Something that's become increasingly obvious to me is how many people have daddy issues about math
Not even in a meme way, I genuinely think people have a concerning complex about math.
"Math trauma" aligns more with general academic trauma. The only difference is that the current education model greatly prioritises arithmetic manipulation more than anything.
People's rage about mathematical models of art and language becomes weird when you kind of understand that mathematical models are also extensively used in fields like physics and engineering. As the name already suggests, a mathematical model only acts a model of the real thing, not a one-to-one recreation of the original. (Also, if someone responds to this with GenAI, generative algorithms don't necessarily model its corpus.) There is an argument (and a cleaner one) to be made that there are key assumptions made about what aspects of the source is trivial and can be discarded, some of which may be problematic. Those are very intriguing, but the general layman reaction does read as though mathematically modelling something "intrinsically human" is in a way, a means of dehumanising ourselves.
"The algorithm"? Complete misnomer. Etymologynerd kind of touches on why it's wrong but in a trivial way (it's actually generally multiple algorithms but that's a blackbox to us). Ultimately, it misses out that an algorithm is, in essence, just a finite sequence of rules of mathematical operation in order to solve some specific problem/perform some computation. Algorithms don't "do" anything more significant than that. What makes social media algorithms dangerous is the fact it exists in a sociotechnical system; it interacts with the real world (which already have certain biases and systemic disparities) and were developed for a reason in our current economic system (under capitalism, they were developed to make shareholders wealthier). Assigning blame to some "algorithm" ignores a) how much of life can be meaningfully modelled using algorithms and b) that these social forces exist independently of the tech and math involved.
I do think that the culprit is that the current academic system is harshly abusive about math, but it's true of any subject. English can be equally traumatising in the developing world where proficiency in English acts as a gatekeeping method and yardstick against which many working class students are measured and subsequently beaten with. I remember an education in English literature used to be something deeply prized in Global Southern communities as a means of showing that they are "cultured" and "learned" (in Western culture) despite their backgrounds.
There's also just the fact that STEM subjects have become a strange proxy for rationalism and objective (or generally, "masculine" and "hegemonically dominant") thought, more so than the arts and the humanities, which are often perceived much more subjective. The way it is taught is that they are very "rules-based". We also see this in "follow the science", "show me the numbers", even though anyone who has ever worked in those fields know how contentious things can get. There's a lot of discussion on why STEM in particular has become this almost imposing figure, and how its (largely arbitrary) separation from other subjects are due to more complicated factors in the development of education in the modern world. Unfortunately, I can't speak too much on that.
On a personal note, I think math is great and an incredibly beautiful field of study. I don't really think people generally "hate" math. I think have a completely vaild negative reaction to the overwhelming harm that many powerful figures enact by utilising a little bit of math. Math just become the mascot for it.
That being said, we really don't need to use mathematical terms to describe evil things because all that does is make people more afraid of math, which is never good because becoming more proficient in math and science helps us navigate a world where people often lie to us by citing "math" and papers with poor methodology. I think, in the same way that humanities/arts people correctly think that STEM students could learn a little more about the humanities and arts, humanities and arts students could learn to be a little less scared of STEM, especially math
On a more niche note, I do see a recurring theme that some people genuinely believe that some people are "genetically less inclined" towards mathematics. e.g. someone asserting that college math separates the wheat (140IQ) from the chaff (130IQ) via a module on linear algebra. Besides the obvious questions regarding what would be the genetics involved in this and how you would even know someone's IQ without invoking confirmation bias, I think it does point to a generally deterministic view of ones self and this hierarchal belief that positions some people are ubermensch (or, I guess, people who understand linear algebra) and an underclass (or, people who don't). On the "progressive" side of things, I have seen people argue that people with ADHD shouldn't be held to the same standards as neurotypical people when it comes to math because of "neurological differences".
Others have already made incredibly articulate responses to this – an IQ of 130 and 140 aren't meaningfully different, IQ as an ordinal scale with no real 0 value is kind of a weird thing to base someone's worth on, it is incredibly difficult to properly administer an IQ for one person, let alone the whole college demographic, IQ is better as a benchmark for development, not aptitude in math. But I can speak from my own experience:
I always generally did well in math, but I wasn't born great. I was honestly just a strange kid who was drawn to numbers and used to spend hours looking at them and solving them. I was woefully average elsewhere. Sometimes I struggled with a concept, sometimes I understood it quickly. No matter what, if I kept at it, within a month, what was once "impossible" to me became trivial. LinAlg when I was a college sophomore was difficult but going home, reading Axler and doing my problem sets elucidated a lot of the concepts for me.
Completely average people understand complicated math. Completely average people also struggle through it. Geniuses like Terence Tao exist and most people in math heavy fields aren't even close to his talent. Completely average people have still managed to use their math skills to make a meaningful impact on others' lives. It's fine to not pursue math because you're more interested in something else. It's understandable to be discouraged. You aren't "biologically insufficient" for not understanding it and you aren't superior for understanding it. Math is a skill you can develop. Believe in yourself
Conflating "good at math" and "smart" and its consequences has been a disaster in literally every possible way
