Mathematics isn't about "winning competitions".
Mathematics is humanity's current best approximation to a universal language, capable of expressing conscious thought precisely.
It's a "programming language for the human brain" that lets you describe reality exactly and thereby make predictions about it.
Without people (humans) knowing and understanding it, society is incapable of grasping reality in any meaningful way, unable to shape it in order to achieve a better tomorrow.
Most never realize that, because society is compartmentalized to the point of people never witnessing how it actually works under the hood. "Experts" do things for you that you never heard of, but that your very life depends upon.
While the majority of people thus lives a kind of "simulated" reality, the mechanisms underpinning that cushioned fantasy land aren't infallible. You cannot uphold an economy nor even a social structure without understanding and modeling it to a sufficient degree.
What the vast majority employs as "rational thought" isn't sufficient.
Mathematics is humanity's current best approximation to a universal language, capable of expressing conscious thought precisely.
It's a "programming language for the human brain" that lets you describe reality exactly and thereby make predictions about it.
Without people (humans) knowing and understanding it, society is incapable of grasping reality in any meaningful way, unable to shape it in order to achieve a better tomorrow.
Most never realize that, because society is compartmentalized to the point of people never witnessing how it actually works under the hood. "Experts" do things for you that you never heard of, but that your very life depends upon.
While the majority of people thus lives a kind of "simulated" reality, the mechanisms underpinning that cushioned fantasy land aren't infallible. You cannot uphold an economy nor even a social structure without understanding and modeling it to a sufficient degree.
What the vast majority employs as "rational thought" isn't sufficient.