Kenny comments on Is Scott Alexander bad at math? - Less Wrong

31 Post author: JonahSinick 04 May 2015 05:11AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (219)

Sort By: Popular

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: cousin_it 04 May 2015 05:07:03PM 2 points [-]

Wow. And I even commented on that. And then forgot about it. Sorry :-p

So, what kind of math does Scott feel that he's bad at?

Comment author: Kenny 06 May 2015 12:54:57AM 0 points [-]

I also would like to know what the evidence is exactly that Scott is bad at math.

Comment author: mkf 08 May 2015 06:32:43AM *  2 points [-]

Mostly his self-description, like here.

Comment author: Kenny 12 May 2015 01:44:30AM 0 points [-]

Thanks. A great quote from the link:

I mean, I’m not terrible at math. I managed to scrape together an A in Calculus II, the last math class I was required to take and not coincidentally the last math class I ever took. I did it by memorizing the algorithms involved and plugging things into them, all the while desperately praying that there weren’t any deviations, however minor, on the test. This isn’t normal for me. In every other field, concepts slide naturally into my mind and I can manipulate them however they want, like fitting a bunch of Lego blocks together to make limitless possibilities.

I would guess myself that someone able to write the game theory sequences he wrote is someone able to fit all of the relevant concepts together like LEGOs.