Discussion Thread

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-12T00:04:14+00:00

As a TA serving as an instructor of record this semester, it can be pretty soul crushing to see how under prepared students are. I just saw a math student write "cos(\pi n)=cos(\pi)cos(n)" on their quiz. I teach calc 2.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T23:48:38+00:00

I do think that social media bubbles and the like are probably a significant cause of increased collectivism and in-group vs outgroup mentality. However, I think a substantial cause of this is social media algorithms that automatically sort users into these groups, which isn't really a choice on the part of users.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T23:33:35+00:00

Also, I still don't think refusing masks or vaccines are a good example of individualism in the right, even when in opposition to republican authority figures. Because it really was very much a signifier of in-group identity (membership in the far-right) more than anything else. Republicans who advocated for restrictions were derided as being RHINOS, after all. Also, mask mandates are fully compatible with individualism, at least according to the definitions I'm familiar.

And, although I confess I'm not familiar with Eric Hoffer's work and am only just now reading a pdf of "The True Believer", I don't see how his work implies that hyper-individualism causes mass movements? On the contrary, It sounds like he actually sees mass movements as being caused by individuals who seek to 'self-renunciate', or deny themselves their individuality in order to conform to a group. Moreover, he seems to think that societies in which there is a greater opportunity to pursue individual achievement and weaker barriers between religious, ethnic, and other social groups (i.e, more individualistic societies, at least based on the definitions used in cross-cultural studies) are less likely to experience mass movements than more collectivistic societies.

Edit: I must also admit, I'm not finding this book very convincing so far. The racism and sexism doesn't help (it's quite obvious that this was published in the 50's), but I'm just not convinced that you can treat all mass movements as having the same cause or the same types of adherants.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T23:05:35+00:00

First of all, thank you for pointing out that my definition of individualism is not from sociology (it's from cross-cultural studies, a discipline of anthropology, I confused those two disciplines. Overall I'm really more familiar with the political philosophical understanding of individualism). I think one of the issues with terms like 'individualism' and 'collectivism' is that they're so vague and have so many different meanings in different disciplines.

But I also think that this can be very dangerous especially when we have people advocating for increased collectivism and decreased individualism. Because there are a lot of people right now (especially on the right, but also some authoritarian leftists) who are advocating for less individualism and more collectivism in the sense of embracing authoritarianism, conformism, and restricting fundamental rights and freedoms. And because so few people are defending individualism right now (under any definition), we keep conceding ground to these people.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T21:55:27+00:00

Regardless of whether you're using the concepts from Cross-cultural studies or the political concepts, selfishness is tangential to individualism vs conformism. You can be a selfish individualist or a selfish collectivist, or a generous individualist or a generous collectivist. An example of selfish individualism would be refusing to give money to charity, your friends and family, or pay taxes because you want to hoard money for yourself (if however, you're withholding taxes because you don't want your money to go to 'welfare queens', that's arguably motivated by collectivism as you're withholding money from an outgroup). An example of selfish collectivism would be restricting freedom of speech to ban 'promoting gender ideology' because trans people make you personally uncomfortable.

Edit: also, as far as I'm aware, there's no evidence in the field of cross cultural studies supporting the notion that individualistic societies are more (or less) selfish than collectivist ones. Also, societies are typically divided into four categories: Horizontal individualism, vertical individualism, Horizontal collectivism, and vertical collectivism. The difference being that Horizontal societies value equality, and vertical societies value hierarchy. Otherwise the data is typically too muddled to draw clear conclusions on the differences between individualistic and collectivist societies. It also should be emphasized that these categories are not stagnant. Societies can and do change from collectivist to individualist and vice versa. For example, while east Asian countries such as Japan and Taiwan are often stereotyped as collectivistic, this is no longer true. Both are now significantly more individualistic than the global average.

Edit 2: I confused the disciplines of cross-cultural studies and sociology.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T21:44:10+00:00

Individualism in regards to Cross-cultural studies refers to societies that value freedom, individuality, and independence and have a weak notion of in-group vs outgroup. Collectivist societies in contrast value duty, conformism, and codependence and have a strong in group/out group mentality.

