Cambodia's Courageous Stand Against the Arithmegemony

Great news from Southeast Asia! Cambodia's Ministry of Education has won a decisive victory for humans in the ongoing war of man vs. math.

Six Cambodian high school students had been planning an obviously ill-advised trip to the Netherlands for the International Mathematical Olympiad this month. In a surprise, last-minute move, the Ministry canceled the delegation's trip, announcing that the students would not be competing.

The heartbroken students - not knowing just how close they'd come to a potentially dangerous arithmetical encounter - were understandably heartbroken.

Sokon Rany, a 15-year-old student at Preah Sisowath high school and a potential competitor, said he and five other students had received word they would not be going.

He had expected to showcase years of math studies, but now he found his expectations "worthless."

Indeed, Sokon Rany, indeed. Your mathematical expectations were worthless indeed. Thanks to the Education Ministry, you are now one of the lucky few who found this out before wasting a university degree in the pointless pursuit of numbers.

---