“Every nth” is so confusing. After OPs explanation I understand that this is an infinite geometric series joke
Edit: this has way more upvotes than I expected, hopefully the comment that explained the joke to me has more
Probably more to do with the fact that most people feel more comfortable going to the bathroom with those of the same sex because you feel less "watched", it's a natural instinct.
You’d be surprised how many of those “natural instincts” are actually socially trained into you. Natural instinct could be the answer, but its by no means evidence for an explanation.
The summation is just how quantities work, right?
If you have 2\^(1-1) nickles for the first gender, 2\^(1-2) nickles for the second, etc. then of course in total you're gonna have the sum of those numbers.
I read it more like the number of nickels (N) as a function of the number of genders (n)
N(n)=2^(1-n)
Tho, I suppose if you wanted the total number of nickels over all possible genders, it would be a summation... Either way, my interpretation was more of "solve N(n)=2^(1-n) when N=2"
It's certainly not the clearest comment of all time. Upon thinking about it, your interpretation makes sense to me too, honestly. I guess ultimately the summation is implied to me because I implicitly read the phrase "If I had X for every Y" as "If I had a distinct X for every Y". Because that's of course how people really use it usually.
I was further convinced of my function idea because if it as a sum, it would only be 2 for n=0. Even if we sum from n=0 to infinity, the sum is not 2. The limit of N as n goes to infinity is zero, but the seriesis not necessarily convergent.
The fact that n is supposed to start at 1 instead of 0 actually also threw me off initially! Glad I'm not the only one. But yeah, it's just a geometric series, pretty easy to see whether those are convergent, no?
There’s a simple formula for the sum of a geometric series…… and the index of n should start at 1 because you wouldn’t count 0 genders.
If n starts at 1 then the sum converges to exactly 2 as n approaches infinity.
If you started the index of n at 0 then you would just add 2 (the value of the n=0 term) to that sum. So it would be 4 in that case.
The math in the post is fine, although the language is a little ambiguous.
"For every nth gender" means they have 2^1-1 for the 1st gender, 2^1-2 for the 2nd gender, 2^1-3 for the 3rd gender... 2^1-n for the nth gender.
The only way you get 2 is if n is infinity.
So basically this is a geometric series. infinite series of 2^(1-n). Simplify the whole thing to (1/2)^(n-1). Sum of an inf geo series of a*(r)^(n-1) is a/(1-r) so:
a = 1; r = 1/2
1/(1-(1/2)) = 2
Are there an uncountable number of genders or a countable number of genders?
I’m gonna say uncountable. HorseChips’ conjecture!
Edit: I mean countably infinite and uncountably infinite.
Every human consists of a bounded finite amount of atoms and all of these atoms can be placed in rational points without changing or breaking the human. So there is only a finite number of possible humans.
Nope, because the atoms can be recycled, so over time, especially with multiple cycles of the universe, there will be an infinite number of humans.
Unless you believe in the expanding cold death of the universe theory and not the cyclical bang.
But then we can just count other universes.
So the same human can correspond to multiple different arrangements of atoms? That doesn't mean that the set of potential humans is bigger that the set of human sized atom arrangements in rational points. Quite the contrary actually.
To have a point, you would have to show that the same set of atoms can correspond to multiple different humans.
Oh sorry, I was tired and misread your comment. Usually I've seen gender used in such a meaning that one can only have one of those.
Are you saying that one can have infinitely many genders? That's the only way of getting into a higher cardinality of genders than the set of potential humans.
Honestly i don’t know— i don’t even know if someone can be more than one gender, and yeah i guess that’s true that one person would have to be able to have infinite genders to make the difference i was talking about
Still really curious about the solipsism thing, because my beliefs ARE largely solipsistic i was like… how does that… how did you know that? 😦
The class of genders has no size as it is to big to be a set.
We may model the class of genders G as the product set
G = I × A,
where I is the set of all possible self-identifications and A is the set of all possible states of attraction.
We may choose I arbitrary, as long as it is non-empty. A however is interesting. A contains every possible way a person can be sexual attracted to people. This set can of course be quite complex, but we may make some simplifications only reducing its elements as to not taint the conclusion.
