Great post, but I would suggest avoiding cliche titles such as 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of X'.

It provides a lot less information about what the post contains than a more carefully crafted title would, for not much gain (maybe people are more likely to read TUEoX posts?).

Basically, I always feel a discomfort when people have 'TUEoX' as a title, and never provide a strong argument for why the effectiveness of X is actually unreasonable (i.e. beyond the limits of acceptability and fairness).

Sure, it's effective yes, and it certainly was unexpected, but is it fair to say it's unreasonable?

We know that students can’t move on to algebra until they have perfectly memorized their times tables.

That's how most people progress into algebra, but I don't think you need perfect memorization of the times tables, simply the ability to reproduce it.

As a fellow programmer, I think the epsilon fallacy is more memorable. If it were Amdahl's fallacy, it would be one of those fallacies I have to constantly lookup the fifty times or so (terrible memory, and not enough slack/motivation for a fallacy memory palace).

There would come a point where, if a large enough amount of people believe it, it would start affecting you. Would make it harder to find jobs, to find other people to discuss ideas with, to convice people of an argument that relies on statistical significance, etc. It would have a huge effect on economical progress if the majority of people started believing that math is of no use to anyone.

I initially read it in the same way you did, however I also think SquirrelInHell has a point. But I would say the place where he's going wrong is sometimes (possibly most of the time) people don't know what it is they're seeking from a conversation. A lot of people don't know themselves well enough, so having been promted with that question allows them to properly introspect, perhaps.. but I do agree that password based conversations are frustrating.

I'd like to know more about the argument for why tribalism should be indulged rather than surppressed. Anyone got any good links for the topic?