Boring
A student bored by a textbook chapter on conic sections is offered a conspiracy theory about Wall Street, then Hanlon's razor.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2017-04-28-boring/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
A: "Why is math so boring?"
B: "Simple capitalist obfuscation. Wall Street wants their crimes shrouded in dullness and confusion so no regulator or citizen can question the corporate plunder of America."
A: "You're saying Wall Street wrote this chapter on conic sections so they can steal our pensions?"
B: "Honestly, it's the best reason I can think of for why we're spending a week graphing hyperbolas."
A: "What's the quote? 'Never attribute to evil what can be explained by incompetence.'"
B: "Great; now you've ripped me from a cozy world of minor evil to a nightmare reality of staggering incompetence."