We start with the simplification, that the only thing that matters for sexual attraction is the gender of the potential romantic partner. We also assume that attraction is binary: Either one is or is not attracted. We now see that for every subset g of G, the state being sexually attracted to all genders in g, but to non in the compliment of g is a valid state of attraction. Or phrased differently A has at least the size of the power set of G. But since G = I×A, G has at least the size of its own powerset.
But for sets the power set always has strictly bigger cardinality than the set itself. Hence, G cannot be a set, but has to be a proper class.
Or: There are two many genders for the class of genders to be even considered a set.
QED.
But that can't be true. There's a finite number of particles that could be arranged, and a finite amount of time and energy, meaning a finite distinct number of possible humans, and thus a finite number of permutations of traits to describe a given human, including gender.
And since you can only own a finite non-negative number of nickels, that means you have 1 nickel, not 2.999...998 nickels (Or 2 - 2^-tree(3) ).
> But that can't be true. There's a finite number of particles that could be arranged, and a finite amount of time and energy, meaning a finite distinct number of possible humans, and thus a finite number of permutations of traits to describe a given human, including gender.
That assume a decriptive trait only exists if there is a human described by it. But I would not limit ourselfs to that. We are mathematicians after all. Surely 12-eyed, 467 years old and born on mars are all sensible traits, despite the fact that there is no human meeting them.
ah but you see the number of particles in a nickel is a much lower number. sure you can have half a nickle by cutting it in half, but after a certain point you can't have smaller fractions, so the particle count rounds to the nearest particle, which would be 2 nickles
>meaning a finite distinct number of possible humans
maybe biologically, but gender is a social construct. physics doesnt say anything about social stuff, thats abstract and can change independently from the laws of physics
you dont only describe a human based on their physical characteristics
Internet on their way to create hot dumpster fire of garbage by writing a shitty poor syntax equation that is ambiguous in terms of orders of operations
Their phrasing is confusing, but I believe they're referring to the sum of all values of this expression over the natural numbers, from 1 to infinity, which is also equal to 2.
He’s saying there’s either 0 genders or that he’d have half a nickel.
At least get your math right if you wanna spout stupid fucking nonsense. You wanna talk about science and facts but your math is wrong? My brother in Christ that’s the only objective truth there is
its not a poorly formatted joke
its a math joke
a lot of people already do the "if i had a nickel for each..." its just that this one is a bit harder to understand
It is poorly formatted. It’s not at all clear that “the summation of 2^1-n from n=1 to infinity” is what is implied the way the comment is written. It can just as easily be understood as N(n)=2^1-n , N(0)=2
Then there are 0 genders which is also a real argument against common binary assumptions. Abolish gender norms by abolishing gender.
Either way its a good subversive joke.
So in other words it doesn't matter how wrong it is, it doesn't even need to make sense to you, as long as it says something other than "2 genders" you're going to upvote it?
No, it's right in either context and both answers work.
The summation is intended, otherwise you wouldn't say nth. Nth in context points to this being a summation, and you don't need to say 'til infinity' because that's what you are solving for.
But for people worse at math, 0 still works (but it would have just said n).
And for people terrible at math, they get mad because the joke says 2.
Wait...shouldn't it be "if I had the sum from 1 to infinity of 2^1-n nickels for n genders, I'd have 2 nickels?" Because the sum =2, but 2^1-n doesn't equal 2 unless n=0...please correct me if I'm misunderstanding lol
Edit: corrected the exponent and what n=, but my point stays the same.
Based gender abolishionist inplying that there are 0 or infinite genders
ikr, it's quite a nice comment
No, if there where 0 genders he would have 0 nickels because it would be a sum with 0 terms
“Every nth” is so confusing. After OPs explanation I understand that this is an infinite geometric series joke Edit: this has way more upvotes than I expected, hopefully the comment that explained the joke to me has more
Caution I'm about to reply that comment with: *I don't want to sound pedantic but can you make it more rigorous?*
I wanna tear my ears and eyes out everytime I hear someone say that
Yeah, it's a pretty lame joke when you understand it.
