If, however, they prefer the knowledge of some few truths to the vanity of appearing ignorant of none, as such knowledge is undoubtedly much to be preferred, and, if they choose to follow a course similar to mine, they do not require for this that I should say anything more than I have already said in this Discourse.
Addition and multiplication are commutative in most number systems, and, in particular, between natural numbers, integers, rational numbers, real numbers and complex numbers.
It is quite possible that we are descending into an age in which two plus two will make five when the Leader says so. George Orwell, review of Power: A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell in The Adelphi (January 1939)