[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

No, it's not. Not any more than general illiteracy. We live in a world dominated by technology and mathematics. How can someone function if they don't know that 30% of 50 is less than 30% of 60? Or basic logic? (If a and b both have to be true for c to be true and c is true... what can we tell about a and b?) This isn't rocket science, it's basic life skills. And yet I see folks fail abysmally at them all the time. And jokes like that "off the cuff" remark just reinforce the idea that it's acceptable.

We don't tolerate a world in which someone not knowing how to read is acceptable, nor should you tolerate one in which people don't know basic logic or mathematics. It's not about contributing to society, it's about functioning in it.

This is a faulty comparison.

Pretty much everyone has the ability to learn to read.

Not everyone has the ability to be an engineer.

It is not at all unacceptable for someone to admit that they do not have the capacity to design and build a robot, because not everyone can. That technical fields are integral to modern society is completely irrelevant to this.

Note that this is not a speaker saying that people should not learn basic arithmetic. This is a speaker saying that he is impressed with students completing specialized, complex technical tasks that he cannot. There is no shame in that, and it is not perpetuating a culture of unacceptable ignorance.