>a pretty lame joke when you understand it. Why you gotta call out my social life like dat ^(/s)
I don't get it. Does this mean there are 0 genders?
No it means 2^(1-1)+2^(1-2)+2^(1-3)+...+2^(1-g) = 2 (g is the number of genders) So it means that there are infinite genders
Ah OK thanks
Or. Or. Or its 0, because genders were invented in the 1930's by bathroom companies to sell twice as many bathrooms.
It's only a matter of time before they invent another gender to increase their profits.
Hold up
> genders were invented in the 1930's by bathroom companies to sell twice as many bathrooms I'm stealing this.
I'm pretty sure that was actually why gendered bathrooms exist in public
Probably more to do with the fact that most people feel more comfortable going to the bathroom with those of the same sex because you feel less "watched", it's a natural instinct.
You’d be surprised how many of those “natural instincts” are actually socially trained into you. Natural instinct could be the answer, but its by no means evidence for an explanation.
Oh for sure, I was using a language shortcut, which I know is a dangerous thing in online discourse lol
There was no summation i the original
The summation is just how quantities work, right? If you have 2\^(1-1) nickles for the first gender, 2\^(1-2) nickles for the second, etc. then of course in total you're gonna have the sum of those numbers.
I read it more like the number of nickels (N) as a function of the number of genders (n) N(n)=2^(1-n) Tho, I suppose if you wanted the total number of nickels over all possible genders, it would be a summation... Either way, my interpretation was more of "solve N(n)=2^(1-n) when N=2"
It's certainly not the clearest comment of all time. Upon thinking about it, your interpretation makes sense to me too, honestly. I guess ultimately the summation is implied to me because I implicitly read the phrase "If I had X for every Y" as "If I had a distinct X for every Y". Because that's of course how people really use it usually.
I was further convinced of my function idea because if it as a sum, it would only be 2 for n=0. Even if we sum from n=0 to infinity, the sum is not 2. The limit of N as n goes to infinity is zero, but the seriesis not necessarily convergent.
The fact that n is supposed to start at 1 instead of 0 actually also threw me off initially! Glad I'm not the only one. But yeah, it's just a geometric series, pretty easy to see whether those are convergent, no?
Glad we're in agreement. Bad math in the post lol I believe it's a convergent geometric with a sum just over 3. I did not crunch the numbers past n=2.
There’s a simple formula for the sum of a geometric series…… and the index of n should start at 1 because you wouldn’t count 0 genders. If n starts at 1 then the sum converges to exactly 2 as n approaches infinity. If you started the index of n at 0 then you would just add 2 (the value of the n=0 term) to that sum. So it would be 4 in that case. The math in the post is fine, although the language is a little ambiguous.
Same, I was confused until I went to comments because I thought they meant there was -2 genders
Now that would be a take I'd like to see the internet's reaction to.
There is, they said that they get a 2^(1-n) nickels for every gender
So you have representing n multiple values here? "For every nth gender" sounds like for every n genders, there are 2\^(1-n) nickels.
"For every nth gender" means they have 2^1-1 for the 1st gender, 2^1-2 for the 2nd gender, 2^1-3 for the 3rd gender... 2^1-n for the nth gender. The only way you get 2 is if n is infinity.
So basically this is a geometric series. infinite series of 2^(1-n). Simplify the whole thing to (1/2)^(n-1). Sum of an inf geo series of a*(r)^(n-1) is a/(1-r) so: a = 1; r = 1/2 1/(1-(1/2)) = 2
Of course nobody outside of this sub is going to get the joke
Which is why it's downvoted, other users assumed it's saying there are 2.
I don't think so. The difficulty of the math used in this sub is a joke compared to the math in the physicsmemes sub
what if all the people that downvoted are the people that skip to the ends of books to see whether its worth reading
Are there an uncountable number of genders or a countable number of genders? I’m gonna say uncountable. HorseChips’ conjecture! Edit: I mean countably infinite and uncountably infinite.
So there are more genders than possible human beings?
How many possible human beings are there? Can both sets be uncountably infinite?
Every human consists of a bounded finite amount of atoms and all of these atoms can be placed in rational points without changing or breaking the human. So there is only a finite number of possible humans.
