An Engineer, a Mathematician and a ‘Climate scientist’ are each asked “what is 2 + 2?”
The Engineer says “somewhere between 3.9 and 4.1”, the Mathematician says “4” and the ‘Climate scientist’ says “what would you like it to be?”
|
|||||
|
We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
Samizdata quote of the daySamizdata Illuminatus (Arkham, Massachusetts) · Environment · Science Fiction & Fantasy · Slogans & Quotations December 14th, 2017 |
 32 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
Who Are We?The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, âPorcupinesâ, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty FrĂ©dĂ©ric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
A fairly weak punch line.
Surely the assembly here can do better.
My climate scientist says “I shall consult some tree rings for the answer.”
Not very good either I fear.
A good article, not that it’s going to change anyone’s mind. CAGW enthusiasts and climate “scientists” are too deeply invested in “climate change” to be dissuaded by actual evidence that temperature measurements are so grossly distorted and dependent upon human manipulation as to be essentially meaningless.
Anyway, the answer to “what is 2 + 2?” can easily be a broader range than âsomewhere between 3.9 and 4.1â. It can be either 3 or 5 for some values of 2. With rounding to whole integers, both 1.6 and 2.4 round to 2. Thus 2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8 which rounds to 5, and 1.6 + 1.6 = 3.2 which rounds to 3. Simples. Within limits, “What number would you like?” isn’t an irrational answer.
Here is something else for Greenoids to worry about! I just read in The Australian, page 6, about a claim of a new type of energy- Hydrogen-Boron fusion! Professor Heinrich Hora says that it should be feasible within a decade. No radioactivity, and plenty of energy. Greenies, those who simply hate progress of any sort, will try to ban it, no doubt.
I have a badge that says, “2 + 2 = 5 for sufficently large values of 2”. The person who got the biggest kick out of it was a mathematician. He read it and started laughing so hard, he was unable to speak. When he got his breath back, he said, “Well, if you allow 2 to expand infinitely…” and then he was off again.
My own thought is, It depends on what you mean by 2 . đ
(As well, of course, as by +. Oh, and by 2 + 2 — Common Core, anyone? — and by = .)
These are issues of serious contention, you know. Serious contention. Very serious. Seriously serious. For some value of serious.
Ha!
(For some values of “ha.”) đ
Trying to put definitions on things? What a masculinist view of the world! Things can be as many as they choose to be, so there, you objectivists!
… and the âClimate scientistâ says, “4 – which confirms the consensus for anthropogenic global warming.”
bobby– đ
The Engineer says âsomewhere between 3.9 and 4.1â, the Mathematician says â4â and the âClimate scientistâ says âwe cannot give you an exact number, but we do know that 98.9% of all climate scientists agree that it is higher than it has ever been, and it’s rising, and it may even be too late to keep it from reaching the catastrophic level of 5, at which point mathematics as we know it will be altered forever. If only we had more money . . . “
I vote for bobby b’s punchline, though it’d be better if he worked computer models and “adjusted” data in there somewhere.
95% of our models have 95% confidence that it’s at least 4.1, which means we’re 190% positive it’s higher than it’s ever been (and we revisited some old, untrustworthy raw addition from the past, and it turns out that when properly adjusted by various important factors, 2+2 was really never more than negative thirty seven as recently as the 1980s).
The climate scientist says ‘7.132487406â and rising.‘.
“We need an answer of either 3 or 5, as political winds require so that in any event we can further the proper social agenda, therefore let us firstly adjust the values of 2 as appropriate (taking care to erase the problematic original data and to present the adjusted data as the dataset that everyone should work from) and secondly devise – then refuse to divulge the details of – our own proprietary means of adding two numbers together, all while telling the ple… I mean populace… that the science is settled. Anyone who dissents, especially those who insist 2+2=4 or anything resembling it, is a shill for Big Oil or Big Coal, and should be silenced through criminal prosecution.”
The climate ‘scientistâ says âWhatever I’d like it to be!â
(It was the successful candidate in the ‘eurocrat hires accountant’ joke who said, “Whatever you’d like it to be!â)
Before or after adjustment?
Initially it was four, but we’ve revisited earlier versions of that sum and realised that the answer needed to be adjusted downwards since it didn’t agree with our computer models. Now we’re having to adjust upwards to ensure a fit to the models so it’s currently 5. This is a very disturbing, nay catastrophic, trend and unless we all give up on all energy use it will soon be six.
Please note that Russell and Whitehead give, in Principia Mathematica, a proof that 1+1=2 (it’s on p83 of Vol. 2, so it must be tricky).
It doesn’t matter what value you claim is the sum, according to Goedel you can’t prove it anyway.
Tom Lehrer – New Math:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vetg7vWitTU
Tom Lehrer – We Will All Go Together When We Go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
It’s worse than we thought!
And the climate scientist says… “we can’t give a precise falsifiable prediction but our models estimate as high as 4,643,123.66 by 2050 unless we radically change our way of life. Surely we don’t want to take the risk that we might be right? These other two deniers are dangerous subversives.”
BTW, the theologian says “4, but 1, really.”
Why are you asking math questions when the PLANET is IN DANGER!!!
The only sort of person who asks math questions is a DENIER!!!
2+2?
Let’s see, with interest, minus inflation and fees,…and let me check for patent or copyrights…
15 cigarettes = loneliness.
As the computer scientist, I can assure you that 2 + 2 = 22, “type conversion failure”, and occasionally “null pointer exception”
I assume you mean that if you deny the axiom of choice, then proving that 2+2=4 gets hard. So strictly, according to Goedel, you can prove it – provided you buy this axiom he just happens to have conveniently to hand.
I strongly assert my inalienable right to buy and own an axiom of choice, and to carry it around with me at all times for use on any climate scientist or similar I may encounter.
“Is that a temperature increase or decrease?”
Here is another interdisciplinary joke that i like. No libertarian content, i’m afraid.
Three English scientists are on a train to Scotland for an interdisciplinary conference.
After crossing the border, the biologist says: Hey look, in Scotland cows are brown!
The statistician says: No: in Scotland SOME cows are brown!
The logician says: No: in Scotland there are at least 4 cows with at least 1 brown side.
No true cow…
OK, SOH failure: 2+2=4 is fine without the axiom of choice (essentially since it doesn’t involve anything infinte).
Climate science has homogenised the first 2 to actually be 1.8 and the second is now reading 2.2. So the model of 1.8 + 2.2 is actually in step with reality AND shows that in 2024 it will will have risen past the tipping point. We need a conference in Bali to debate the solution!