Oct 27^th, 2024

3×3–3%3+3=SHOCK, EYE-OPENER, CALL FOR PATIENCE

I just stumbled upon a Facebook post that asked people to give their answers to this: 3×3–3%3+3. For some strange reason, I take stuff like this as the most rudimentary test of IQ [Note: I’m also aware that basic computational knowledge is not all there is about life]. There were well over 6k answers, drawn from all over the world. The answers were at first shocking. Shock soon gave way to an eye-opener, but also a call for patience with people.

      About 84 percent got it wrong; roughly 16 percent got it right. If it were a shouting match, the 16% would be stampeded, intimidated, bullied, and ridiculed. Perhaps the wrong answers were not because people weren’t familiar with basic BODMAS. It’s a symptom of a straightforward way of thinking or, indeed, a straightforward approach to life in general. It somewhat betokens a lack of a sense of nuance about life. The few who got it right were not geniuses (for this is elementary math) but were likely individuals who possess a basic sense of nuance, who know that life isn’t straightforwardly black-and-white, who know how to take a little detour.

      But the scary think is that the 84%ers share the same world and even the same space, with the 16%ers. Even more scary is that some of the 84%ers may be the ones deciding or influencing the lives of everyone else – politicians, card-carrying APC members, diehard democrats or republicans, academics who make pedantic post on social media, pastors, bishops, prophets, celebrities, social media influencers, etc. Some of the 84%ers are also simple-minded people, who think that by typing “Amen” on a beautiful mansion posted by a religious conman, the mansion would automatically be theirs.

      Now, how safe are the 16%ers? Indeed, how safe is society at large in the hands of the 84%ers? How hard is it for the 16%er to make the 84%er see things differently, to see how nuanced things are or, at least, to be a little bit less stubborn about his/her stances? Would the 84%er be humble and patient with the 16%er? If you think about it, it’s no less a call for humility and patience on the part of the 16%er as well. [Note: Though this is about math/computational knowledge which I have personal preference for, the 84%/16% metaphor may hold true for other forms of knowledge.]