Nope, because the atoms can be recycled, so over time, especially with multiple cycles of the universe, there will be an infinite number of humans. Unless you believe in the expanding cold death of the universe theory and not the cyclical bang. But then we can just count other universes.
Multiple sets of atoms do correspond to the same human, but that only makes the number of potential people smaller.
But over time that human will die and the atoms will rearrange to form more humans.
But not in any of the patterns that they were in the now dead human.
Well when we talk about possible humans as originally stated then it doesn't matter if they are alive or dead.
Correct and so what?
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So the same human can correspond to multiple different arrangements of atoms? That doesn't mean that the set of potential humans is bigger that the set of human sized atom arrangements in rational points. Quite the contrary actually. To have a point, you would have to show that the same set of atoms can correspond to multiple different humans.
Are you saying a human can only have one gender?
What makes you think I'm saying that? Are you a hard solipsist or something?
If not then what relevance to number of gender would number of possible humans have?
Oh sorry, I was tired and misread your comment. Usually I've seen gender used in such a meaning that one can only have one of those. Are you saying that one can have infinitely many genders? That's the only way of getting into a higher cardinality of genders than the set of potential humans.
Honestly i don’t know— i don’t even know if someone can be more than one gender, and yeah i guess that’s true that one person would have to be able to have infinite genders to make the difference i was talking about Still really curious about the solipsism thing, because my beliefs ARE largely solipsistic i was like… how does that… how did you know that? 😦
I mean if I'm a product of your imagination, it makes sense I would "know" things like that.
And what does that have to do with solipsism?
The class of genders has no size as it is to big to be a set. We may model the class of genders G as the product set G = I × A, where I is the set of all possible self-identifications and A is the set of all possible states of attraction. We may choose I arbitrary, as long as it is non-empty. A however is interesting. A contains every possible way a person can be sexual attracted to people. This set can of course be quite complex, but we may make some simplifications only reducing its elements as to not taint the conclusion. We start with the simplification, that the only thing that matters for sexual attraction is the gender of the potential romantic partner. We also assume that attraction is binary: Either one is or is not attracted. We now see that for every subset g of G, the state being sexually attracted to all genders in g, but to non in the compliment of g is a valid state of attraction. Or phrased differently A has at least the size of the power set of G. But since G = I×A, G has at least the size of its own powerset. But for sets the power set always has strictly bigger cardinality than the set itself. Hence, G cannot be a set, but has to be a proper class. Or: There are two many genders for the class of genders to be even considered a set. QED.
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of set theory?
Uncountably infinite
But that can't be true. There's a finite number of particles that could be arranged, and a finite amount of time and energy, meaning a finite distinct number of possible humans, and thus a finite number of permutations of traits to describe a given human, including gender. And since you can only own a finite non-negative number of nickels, that means you have 1 nickel, not 2.999...998 nickels (Or 2 - 2^-tree(3) ).
That assumes that each configuration of particles can only have 1 gender, I'm sure superposition and shit would negate that in some way
>superposition and shit would negate Ah yes, the 2 archenemies of the universe
That depends on your definition of the word 'gender' of course.
> But that can't be true. There's a finite number of particles that could be arranged, and a finite amount of time and energy, meaning a finite distinct number of possible humans, and thus a finite number of permutations of traits to describe a given human, including gender. That assume a decriptive trait only exists if there is a human described by it. But I would not limit ourselfs to that. We are mathematicians after all. Surely 12-eyed, 467 years old and born on mars are all sensible traits, despite the fact that there is no human meeting them.
ah but you see the number of particles in a nickel is a much lower number. sure you can have half a nickle by cutting it in half, but after a certain point you can't have smaller fractions, so the particle count rounds to the nearest particle, which would be 2 nickles
If I ended up with two nickels, then I’d give you the original one so you’d have your Nickelback.
>meaning a finite distinct number of possible humans maybe biologically, but gender is a social construct. physics doesnt say anything about social stuff, thats abstract and can change independently from the laws of physics you dont only describe a human based on their physical characteristics
[this](https://www.reddit.com/r/onejoke/comments/vwpn07/the_two_genders_are_mayonnaise_and_ketchup/ifra0at) is the original comment
they had to do it to them
Average day on reddit. All the redditors doubling down even when it’s explained to them.