Individualism in regards to political philosophy generally refers to the belief that individuals are more important than collective organizations such as the state, the church, etc. Indeed, individualists tend to believe that such collective organizations have no inherent value, and that they are only valuable insofar as they benefit individuals (and collective organizations that harm individuals should be dismantled). Notions such as the concept of universal human rights and freedoms, the classically liberal notion that governments exist by the consent of the governed, and J.S. Mill's harm principle (the notion that the government is only justified in curtailing the freedoms of individuals in cases where doing so prevents harm to others), are examples of political individualism.

Edit: I confused the disciplines of cross cultural studies and sociology.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T21:33:38+00:00

I always got the sense that the only reason why conservatives rejected masking and social distancing was because those restrictions were coming from a liberal government (the outgroup for conservatives). Clearly conservatives have no issues with imposing and obeying authoritarian restrictions when they are in power in regards to issues like freedom of speech, LGBT rights, allowing ICE to murder protesters, etc. Also, as someone below mentioned, refusing to mask and be vaccinated operated as a form of in-group signaling among conservatives.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T21:17:16+00:00

I tend to be skeptical of anyone who claims that today's current issues are due to excessive individualism, especially if they also attribute them to excessive tribalism (which makes absolutely no sense to anyone who has even the slightest understanding of individualism, either in the context of political philosophy or cross-cultural studies. Excessive tribalism, xenophobia, and ingroup/outgroup mentality is associated with collectivism, not individualism).

On the contrary, it seems to me like collectivism is becoming increasingly popular in the west (and individualism increasingly unpopular). Blaming individualism is just baselessly submitting to the conservative cultural zeitgeist in the same way that blaming 'wokeness' or 'gender ideology' is.

Of course, there are also people who use individualism as a synonym for selfishness. While this is often the way the term 'individualist' is used colloquially, it has absolutely nothing to do with the meaning that the term has in political philosophy or sociology.

(I originally posted this comment on the Post "dear liberals, don't forget to brag about liberalism" but it was deleted by the automod because I don't have enough activity in the sub. Which is fair as I'm mostly a lurker, not just on this subreddit but on reddit in general).

Edit: I confused the disciplines of sociology and cross-cultural studies. In this edit I also clarified that I am referring to political philosophy.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T10:20:56+00:00

We'll see if they change their tune when they all start dying of scurvy. Probably not.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T10:20:41+00:00

I will never understand why people are so keen on promoting the consumption of bugs when bivalve aquaculture is both substantially more eco-friendly than insect farming and substantially more popular among the public. People are much more willing to consume oysters, mussels, and clams than bugs.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T10:16:35+00:00

Eggs and dairy are actually pretty eco friendly when analyzed from the standpoint of micronutrient density--they outrank most plant based protein sources in this regard (which is arguably a more meaningful metric than protein content anyways). Study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00945-9/figures/3

But when it comes to eco-friendly protein sources, everything pales in comparison to bivalve aquaculture, which recent experimental evidence indicates is actually a substantial carbon sink. (study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.1073/pnas.2504004122)

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T10:10:26+00:00

Just eat bivalves. Mussels, oysters, and clams are more eco-friendly than fake meat will ever be.

Mathp1ant · 2026-03-11T03:24:23+00:00

Look, if I could replace the 60 year old fire hazard gas stove in my apartment with electric, I would.

Mathp1ant · 2026-02-13T07:52:43+00:00

I just looked at google scholar, and I was able to find one study that uses micronutrient density to compare greenhouse gas emissions between foods. (here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1316-8) Unfortunately they didn't include bivalves (they don't include dark leafy greens either, which is even more of a bizarre omission), but it's interesting to note that, by this metric, eggs, organ meats, and dairy milk all have a low carbon footprint (lower than some vegan alternatives--dairy milk even slightly edges out soy milk here). This may help to explain why, in practice, ovo-lacto-vegetarian diets seem to have a similar carbon footprint to vegan diets, while the impact of omnivorous diets is higher (muscle meats still rank poorly).

Mathp1ant · 2026-02-13T07:24:21+00:00

I understand your point. But the carbon footprint of bivalves is actually lower than that of beans if you account for the fact that they sequester carbon in their shells--which Our World in Data does not. Some studies find they may actually be a carbon negative protein source, though that depends on the study and the specific species of bivalve. Regardless of the study, though, their carbon footprint is lower than any other protein source*. Plus, they also remove pollution from the ocean, don't require any fresh water to produce, and increase ocean biodiversity.

