Equestria Outlaws Equals Sign · 7:38pm Apr 7th, 2015
Hated symbol of forced collectivization must not be displayed in public
“This is ludicrous!” says Twilight Sparkle
The Council of Equestrian Regions yesterday voted to ban the display of the equality sign in all public spaces. This follows the defeat of the dark mage Starlight Glimmer who used it as an emblem of her oppressive cult.
This is in spite of strong opposition from Princess Twilight Sparkle who yesterday attacked the proposal. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “Equality has been a fundamental part of Equestrian society since the foundation of our nation. Starlight Glimmer was wrong in equating equality with being the same, when it is our very diversity which defines our equal worth as every pony can excel at her own special talent. This symbol does not represent how Starlight Glimmer used it. And anyway, we can’t do math without it.”
However the Council disagreed. A spokespony said, “This sign has come to represent so much hardship and oppression to the ponies who suffered under Starlight Glimmer. It is not fair to make them relive this horror every time they see it. It is firmly related to an authoritarian system, and its glorification should be prohibited.”
The authorities sent teams of officials into all schools, with bottles of correcting fluid, to erase the double horizontal lines from all text books. Ponyville schoolteacher Cheerilee says this means math classes will have to change. “The children can still add, subtract, multiply and divide,” she said. “But we will not be able to check if they get it right. But maybe this is not such a big deal. We should not be too fixated on accuracy when it is the method that counts and students still learn a lot even if they get it wrong.”
But some professionals are more concerned. Concrete Structure, the civil engineer in charge of rebuilding the stone bridge destroyed by Starlight Glimmer, said, “We’re in a bit of a fix, as we can’t now calculate the length of the struts and make sure the design will take the weight of all ponies.” The council pointed out that the temporary balloon bridge deployed by Party Favors should last long enough to let mathematicians reformulate the rules of geometry. As an example of how this will be done, Canterlot mathematician Prime Number suggested a right angled triangle could now be described by, “The square of the hypotenuse is greater than the sum of the squares of the other two sides minus an arbitrarily small constant, and less than that sum plus an arbitrarily small constant.”
Equestria’s computer scientists have explained that it will be necessary to develop new programming languages. Programmer Cubic Interpolation said, “We are working on new algorithms to compare the values of two parameters, but as the equals symbol is also used to assign a value to a parameter, at the moment we can’t set the input values for any programs.”
The security forces are still searching for Starlight Glimmer, believed to be hiding in mountain caves in the lawless North West Frontier. It is feared that she still represents a danger to Equestria and could be developing even more deadly weapons of math instruction.
Hmm.. Maybe !<> ?
Yeaaaah, I think this one calls for a triple-decker Royal Decree. Possibly shouted from on high in the Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice, with threats of conscription in the Equestrian space program. Somepony has to be the voice of sanity, it's clear that that voice needs to speak slowly, clearly, and with very small words. Preferably "No."
I approve of this pun.
I would suggest to Cubic Interpolation that they use ← (or its ASCII equivalent <-) to assign values. (Some programming languages already do this, or something similar.)
Why do I have a certain feeling that something like this might actually happen in America or Europe?
Hell, something like that (if on a smaller scale) did happen here in Germany, not all that long ago. If you read some international news, you probably heard about the "Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund", a Neo-Nazi Terror group that had been committing a number of murders throughout Germany over several years that the police didn't even connect to political extremism.
Since "Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund" is pretty long, newspapers were quite quick to call the NSU for abbreviation. NSU is also the name of a car company that doesn't exist anymore but produced cars and motorcycles quite popular with fans of old vehicles.
After they heard some people seriously suggested that the car company should be renamed or only be called by "Neckersulm", the city name their abbreviation comes from.
People with fan merchandise also sometimes had to deal with being thrown out of restaurants or even attacked before able to explain.
People can be very overeager with stuff like that.
I died.
2957545
See? They're quite deadly, indeed.
EQUALIST TERRORISM IN COUNCIL OFFICE
Sleeper Agents Discovered At High Levels
Only two days after banning the equals sign, a member of the Council of Equestrian Regions was attacked by another government official, setting off a fresh wave of fears of an authoritarian conspiracy reaching up to the very highest levels of Canterlot.
Transportation Minister Road Rules — who is now being held in custody on suspicion of aggravated assault and terrorist threats — allegedly stormed into the Council chambers after hearing that they were discussing a ban on crosswalks due to their use of the ideologically problematic parallel lines.
"He galloped into the room, grabbed Good Intentions by the neck, and started strangling her, screaming 'Are you bucking insane,'" said eyewitness Perpetual Bystander …
Oh my god, this is hilarious.
And subtly terrifying.
That must make teaching math classes a bit confusing ...
You created this just for the pun, didn't you?
I approve this message.
Sigh. So true. Insist on maintaining the original content of the symbol? No. Much easier to efface the symbol.
It is our different wages that measure our different worth to other ponies as every pony enters into patterns of production and exchange based on their diverse comparative advantages.
...It is less snappy and "group-huggy," I admit.
Prime Number, by the way, has clearly dealt with bureaucracies before.
All these complicated workarounds when all you really need is \neg \neq...
Oh, you
They could just switch to vertical math.
2
+3
_____
5