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Math 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 an
by SkyBelow 7y ago
Math 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"?
- SkyBelow 7y agoQuite difficult, when the example was used in response to the statement "Everything is political." I would even say the contemplation of such a concession would be evidence of the original point as it suggests that we should just accept that everything is political and thus when someone says not everything is political they mean that some things are far less political than others.
- weberc2 7y agoYup, that's my point. Saying "everything is political" might be true, but it misses the point that some things are far less political than others, and almost everyone who says things like "no political conversation" probably means "no highly political conversation".
- kerzol 7y agoThe question of whether a certain discission have more "politics inside" than another is a very political one, especially when someone tries to have a right opinion (even if the advocated opinion is "let us promote diversity and respect different political opinions) and use it to achieve some goals.
- weberc2 7y agoI think any reasonable definition of "politicalness" must respect consensus, and I think you'll find significant consensus that things like "abortion" are more political than things like "math". Arguments like "everything is political" are almost always an excuse used by firebrands to legitimize their pet issue--in this case, to make talking about their politics as appropriate in the workplace as getting their work done.