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Why look for ambiguity that isn't there?



There's a certain mind that either doesn't realize they're sidestepping the problem and turning it into a editing review, or realizes it, and doesn't understand why it seems off-topic/trivial to others.

What's especially strange here is, they repeatedly demonstrate if you interpret it that way, the problem is obviously, trivially, unsolvable, in a way that a beginner in algebra could intuit. (roughly 12 years old, at least, we started touching algebra in 7th grade)

I really don't get it.

When I've seen this sort of thing play out this way, the talking-down is usually for the benefit of demonstrating something to an observer (i.e. I am smart look at this thing I figured out; I can hold my own when the haters chirp; look they say $INTERLOCUTOR is a thinker but they can't even understand me!), but ~0 of that would apply here, at least traditionally.


One often doesn't look for ambiguity. It is there. It is fine.




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