Leynos said:
And people are dumber relying on a crutch for it. The more we rely on a crutch the less ability we have to problem solve for ourselves. Tools are great but don't let it do all the work for you. |
Exactly. If someone only ever uses a calculator to do all the math for them, it can dull their math skills. I remember one time in middle school back in like 1993-94 I was part of a quiz bowl thing as an extracurricular (think team-based Jeopardy) and were were asked to add two three-digit numbers. Everybody pulled out pencil & paper to try to do it. I crunched the numbers in my head, rang in first, and got it right. Everybody just kinda looked at me funny, like "How did he do that?" Any kind of simple calculation you should be able to do in your head without needing a machine. Decades later at my last job I had a customer complaining to a co-worker that he didn't get the right money back for a return. I took a look at his receipt and what he got back, and quickly determined that he did indeed get the right amount of money back. When he still insisted, that's when I pulled out the calculator app on my phone to shut him up once and for all. Once he saw the number on the screen match what he got back, he finally relented. 17 years in retail showed me that most people suck at math, and maybe some of them would have been better if they didn't rely on a calculator as a crutch for every little thing.
TL;DR: It's not a good thing to have machines do all thinking for us. Especially if it's being used as an excuse by the capitalist class to axe a bunch of jobs.
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