I'm reading "6-Year-Old Girl in China Sets a Rubik’s Cube Record
Lian Yunzhi of China solved a Rubik’s Cube five times in an average of 4.27 seconds, setting a women’s world record" (NYT).
And I'm not thinking oh, isn't she cute? like most of the commenters over there. I'm thinking: 1. Child abuse, and 2. A separate "women's" division is bullshit.
The "men's" record — i.e., the record — is 3.51 seconds, almost 20% less.
These kids who train for hours a day in Rubik’s Cube solving — what are they really being trained for? It made me think of this viral video:
@chinaminutes 😭A third-grade student in Tianjin, China, had a full-on existential crisis while doing his homework after thinking a little too far ahead about his future Through tears, the boy worried that when he grows up, he’ll simply become a “wage slave” working for the rich. His mother tried to reassure him that studying hard could lead to a good job — but he wasn’t convinced, telling her that was just “imagination,” not reality. The moment quickly went viral on Chinese social media, with netizens joking that he had become “enlightened too early” and was already thinking like someone decades older. 💭Is he too woke for his age, or does he just understand the future a little too clearly?👇🏼 #funnykids #relatablevideos #schoollife #existentialcrisis #growingup ♬ original sound - China Minutes
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16 comments:
I recently saw a model of the cube with detachable and re-attachable color squares. It made the puzzle a lot easier to solve.
Solving the puzzle itself was always the least interesting thing about the Rubik's Cube.
Eye-hand coordination, predictive skills, and manual dexterity.
A separate women's division is bullshit? Isn't there well documented research that males are on average better at spatial awareness?
I say this as a guy who is a little below the male mean in this area. Unless I concentrate, do things deliberately, and find ways to 'cheat' by using other skills such as memorization, my navigation, body mechanics, and general coordination suffer.
Also think of the stereotype that men hate asking for directions.
A women's division for a spatial awareness contest makes as much sense as a women's division for contact sports. CC, JSM
Wow...the kid in that video is a future Arthur Miller or Joseph Heller. At the very least he's stumbled onto the realization of so many 25 year old American baristas. This damned degree didn't protect me from work.
I wonder in which cube division the Chinese place the trans kids?
This was culturally interesting in the early 80s when I was 13. The local mall had a contest and I made it though the first round with 43 seconds. My cube exploded in the second round (they weren’t made for speed back then)
Humans have the extraordinary ability to turn everything fun to unfun. That includes games, leisure, sex, children, and life.
Men are faster, stronger and smarter.
Men, what would we do without them.
We wouldn't have women without men... and vice versa.
"The "men's" record — i.e., the record — is 3.51 seconds"
I don't understand how that's possible.
Tell junior that an education will give him lots of things to think about and lots of places to go in his imagination while he toils for the man. That may not be much, but it's not nothing.
If it makes them as happy as that little girl we should abuse more children.
Physiological differences. But, why recognize men and women categorically? Why not bloc rights in weight divisions or similar?
"This is why I'll stay child-free. No need for my beautiful non-existent kids to suffer."
If you actually believe that if you had a child that they would spend more time suffering than being happy, it's probably a good thing that you don't want to be a parent.
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