I feel like I am getting trolled
Isn't 17 the actual right answer?
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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Exactly
So it's just an unfunny meme?
I think it's meant to play with your expectations. Normally someone's take being posted is to show them being confidently stupid, otherwise it isn't as interesting and doesn't go viral.However, because we're primed to view it from that lens, we feel crazy to think we're doing the math correctly and getting the "wrong answer" from what we assume is the "confident dipshit".
There's layers beyond the superficial.
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Some people insist there's no "correct" order for the basic arithmetic operations. And worse, some people insist the correct order is parenthesis first, then left to right.
Both of those sets of people are wrong.
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Let's not do engagement bait here 😭
I don't know how we've managed to get to 2025 and there's still apparently people who haven't seen a thousand shit PEMDAS posts already
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Pemdas, parenthesis first, for a total of 3. Then multiplication, 15, then addition. 17. What's hard about this?
you go the other direction below the equator
Legit gave me pause for like half a second. Damnit lol
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Any PEMDAS enjoyers in chat?
I assume p is for "parentheses", because where I grew up it was BEDMAS, for brackets.
I was taught BEDMAS as well in school (Ontario, Canada)
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I'm sorry but isn't this elementary school math?
It became a meme a few years ago, people would post problems like this and argue about whose was right, as if there were no objective truth. It hurt to watch.
Arguably, there is no objective truth, since the symbols and rules of mathematics are assigned arbitrarily, and are basically a social contract, just like language!
...Wait, that means there's no objective meaning of "objective", crap
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Precedences are just made up social constructs, don't let the system restrict you, you can evaluate this expression however you want. Go wild.
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Presuming PEMDAS is our order of operations and the 5 next to the parentheses indicates multiplication...
2+5(8-5) -> 2+5(3) -> 2+15=17
Other than adding a multiplication indicator next to the left parentheses for clarification (I believe it's * for programming and text chat purposes, a miniature "x" or dot for pen and paper/traditional calculators), this seems fine, yeah.
...I worry about how many people may not understand how to solve equations like these.
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I got some people really angry at me when I suggested writing some math expression with parenthesis so it would be clearer. I think someone told me that order of operations is like a natural law and not a convention, and thus everyone should know it or be able to figure it out.
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(* (+ 2 5) (- 8 5))
Hope some LISP can clear this up
Edit:
( + 2 ( * 5 ( - 8 5 ) ) )
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My education system didn't fail me, I failed it.
Something funny about everyone being so eager to show how they can solve this
2+5(8-5)
For anyone wanting to see a different way of solving it with distribution:
2+58-55 2+40-25 42-25 17
So long as you follow the basic math rules, you can solve it in many different ways to get the same result.
Worth a reminder that *'s get converted to italics. At first I saw the 2+58-55 and was very concerned for your education.
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