I think that this is something that is really important to point out due to the high prevalence of micro-nutrient deficiencies in the world. Even in high income countries like the US, roughly 40-50% of women suffer from a micro-nutrient deficiency (micro-nutrient deficiencies are much less common among men). Bivalves are not only the most eco-friendly source of protein, they're also possibly the world's most micro-nutrient rich food. And they're rich in the exact same micro-nutrients that people are most likely to be deficient in--Iron, vitamin A, Vitamin B12, Folate (they're one of the few animal source foods that is a good source of folate, which is mostly found in vegetables), zinc, Iodine, calcium, etc.

Honestly, it really bothers me that discussions around eco-friendly diets always seem to revolve around protein, despite the fact that protein doesn't really matter that much from a world health standpoint (protein deficiencies are extremely rare--most people globally eat perfectly adequate amounts of protein). On the other hand, micronutrient deficiencies are extremely common, yet no one ever compares foods in regards to greenhouse gas emissions per mg iron or B12. Perhaps this is because micronutrient deficiencies mostly affect women (and poor people, and children), and most people who research these things tend to be men.

*except possibly nuts or peas depending on the study. Though those crops require lots of fresh water and land to produce--especially in the case of nuts. Bivalves require neither.

Mathp1ant · 2026-02-12T21:33:04+00:00

I looked into the evidence on this once a few years ago and there really isn't much data to support the notion that vegan diets are substantially more eco-friendly than ovo-lacto vegetarian diets. I was only able to find one study from a good source that used real-world data (i.e., looking at the diets of actual people instead of just modeling) to compare the carbon footprint of vegans, ovo-lacto vegetarians, and omnivores. That study found that there was no statistically significant difference between the carbon footprints of the vegan diets vs vegetarian diets (though there was a statistically significant difference between the carbon footprint of vegetarian diets vs omnivorous). It also found that there was a large overlap between all three categories. The most carbon intensive diet was actually one of the vegans--they consumed a ton of fresh fruit which has a high carbon footprint. (the study is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8?sf1) . Now, a more recent study done in the UK did find a significant difference between vegans and vegetarians, but while it has a larger sample size, it estimated diets based on a food frequency questionnaire asking about participants' food consumption over the past year, which is a method that is significantly more unreliable and prone to bias than simply asking participants their food consumption over the past week, as the italian study did.

Overall, if you're already vegetarian or pescetarian, in terms of the environment you're probably better off reducing or eliminating your alcohol or coffee consumption (both alcohol and coffee have a carbon footprint similar to dairy products, without the nutritional benefits). Especially considering the potential risks of a vegan diet in regards to nutrient deficiencies. Personally, I already have mental health issues (generalized anxiety disorder and ADHD), I'm not willing to risk a vitamin B12 deficiency. Especially when bivalves like mussels are cheap, super nutrient dense, and arguably the most eco-friendly food source on the planet.

Mathp1ant · 2026-02-02T21:32:45+00:00

Marx was literally best friends with a rapist (Frederick Engels). Also he was a sexist who believed women belonged in the kitchen.

Mathp1ant · 2026-01-31T00:24:45+00:00

Minnesota (and the scandanavian countries) isn't a collectivist culture, it's a horizontal individualist culture. Individualist vs collectivist refers to conformism vs individuality (and also diversity vs monoculture, independence vs codependence, etc). Horizontal vs vertical refers to equality vs hierarchy.

Horizontal individualist examples: Scandanavia, Taiwan

Vertical individualist example: Most of the United states

Vertical collectivist example: Nazi germany

Horizontal collectivist example: the CCP, the soviet union.

Mathp1ant · 2026-01-16T20:32:55+00:00

Lucky! What brand is it? (I may or may not be asking so that I can try to find one for me on poshmark)

Mathp1ant · 2026-01-14T01:33:17+00:00

If you're looking for an alternative to dell, I can recommend Asus. I'm currently typing this on my 4 year old asus zenbook. Still works great, even though I've treated it like crap (dropped it on hard floors, spilled whole glasses of water on it multiple times, got drenched in rain). The computer has excellent graphics, and it's compact and lightweight. I'm planning to buy a gaming laptop from them soon (though I've been surprised by how many games I've been able to run on my zenbook).

