[HN Gopher] Emily Riehl is rewriting the foundations of higher c...
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Emily Riehl is rewriting the foundations of higher category theory
Author : guerrilla
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-03-03 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| amyjess wrote:
| > I think there's more stigma attached to femininity in
| mathematics than femaleness necessarily. As a semi-androgynous
| queer woman, I think that I kind of fit in in the mathematics
| community better than I would if I were a cis, straight female.
|
| For anyone who would like to read more on the subject, I'd
| recommend the works of Julia Serano. She's written extensively
| about how feminine women are mistreated in academia, even by
| other feminists and queer women; her most prominent book is
| _Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the
| Scapegoating of Femininity_ , but she also has a number of other
| books and essays on the subject. She's also coined the term
| "femmephobia" to refer to the phenomenon.
| munk-a wrote:
| My sister-in-law went through an odd ostracization when trying
| to get tenure in academia. She and my brother had decided to
| have children while she pursued her tenure and she ended up
| getting a lot of friction out of older women in the department
| who had been forced, when they entered academia, to make a hard
| choice between being a mother and being a professor.
|
| There are a lot of really strange social dynamics that women
| can get hit by in the workplace and that one was certainly new
| to me.
| munk-a wrote:
| I can really identify with finding Ian Malcolm as inspirational
| for the positive sides of science. In Jurassic Park the contrast
| between the do-er scientists (those engineering the dinosaurs)
| and the think-er scientists (the more abstract theoretical
| scientist) was pretty starkly and, now that I've been working for
| a while, correctly portrayed in exposing the motivations those
| two classes of folks will tend to be working.
|
| If science is a career to acquire cash then it's quite easy to
| get compromised into focusing on the wrong motivations even if
| your intentions are quite pure - abstract fields tend to be
| rather "useless" and thus the same influencing power and money
| isn't available leading those folks to have a much clearer
| ability to ethically reason about problems. When you've got co-
| workers depending on a project going forward to keep a roof over
| their heads it's a lot easier to compromise morals.
| generationP wrote:
| > I'm not sure whether Lurie realized that it was possible to
| give rigorous model-independent proofs laying the foundations of
| infinity category theory. Part of the reason that Dom and I are
| able to establish something along the lines that I suspect Lurie
| would have wanted is that we were coming along later. There is
| also a sociological component to the history. Lurie was forced by
| the community to choose a specific model to prove theorems about
| infinity categories, because the ideas were so new, and people
| didn't believe the proofs otherwise.
|
| Short version: Even Lurie wasn't ready to generalize from one
| example :)
|
| Nothing to be ashamed of in any other part of mathematics, I'd
| say.
| morty_s wrote:
| I love category theory. I found out about it through Haskell and
| as it turns out it is a branch of mathematics that I feel I've
| been missing my whole life.
|
| Since taking an interest I've worked through a couple books on
| the topic and have listened to a ton of talks/interviews Emily
| Riehl has given (as well as others).
|
| I really enjoyed her talk at lambda world, "A categorical view of
| computational effects" (both the content and audio/video quality
| of this talk are very good!)
|
| Stoked to see this article on HN! I can't tell if category theory
| is becoming more popular or if I'm just living in a
| algorithmically curated/tailored world.
| masterofnone1 wrote:
| Definitely a great article and the math part was incredibly
| interesting.
|
| At the same time, I had a bit of a nagging fear by this line -
|
| > As a semi-androgynous queer woman, I think that I kind of fit
| in in the mathematics community better than I would if I were a
| cis, straight female. I think it also means I'm less likely to
| get hit on, which is a horrible thing that has happened to a lot
| of young women in fields where there aren't enough women.
|
| Obviously without defining "hit on", I do not want to draw too
| many conclusions. But as a guy, it makes me quite scared that
| just asking a someone out for a coffee (which I do to people
| regardless of gender / sex), might get construed as "hitting on"
| and a horrible thing. All due respect to the people who have been
| subjected to sexually predatory behavior though. Would like to
| hear others opinion on the same.
| dang wrote:
| This is a generic tangent veering into outright offtopicness.
| We try to avoid generic tangents in HN threads because such
| discussions are more or less all the same, and replacing an
| interesting specific discussion with a repetitive generic one
| is a bad trade.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
|
| That goes 10x when the topic is an ideological one. It's clear
| you weren't starting an ideological flamewar on purpose but
| that's what generic ideological tangents lead to.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
|
| The best way to avoid this is to stay grounded in the specifics
| of the article, especially the ones which have the richest
| diffs from past repetitive discussion.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
| dundarious wrote:
| Just asking if they'd like to go for a coffee and a chat is not
| intrinsically "hitting on" someone. Obviously tone and context
| can change everything, but there is no need to be paranoid in
| general.
| generationP wrote:
| > might get construed as
|
| > is not intrinsically
|
| Your post does not contradict the parent.
|
| For better or worse, any type of interaction (professional or
| not) is occasionally used as a side channel for romantic
| interests, and so risks getting misinterpreted as one. Cyber-
| optimist hopes that online dating platforms will pull this
| ever-present shadow out of everyday socialization, or at
| least de-mine the workplace, have proven futile; enough
| people _want_ the ambiguity. The only reasonable option is to
| grow a thicker skin and learn saying no and laughing it off.
