious.
Strange but true: Cole Whitaker, the young actor who played the boy Danny in the Alternative Math video, now identifies as female and has changed his name to Hope: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9077779/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t2
I guess he really did lose his grip on facts and reality…
Here’s a case that is somewhat off topic and I don’t know if this has been discussed here before, but is a real case similar to this fiction in the sense of someone facing attempted cancellation simply for making factual statements and saying other things they don’t want to hear, this time outside of work. A Canadian nurse, Amy Hamm, is facing a disciplinary hearing for gender critical things she said on social media. Here is an article on it:
https://thepostmillennial.com/nurse-faces-trial-in-bc-for-saying-biological-sex-is-real
Quoting:
‘“This panel of the college’s discipline committee has been appointed to determine the sole allegation … that Ms. Hamm made discriminatory and derogatory statements regarding transgender people while identifying herself as a nurse,” began Michael Seaborn who specified his pronouns as he/him, legal counsel for the British Columbia College of Nursing and Midwives (BCCNM).
Seaborn explained that the college is not alleging any shortcomings with Hamm’s “competency as a nurse or any deficiency in her conduct as a nurse at work”, but rather that the case deals with “off-duty conduct.”
[…]
“Common discriminatory statements directed towards transgender people include: statements that deny their existence such as by insisting that there are only two sexes, often referred to as erasure,” he explained, “or describing them as deviant or predatory for no other reason than they are different from a large portion of the population.”’
—-
Bizarrely, according to that lawyer, stating a basic biological fact (there are two sexes) is supposedly erasing trans people. It seems reality itself is considered transphobic. I would expect something like this from the Onion, but in gender ideology it apparently is taken seriously. I’m not sure about the second part of his statement but I’ve read that Amy Hamm has argued for single sex spaces, so I’m guessing he is leaping to the conclusion that she is arguing all males identifying as transwomen are deviant or predatory. I seriously doubt she said anything like that, however. This appears to be attempted cancellation for thoughtcrime that goes against the gender cult.
There’s a very similar case in the UK involving a social worker, Rachel Meade: https://archive.ph/tSxD4
IIRC, Social Work England, the body that registers and regulates social workers, attempted, at the last minute, to withdraw from the tribunal Ms Meade had brought against them. The tribunal panel insisted it went ahead. Her legal action against her employer of twenty years, Westminster City Council, is still pending.