On Tue, 19 Mar 2024 13:09:57 -0400
Steve Litt <slitt@???> wrote:

> I'm re-learning pre-calculus online, and an advertisement came on
> saying something like:
>
> "Still searching Youtube for math help and finding nothing except
> videos from 2006?

A lot of technical people like yourself have a valid conservative view
on abandoning the old, preferring cautious and iterative improvements on
what is well-proved. However, it's also valid to believe the
opposite: That things can be incautiously improved upon.

Aged mathematics YouTube videos is an honest concern, and it has
nothing to do with mathematics itself. Video production has moved on
since 2006. Contemporary resolution and technique are far superior.
Sure you can get classic explanations with great presentation which
stand the test of time, as with good lectures with blackboards, but
it's possible to improve on and even obsolete the old.

To say it in reverse:

Yes you can learn math from 1800s handwritten ink on paper in cursive,
but at some point you have to allow for improvement somewhere. It's
still also true that technology and innovation can be a crutch or form
of premature/unnecessary "optimization".

That particular ad was speaking to a whole generation of people who
view "the now" as disposable and you correctly sense a problem with
that. I think the advertisers are just tapping into that market, and
you have good defenses against that manipulation.