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Exactly. I find it quite bizarre when some folks suggest divorcing from politics as if the possibility exists. Everything is political. Even this very conversat
by 19ylram49 7y ago
Exactly. I find it quite bizarre when some folks suggest divorcing from politics as if the possibility exists. Everything is political. Even this very conversation is political.
- Koshkin 7y ago> Everything is political. Math is not political.
- fzeroracer 7y agoGoogle's page ranking algorithm can be considered very political despite being essentially just math as you put it.
- izzydata 7y agoYou just aren't trying hard enough.
- magashna 7y agoPro-skub or anti-skub? https://pbfcomics.com/comics/skub/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/skub/
- izzydata 7y agoWhich are you and what's your favorite color?
- magashna 7y agoAll I need to know is we disagree and I hate you.
- tomatotomato37 7y agoI find the notion that think that you think that its even morally appropriate to have a debate on skub to be absolutely reprehensible and disgusting, and I refuse to engage you further.
- SkyBelow 7y agoMath is probably one of the if not the least political thing out there, but there are still politics involved. For starters, all mathematicians need funding and choosing who to fund is partially political. Deciding awards is partially political. Even the importance of taking or rejecting some axioms and if certain fields still have value for further research is political. There are even different axioms one can use to derive math from, and choosing one over another is partially political (though it is interesting to see how each one deals with Russell's paradox).
- quotemstr 7y agoYou can find a way to relate politics to any endeavor, but politics is central to things like tax policy in a way that it's not central to, say, N-dimensional manifolds. Equating the two kinds of relationship is a fundamentally dishonest intellectual tactic used by people who want to inject political activism into every human endeavor. People need to stop doing that.
- SkyBelow 7y agoI think people are too quick to forget the importance of funding and the impact it has. For example, if a study comes out that A suffers from f, but no study exists that says B suffers from f, is that because there was a study that didn't find it or because there has not been such a study, perhaps due to lack of funding. This then has an impact on actual law when attempting to base law on science (should we set aside funding to help A but not B with f?). With math in particular, the way statistics are used to represent and draw conclusions from data can be highly political, especially when dealing with a very unpopular study and the level of criticism it receives compared to a popular study.
- weberc2 7y ago> Math is probably one of the if not the least political thing out there If you can concede that some things are less political than others, then how difficult is it to assume that "No political conversations" is a shorthand for "conversations about things which are not highly political"?
- tl 7y agoMath is definitely political. Problem #1: All models are invalid, some are useful. You need to stop ignorant actors who don’t understand that 3 is not a valid approximation of Pi, while simultaneously stopping pedants who want to everything to be accurate in ways that are not compatible with the IEEE standard for float. Problem #2: There are lies, damned lies and statistics. People who want to push $NOT_YOUR_VIEWPOINT will cite more studies than you have time to evaluate to prove you wrong.
- DonHopkins 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA
- thatswrong0 7y agoYet the use of math in practical ways often is.
- Verdex 7y agoWell ... http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3947 http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3947
- justinmeiners 7y agoThis is just not true. Math is neither objective or apolitical. I recommend reading "Descartes Dream."
- Koshkin 7y agoIt is in their mathematical expression that the laws of nature find their most precise form. Math, therefore, is the single most objective kind of knowledge. But, at the same time, that also means that Math cannot be political. (I am not talking about the impact of mathematics on the society, which is what the book is about.)
- justinmeiners 7y ago> the single most objective kind of knowledge That's likely true. > that also means that Math cannot be political. That doesn't follow from the first assumption. The context here is that someone is claiming math is a counterexample to "everything being political" unfortunately I don't think there is a counterexample. > which is what the book is about Many of the chapters are about this. There is a chapter about mathematical rhetoric and how math is used to persuade people. I would add that mathematical abstractions represent a particular philosophy of viewing the world. For example greek geometry is heavily biased by Platonism. Just look at the phrase you used: "law of nature". Is nature governed by "laws"? This is certainly a position in an argument about how the world works.
- crooked-v 7y agoConsider the difference between a culture that uses base 10 and a culture that uses base 25. They're going to have different conceptions of "manageable amounts", which could have all kinds of knock-on effects when it comes to the management of political entities. In other words, math doesn't exist in a vacuum.
- magashna 7y agoIt must be exhausting to have this mindset. Sometimes a story is just a story, a joke is just a joke, and there isn't a me vs you argument to be had.
- crooked-v 7y agoGive me a joke and I'll point out the politics inherent in it.
- username90 7y agoWhy is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 8 9.
- crooked-v 7y agoThe joke only works using math with a base of 9 or above and in a language where '8' and 'ate' are homophones, making the use of it biased against people who use other languages or counting systems.
- username90 7y agoA joke not being funny for one group doesn't mean that it is political. And if people are offended over not understanding a joke they would be offended over not understanding a sentence, meaning that every utterance ever is offensive since there is always people who doesn't speak your language. You are absurd here and only strengthened my view that people who say "everything is political" are just trying to sow discord.
- crooked-v 7y agoWe can see here more politics, as rejecting the interpretation of cultural elements as political is itself a political act of reinforcing the unexamined status quo. Or, to reverse the situation: consider how you'd feel about things if you came into a workplace where everyone was telling jokes that only make sense if you know Chinese culture, and then if you mentioned that you felt left out, told you to stop complaining because you were only trying to 'sow discord'.