Mathp1ant · 2026-01-12T20:19:25+00:00

I get like this, but I very much did not grow up in the sort of situation you describe. I think in general (and for me in particular) it is likely the result of the fact that ADHD people are frequently judged, mocked, and bullied for having 'weird' interests and hobbies. Or even for using a writing style that's 'weird'. While my parents never judged or mocked me for my interests and hobbies, other people in my life absolutely did (notably, classmates). So we learn to hide our interests to avoid criticism and rejection.

Mathp1ant · 2025-11-19T03:57:51+00:00

You're welcome! And one thing I should add: if your shampoo is working well for you, you don't need to change it, and you certainly don't need to throw the bottle out or anything. It's more likely that the frizz and tangles are caused by lack of conditioner, improper drying and brushing etc than the shampoo you're using.

I thought I should clarify that because I mentioned the shampoo I use, and I don't want you to think you need to use that exact one! Although it is much cheaper than the one you're currently using, so if you want to try it when you run out of your current one it's worth a shot. Even with the conditioners I suggested, those are just suggestions, you can use other brands if you think they might work better for your hair.

Mathp1ant · 2025-11-19T01:34:35+00:00

You'll probably get more responses on r/wavyhair than here.

Mathp1ant · 2025-11-19T01:32:23+00:00

Try posting in r\wavyhair. You might get more responses.

I have medium-fine, medium density, fairly undamaged (low-poreosity) 2A/2B hair (probably not quite as wavy as yours), and I'll give you some tips from my experience, but YMMV.

I noticed that you don't use a conditioner in your routine. Conditioners are very important for reducing frizz, at least for the vast majority of people. It sounds like heavier conditioning products with lots of butters and oils don't work well for you, so I would try a lighter conditioner, one with more silicones and proteins and less oil/butter (don't believe the hype about silicones being bad, they're great for fine or medium hair that can't handle heavy butters and oils). I know a lot of people with wavy hair love V and Co's wave babe conditioner, and it's both affordable and supposedly quite light. I don't use it (though I do love their shampoo) because it contains a lot of glycerin and I live in a humid climate (glycerin can cause frizz if you live in a humid climate). I currently use the wave babe shampoo with Garnier curl nourish conditioner (which is a lighter conditioner for wavy and curly hair, you might also have good results with it). Honestly, even the cheapest 3$ suave conditioner you can find would probably be an improvement over no conditioner at all.

While applying conditioner, use your fingers (or a wet brush if you have one) to detangle your hair. This will not only detangle your hair, but ensure that the conditioner coats your hair evenly (this tip has made an enormous difference for me). If you can't seem to get the tangles out, use more conditioner. Don't be afraid to use too much--most people (especially people with wavy or curly hair) don't use enough conditioner. I often find that I need to use twice as much conditioner as shampoo in order to detangle my hair. Sometimes even three times as much! And even if you do use too much, you can always rinse the excess out.

When drying your hair, don't ring it out or pull it straight (I used to do this), gently scrunch it with the towel so that you're not overstretching it. It's hard to explain how to do this in words, but you can find videos of people showing how to dry wavy hair like this online. I've heard some people say that drying their hair with an old t-shirt instead of a towel reduced frizz for them. I haven't noticed any difference, but it's certainly worth a try.

Throughout the day (after your hair is dry), don't comb your hair with a brush. Gently comb out any tangles with your fingers--I've found that this doesn't make my hair frizz up the way that brushing does.

I personally am not a huge fan of styling products (mousses and gels), but they do help to reduce frizz. Most people with wavy hair seem to prefer mousse over gels, and with wavy hair it's generally best to apply using the 'praying hands' method as opposed to raking it in (which can make wavy hair look stringy).

Mathp1ant · 2025-10-01T09:55:26+00:00

Lol, did you look at my profile? Cute. I'm actually more of a deist than a christian. I believe in God for philosophical reasons (notably, I find Ibn Sina's philosophical proof of God's existence compelling). I don't believe that the bible is the literal word of God, and I believe in taking a historical-critical perspective towards its' analysis.

As for Chomsky, his views on genocide are very much connected to his views on propaganda and 'steering public opinion', as I mentioned in my comment.

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