Redditors on their way to call others dumbfucks and downvote while not being able to grasp even the order of operations
Internet on their way to create hot dumpster fire of garbage by writing a shitty poor syntax equation that is ambiguous in terms of orders of operations
Yea that too. Somehow both are true simultaneously
I didn't see doubling down in the replies.
So sad. If he was talking binary he would have said he had 10 nickels.
She has no gender
You can't blame people that constantly have their identities invalidated to jump to conclusions at this.
Is the set of genders countably infinite?
I don't think so, but at least they didn't say that it's 2.
Mmmmm I love 1/2 nickels
Means n = 0, so there is no such thing as genders.
Their phrasing is confusing, but I believe they're referring to the sum of all values of this expression over the natural numbers, from 1 to infinity, which is also equal to 2.
It's funny how we interpret the same thing in different ways, either there are infinite genders or there are no genders. Both seem right.
These just so happen to be the two most extreme sides of modern theory about gender too lol
It could be understood as both. And both are based
Unfortunately, this reads to much like “if I had a nickel for every gender I’d have two”
He’s saying there’s either 0 genders or that he’d have half a nickel. At least get your math right if you wanna spout stupid fucking nonsense. You wanna talk about science and facts but your math is wrong? My brother in Christ that’s the only objective truth there is
well, you would actualy have one nickel, as there is only one gender and its MINE YALL CANT HAVE IT
Nonbinary math nerd go brrrrrrr
Is this man really saying there are 0 genders? Because if n=2, then it should be -2, right?
And you upvoted it?
The meme is saying that there are infinite genders. As n approaches infinity, the sum of 2^(1-n) approaches 2.
Aw damn now I look cringe. The wording confused me.
It's a shittily written comment, it confused me too.
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the joke is that there’s an infinite number of genders so it’s subversive at least
I calculated and only got 0.025 dollars 😔
So you made a poorly formatted joke, explained that the punchline is that there are infinite genders… and that is supposed to make me *upvote* it?
Op is not oop
its not a poorly formatted joke its a math joke a lot of people already do the "if i had a nickel for each..." its just that this one is a bit harder to understand
It is poorly formatted. It’s not at all clear that “the summation of 2^1-n from n=1 to infinity” is what is implied the way the comment is written. It can just as easily be understood as N(n)=2^1-n , N(0)=2
Then there are 0 genders which is also a real argument against common binary assumptions. Abolish gender norms by abolishing gender. Either way its a good subversive joke.
So in other words it doesn't matter how wrong it is, it doesn't even need to make sense to you, as long as it says something other than "2 genders" you're going to upvote it?
sometimes humor just doesn't click and it's not anyone's fault. don't sweat it
No, it's right in either context and both answers work. The summation is intended, otherwise you wouldn't say nth. Nth in context points to this being a summation, and you don't need to say 'til infinity' because that's what you are solving for. But for people worse at math, 0 still works (but it would have just said n). And for people terrible at math, they get mad because the joke says 2.
i see what you mean, but i guess they just didnt want to ruin the normal formatting
what?
Wait...shouldn't it be "if I had the sum from 1 to infinity of 2^1-n nickels for n genders, I'd have 2 nickels?" Because the sum =2, but 2^1-n doesn't equal 2 unless n=0...please correct me if I'm misunderstanding lol Edit: corrected the exponent and what n=, but my point stays the same.
it's 2^(1-n) not 2^(n-1)
Fixed it but that doesn't change my logic lol
You get 2^(1-n) for every n-th gender so it's 2^(1-1)+2^(1-2)+2^(1-3)+...+2^(1+number of genders) = 2
Ahhhh ok...it is very confusingly worded, but I get it now lol thanks!
Is he implying theres 0 genders wtf
I'm gonna go with the classic, I dunno at least 3
Its like saying if i had x nickels for every xth gender i'd have 2 nickels, fucking pointless
2 what? 2 bananas?
should have 2.5 cents smh
bold of you to assume there are only countably many