I didn't write that they couldn't understand it. I wrote that it isn't being taught, so they don't understand it.
You could probably learn many things you don't already know easily, however I don't think "there are many things you shouldn't be doing" because you haven't thought to learn them. For example: empathy.
I went to school in Delaware and Pennsylvania between 2nd-12th grade and I dont remember this being taught (unless I missed the compound interest day in 1st grade ;))
Maybe it isnt being taught universally or well enough, or maybe it just needs to be reinforced more often.
You're misremembering, that's all. And things have changed since you were in that age bracket, anyway; the US common core standards mandate compound interest lessons as early as the seventh grade.
Spending all of your time with people in the top few percent, intellectually, tends to skew your perceptions of what's normal. Most humans struggle with concepts like compound interest. There's a reason hating highschool maths is a trope, despite how trivial most of it is.
No offense intended to math teachers, but I think in the US that's as much because of ineffective math teachers & textbooks as students.
I realize self-selection bias in that it did work for me, but I went to a decent school and still had both wonderful and terrible math teachers.
Math to me is somewhat of a fractal, and if a teacher or textbook can't effectively answer "Why?" in addition to teaching blind computation then a good outcome is unlikely.
Who are these 'top few percent intellectually' and how does one tell them apart from how shall we say the 'intellectually challenged'? How does one join this group?
Is there someone or a group perhaps that decides who are the top few percent intellectually, maybe a fraternity who then initiate other members who can then come on HN and declare with confidence they are a part of this special group and no validation is required. Does one require to be a coder or maybe just a HN reader?
This kind of hubris of a self appointed intellectual elite is seen far too often on HN to be comfortable and apart from promoting small minded bigotry sets a dangerous kind of thinking letting these self appointed groups jump to flawed and silly conclusions about others human beings.
Billions of human beings pass exams testing basic maths like compound interest and much much more every day. Its not an achievement of any kind. There are thousands of professions in the world of which software engineering is just one.
Being a software engineer does not make you magically better than other human beings in any way. Is a civil engineer or a doctor allowed to think HN is full of idiots because they dont have a clue about their fields, or that they are an intellectual elite because of their specialised knowledge in their chosen field? How come this kind of thinking is rife here? How may engineers an doctors have you heard gloating about reading trade mags?
I am prepared to believe that the majority of HN readers are in the top 20%ish globally, but the top 1-2% is a stretch. Tying that to a particular skill is, of course, ridiculous, but I think a lot of us here have consistently performed at the top of our class or at the top of our paygrade in the working world (and when we haven't, we were probably already in a very selective environment). I imagine the same can be said of doctors and civil engineers, most of whom probably understand compound interest anyway.
I don't understand this mentality, top 20% of what? For what purpose? How is it measured, wealth, education?
The ability to educate oneself is a privilege of one's enviroment, background and upbringing, the ability to do well in one specific area could be a measure of one's interests provided one has the freedom and means to follow it. None of these are a measure of one's intelligence. Individuals could go on to distinguish themselves in their respective fields and then could be part of a group of say nobel winners or some specific measure.
This 20% seems completely arbitary and self serving that puts you in a group simply because of your specific interests or chosen profession. This is not in the least scientific or valid and there appears to be no useful purpose than hubris. The bigger problem is why the great need to feel better than others and clutch at shadows? This is how bigotry works.
Surely every human being has the ability to learn and be adept at what they do given the right conditions and this is a problem the world grapples with, to provide these conditions.
An individual struggling with compound interest is an opportunity for those who know, to try to teach them in a way they can understand, not an opportunity to deride and run them down as idiots. That's juvenile and mean spirited.
I don't think there will ever be a scientific method for measuring or ranking intelligence, and I understand that life circumstances play a huge role in being able to acquire the social markers of intelligence. Still, some people are clearly smarter than others. Saying "top 20%" is a reasonable shorthand for "decently above average," which I think is about as accurate as we can get outside of people like von Neumann who could recite novels that he had read years previously. (Note that I'm not saying something like "people who can't graduate high school are dumb." There are plenty of smart high school dropouts and plenty of dumb Ivy League graduates.)
There are people around here who believe that their interest in computer science is one of the things that makes them smarter than other people, but that is not a belief I am defending. In fact, I believe that is a small minority of people here. Most of the posts I saw in this thread were criticizing the education system that leaves many people without an understanding of compound interest, not calling those people idiots.
Most people are comfortable with the idea that some people are at the bottom of the intelligence heap. It is scientifically verifiable that some individuals are unable to remember new information or identify patterns. Why shouldn't this be true at the top of the heap as well? Based on my life experiences, I believe that my intelligence is significantly above average, although I realize that I have been aided by fortunate circumstances. However, I am not strongly invested in the idea: I am more interested in being happy, in being a disciplined worker, and in having strong relationships with people than I am in being a smart person. Why are you so invested in the idea that no one is smarter than anyone else?
Yes, and even if the claim was reliable it still wouldn't mean much to me because IQ is just one aspect of being an intelligent person. Even with the dubiousness of the claim, though, I think we can probably agree that there are some individuals who are off-the-charts intelligent (von Neumann is my example of choice).
Compound interest gets taught in like middle school. The same time we get taught percents and stuff.
That said "compound interest" is and any sort of interest is kind of futile if, like a credit card, the principle is constantly changing, it's also a bit hard to scare people into frugality by telling them if they put these steaks on credit they'll have to pay $12 dollars more later. The numbers don't get scary until well into "they already knew they shouldn't do it" territory.
I think the concept is easy to grasp, but seeing the impact of 30% with actual numbers is very different. It makes the financial impact more comprehensible.
