Why do we have subtraction when we can just add a negative number?
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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Isn't that exactly how computers work?
So you'd have states like North Dakota and Negative North Dakota?
The Negative shall rise again!
Why do we have down when we can just use negative up?
I think the idea of directions came before the idea of negative.
Walking backward is just walking negatively forward by another name
Just guessing here, but I would think it's for for clarity and brevity. West and South are shorter to say and distinct enough to avoid being easily misheard causing somebody to go in the opposite direction than intended.
Why do we have 2 separate words for good and bad? Good and ungood are totally sufficient.
Spin it further and get rid of "great" and "outstanding". I suggest using plus good and double plus good.
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That's actually how it works in Irish. The word for good is deas, while the word for bad is deas prefixed with the negating particle mí, so mídheas.
(There are still separate words for tge cardinal directions).
Is it? I tried checking in a dictionary but it didn't list mídheas as a word and "deas" was defined as right/nice/honest, not just "good"
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Left and Minusleft
Exactly, we don't need to be right at all.
Clockwise and anticounterclockwise
Double plus ungood
I dunno. That seems double plus ungood to me.
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Why do we have 26 letters? Why not just communicate in binary!
01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100001 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100001 01101100 00100001
On the other hand, 8000+ characters seems kinda fun...
握草泥马币
hint
The joke is "wo cao ni ma bi", change the tones and you got 我操你妈逼 🤭
oh you salty dog you
...(🤷♂️)
55 73 65 20 68 65 78 20 66 6f 72 20 74 65 72 73 65 6e 65 73 73 20 62 72 75 68 0a 0a 41 6c 73 6f 20 74 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 73 74 69 6c 6c 20 61 73 73 75 6d 69 6e 67 20 55 54 46 2d 38 20 6f 72 20 61 74 20 6c 65 61 73 74 20 41 53 43 49 49 2c 20 73 6f 20 77 74 68 20 6c 6d 61 6f
Why stop at two, when you could stop at just one?
North
Negative North = south
Negative 90 North = west
90 North =east
Better idea! What if we use 0 for North and then divide the circle around by exactly 360 points? That way we don't need NSEW, we have 0, 90, 180, 270!
Ah... I love airplanes... To be clear, the issue with this is that magnetic 0 is not the same as true 0. There's a slight offset that can cause issues. So why not have like... True 0 and magnetic 0. T0 and m0?
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We could use one, and assume we’re operating in the field of complex numbers:
1 N = North
i N = West
i^2^ N = South
i^3^ N = East.
And we could use the complex modulus to indicate distance or speed... or we could map the Riemann sphere onto the surface of the earth and use a single complex number to indicate location.
Now you're talking!
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Why stop at one when you could stop at just zero and not use a compass?
This reply was brought to you by The Lost MC.
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Negative north negative east airlines doesn't have a good ring to it though.
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And I say we don't have enough names, we should have names for at least 30° and 45° increments.
We do, they’re just combinations of the 90 degree ones.
Southwest. North-Northeast.
Yeah, there are 32 named points on a compass, one every 11.25 degrees, you can even fractionalize it to get even more granular
Southwest by west half west for example is 242 degrees
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How would that be any easier?
"negative Eastern countries" has a nice ring to it.
What goes up, must come negative-Up
One step forward and two steps un-forward.
I would not be surprised compasses were invented before negative numbers
edit
negative numbers : 200 BCE
compasses : as early as 202 BCE
(these are just from a cursory search, I am not a specialist)
If the four cardinal points bother you, better not look up wind roses or rhumbline networks...
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Better question is why don’t they have 8? I hate saying “north by north east”.
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This is just the Minecraft coordinates system and it sucks. "OK I'm at the coords, where's the--oh fuck, it was -3002, 108 not 3002, 108."
This is basic coordinate usage. Negative latitudes are South. And 180 or -180 is half a planet away from the prime meridien. West of England are negative longitudes.
In addition to what others have already said, it'd be really silly to make one a negative of the other in the most basic sense, too.
There have been so many issues with electrons having a "negative" charge, and that's a binary situation! It would be so much worse to introduce implied favoritism with basic directions.
For most of human history people who couldn't do math, or read, or understand a map, have been communicating directions to each other.
4 directions is just enough to tell someone which way to face, without being too many to remember.
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