There are so many things to pick apart in this paper: "But where do ’degrees’ come from? Why is the total 180? Why not 200, or 100? Indeed, why are we interest

There are so many things to pick apart in this paper: "But where do ’degrees’ come from? Why is the total 180? Why not 200, or 100? Indeed, why are we interested in triangles and their properties at all? The answer to all these questions is, essentially, ’because some people determined that it should be that way’." The author briefly touches upon Euclidean geometry and offering alternate geometries, but seemingly forgot that (western) mathematicians have been considering non-Euclidean geometry for at least a couple hundred years. We have rigorous answers on why a triangle is 180 degrees in Euclidean geometry and why it can be more or less in other geometries. We might not be teaching this in primary school (because it can get complicated), but math majors learn this stuff all the time. It's not just that "some people determined that it should be that way." Many people determined the many different ways it could be through things like logic and reasoning (which the author also attacks). "For example, we are now aware of the fact that many different counting systems exist in the world." We were always aware? The classical example that comes up even in primary school is how the Babylonians used base 60 and connecting that to 60 minutes in an hour. Mathematicians are well aware of different counting systems. Indeed they even use number systems based on irrational numbers, like e, when it makes formulas easier to use. "Facts like these challenge fundamental assumptions and long-held beliefs about mathematics." These are being challenged by mathematicians themselves all the time. Principia Mathematica anyone? Godel's incompleteness theorems anyone? After reading that paper, I think the author's mistake was considering that small sliver of mathematics that is taught in primary school, and not considering the enormous field that exists and is accessible only after many years in college/university. At least at one point the author does concede that multiple cultures contribute to mathematics (Arabic/Indian numerals that we use today being the most visible examples), not just "western" culture, and that many mathematicians around the world would object to what is essentially the politicization of mathematics, but then the author considers these objections irrelevant to the point he's trying to make. In fact, the author then goes on to call teaching advanced mathematics "elitist", and even attacks rationality and how we dare use inductive reasoning over intuition... what?? The kind of mental gymnastics needed to accept most of the arguments made in this paper... well, you won't have much mental energy to do actual math after dealing with that much cognitive dissonance.