Various forms of entertainment are typically much improved by significant history and higher-level literacy training. People like entertainment.

High school math's only helpful for entertainment if you like recreational math puzzles or maybe Factorio or something.

You'll notice it takes far less convincing to get kids to understand the value of addition and arithmetic and maybe even very basic algebra. This is because they can immediately use it for play and entertainment. You're locked out of a ton of board games, even, if you can't do simple arithmetic with small numbers. "How much more money do I need to buy that video game I want?" is a question they're motivated to answer.

When it's common for people to encounter and eagerly choose to engage with entertainment the enjoyment of which is greatly enhanced by knowing how to find a second derivative, I expect math will stop being particularly prone to this kind of scrutiny.

My take is that studying history and literature aids in understanding human behavior and connecting with different people, valuable in many situations, but not sufficient by itself as having hard skills/opportunity/leverage/etc are just as important.

Reading good writing also helps you write better. It makes you a better communicator no matter where you find yourself in life.

because those don't take as much effort as math

Studying history is extremely important for doing your civic duty as a citizen and voting.

This would make sense if they teached recent history, which was at least not part of our curriculum and not to mention even if it was, it would be even more "regulated"

But no, at least in where I lived (Turkey) the history classes are ancient history, then some Turkish civilizations in Anatolia, Ottomans and early Turkey history. Then we have like a 60-70 years of empty space. Is this different for other countries?

So is quantitative thinking, in fact I think it’s more important.

You can get that without calc