Talk:2 + 2 = 5

Severe vandalism

This page has been a regular target of severe vandalism for a long time. Check out the history page - it's full of reverts, many identified as vandalism. Did anyone other than me attempt to ask admins to protect this page? Why is no-one bothering? It needs permanent semi-protection! [PS: The whole anyone can edit thing sucks, enabling vandals on every page to hide behind dynamic IP addresses. You guys need to make the account system mandatory and with verification.] -- ADTC ^{Talk Ctrb .} 10:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Self-evident truth

The 'self-evident truth' section needs some serious rewriting. The sentences are far too fragmented, and the writing sometimes delves into psychology. It might be worth rewriting this article, or deleting it completely. HandyAndy1.36 (talk) 05:25, 24 March (UTC)

2+2=4 is not a definition

Albert Ellis' comment on Ayn Rand is itself wrong: 2+2=4 is not a definition. By definition, 4 is the successor of 3. "2+2=4" is not a definition but a statement which can be derived from the definition of the operation '+' and from the definitions of the numbers 2 and 4. We leave it to the reader to judge who made the most noble contribution to the subject.

(I didn't post the unsigned comment above. It was here when I got here. I didn't know it was even possible to post like this.) I'll post here rather than starting a new section regarding the "Popular Culture" section.

In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged,[14] the hero John Galt posits that "the noblest act you have ever performed is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four". Responding to Rand's claim, psychologist Albert Ellis wrote "Here Rand falsely notes that two and two make four and that you are noble for grasping this 'fact.' She fails to note that two and two, definitionally make four; and that her own mind, apparently, isn’t sufficiently noble to acknowledge this."[15]

I read this passage 3 times, then read the wiki article on Albert Ellis, then came back and read the (apparently) excerpt again, and I feel that it needs to be expanded so that it makes some kind of sense, or deleted as too non-sequiter. I understand the whole point is to give examples where "2 + 2 = 5" is used in popular culture, but this commentary is so stripped-down that it serves more as an obstacle to some kind of understanding than it does to facilitate it. I'm still not certain on what it means. Rand says that Galt says that grasping 2 + 2 = 4 is noble, but Ellis says that Rand failed to explicit state that 2 + 2 = 4, and because of this Rand's mind is "not noble"? (Reaction) "Uh... So what?" Rand doesn't re-state the obvious makes HER stupid? How about demanding that she does so makes Ellis stupid? Who is the stupid one here? Me? Ellis? Rand? Galt? Who is this John Galt person, anyways?Jonny Quick (talk) 01:29, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Shirt

"2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2." ~shirt — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.67.206.248 (talk) 01:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The above is what I had expected this article to be about. For those who don't understand, if all three figures (2, 2, and 5) are presumed to be exact, then it is indeed a fallacy. But if they are only approximations, then it is a true mathematical statement. For example, take "2.43 + 2.39 = 4.82", and round all three figures to the nearest integer, and you end up with "2+2=5". Why is this not in the article? Was it in a previous version and then deleted? --Keeves (talk) 20:08, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

== Zamyatin == 'Bold text What about Evgeny Zamyatin's "We" as a source? Who, of course, probably took it from Dostoevsky... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.173.64.152 (talk) 17:15, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Self-evident Truth, again

The self-evident truth title is missing from the page, it's in the table of contents and the code but doesn't show up on the actual page. I don't know how to fix this, would someone else be able to? Serafina360 (talk) 19:21, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for noting this, the problem was quickly solved after putting the question at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 132#Hidden heading. Bever (talk) 09:11, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Compromise Theory

Simply create a new language identical to English except for two differences:

4 is pronounced "/faɪv/" (as current English's "five") and is written as "five"

5 is pronounced "/fɔːr/" (as current English's "four") and is written as "four"