Do you believe that writers and social scientists have nothing to add to this discussion? Not everyone is a scientist, not everyone is a mathematician, not everyone is an expert in education.
Equally, not everyone's opinion is equally valid, but they too may have something to add. In particular, find people with full and meaningful lives who have not done algebra, and that will show that it's not essential.
Showing them that their lives would be better with a working knowledge of algebra would be a challenge worth considering.
As I understand it, HN was the subject of a web crawl that was sufficiently agressive that it was effectively a DOS. As a result, access to older items was limited to try to limit the damage.
Equally, not everyone's opinion is equally valid, but they too may have something to add. In particular, find people with full and meaningful lives who have not done algebra, and that will show that it's not essential.
Showing them that their lives would be better with a working knowledge of algebra would be a challenge worth considering.