This is sort of a shower thought because this morning I was using some shaving cream and I thought, if it turns out in 5 years this was giving me cancer, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Comes out a goo, ejected from a can with force, immediately becomes a foam?
Do you have anything you use that you think might be too good to be true?
I was trying to use an example from personal experience to illustrate the benefit, but my point is that immediate answers wasn’t an option not too long ago, so curiosities you actually did want answered would necessarily have that delay. Being able to learn things well in spite of this shift is becoming a skill not everyone has. It’s something that needs to be nurtured, and it’s now easy to neglect, which really can affect everyone, although obviously some attitudes and lifestyles will be hit harder than others.
Something of a tangent but honestly I hate the way academia works here in general and I resent my role in contributing to math being used as a barrier to a better life. Unfortunately, I do need a career of some sort and there are worse things I could be doing. So I play by the rules well enough to keep my job and just try to do my best to be understanding.
I didn’t even enjoy math myself until I took an analysis course because I thought a math minor would help with job prospects. I always had an easy time with math and when I took analysis I got a D the first time and barely scraped by with a C the second. Math is actually interesting when you feel there’s creativity required in problem-solving, but it’s not reasonable to demand that in a lower-level math course because it doesn’t mesh well with a course existing primarily as a roadblock for students.
A hardworking student might still struggle to develop that creativity quickly enough to get through the course unscathed, which is fine if you’re enrolled because you just want to learn, but not fine for students trying to get good grades or at least pass everything to get through as quickly as possible. A student might have the crazy idea that failing is a financial hit or something. The result is you’re simply put through a grind until you voluntarily take on a course beyond the calculus sequence.
What I’m getting at is that I think your complaints all stem from the fact that, in spite of what we’re all forced to pretend, education is not the main purpose of academia.