| munk-a wrote:
| I've thought on this a lot in the past and the only thing I
| have hope of addressing it is making any sort of
| personal/professional relationship spill overs societally
| verbotten. When folks are at work they intend to work and
| making any assumption against that line is just going to
| lead to pain. I really like the team I work with, but I
| don't ever want them to mix with the group I socialize with
| solely due to the fact that while at work I want to work.
| generationP wrote:
| You want to avoid even social (not just romantical)
| mixing?
|
| Sorry, but I don't think this is viable with the workers
| I know (including myself). It is in head-on contradiction
| with the "do what you love" maxim that most people in my
| generation are trying to follow. We aren't robots and we
| don't want to live two completely disjoint lives (or,
| rather, when we do, we have internet forums, video games
| and what not for that). In order to have a job where I
| could completely dissociate from my coworkers, I'd need
| to find a second skill at which I'm good enough to find
| employment yet don't care enough about to let it bleed
| into my life. People are struggling enough with building
| one skill...
|
| There is probably some good middle ground to be found
| (how far should my job be from my interests to avoid
| crossing the streams too much yet allow me to keep it?
| how much should I let my colleagues into my life?), but
| no one seems to have invested much in finding it.
| munk-a wrote:
| There are some people who lean this way and that's fine -
| there's nothing wrong with it - but there are other
| people who don't. This will tend to follow an age
| distinction (with older folks being less interested in
| having more personal/professional crossover) but I
| strongly disagree with it being generational.
|
| Your team at work will change over time and new people
| will join and leave, as you are forced to reconcile
| changes of employment with the destruction of your social
| circle I think you'll find that it's easier to move to
| keeping the two separate. Having children and a strong
| life partner can also contribute to this - there are a
| lot of relationships you care deeply about outside of the
| workplace and you don't want your time at work to be
| complicated by drama from the fact that you don't value
| your relationships with your coworker over that of your
| partner.
|
| Social events at work can be fun and build a stronger
| team, but viewing your coworkers as your primary social
| circle probably isn't a healthy long term choice since at
| some point that relationship will be severed (hope that
| you don't have to fire a bestie) and someone will be left
| in an emotional lurch without a shoulder to cry on. I've
| found it quite helpful to be able to empathize with
| coworkers and chat about what's going on with work bits
| in a more safe environment but going into work hoping to
| find good relationships (social or romantic) is placing a
| large burden on those you're working with and can end
| pretty terribly.
|
| I'd also point out that strong social bonds are a
| reciprocal thing and that while you may be entering the
| workplace hoping to form those bonds your coworkers may
| not and the visible existence of cliques in work that
| exclude some employees that may simply be uninterested in
| such social activity can lead just as easily to drama in
| the workplace.
| dundarious wrote:
| > might get construed as
|
| The uncertainty comes mostly from the interpretation of the
| asked.
|
| > is not intrinsically
|
| The uncertainty comes mostly from the way in which the
| asker asks.
|
| I believe the latter is more representative.
| masterofnone1 wrote:
| I agree, in the context of the article it means something
| more sinister than just coffee. But regardless, does not
| leave me with some fear. Thanks for your reply!
| morty_s wrote:
| I think there's a saying, "when in doubt, don't" or something
| like that, but seriously
|
| As a guy I kind of get where you're coming from. Sort of. I
| think being "scared" is a bit much (or can at least be
| portrayed as the "wrong" connotation to those that care). The
| way I'd phrase this is, "I want to respect people's boundaries
| and certain situations can be trickier to navigate than others
| and I'd rather not mess it up."
|
| You can't account for how someone else will perceive your
| actions/intentions. In fact, they could probably vary (ie what
| if someone is looking to be hit on on Tuesday but not
| Wednesday? What if a person thinks "everyone hits on them").
|
| For me, I try to treat everyone with respect. Maybe I want to
| talk more about something, but the other person doesn't--I'm
| aware this could be the case so I always try to
| leave/create/make space for them (ie always provide a way out
| of the convo for the other person).
|
| I also try to ask myself if "grabbing a coffee" over some
| conversation is necessary. Interesting people have a ton of
| people wanting to grab coffee, so maybe a group thing would be
| better. I also try to consider the persons time (male or
| female); of course I'd love to steal some time from them or
| make a professional connection, but you can't always get what
| you want.
| loopercal wrote:
| I'm not sure of your point. You're scared of being seen as a
| predator while women are scared of being preyed upon? So
| wouldn't you want to try and make spaces as safe as possible so
| that women wouldn't have to be afraid?
| mkw5053 wrote:
| I went through her book "Category Theory in Context" a few years
| ago and loved it! It's a great introduction to the field.
| breck wrote:
| Thanks for the tip! Looks like she put the PDF of the book up
| here: https://math.jhu.edu/~eriehl/context.pdf
| guerrilla wrote:
| From the same page:
|
| > The Mathemagician's Axiom of Textbook Prerequisites: Let M
| be the minimum actual prerequisites for an average student
| being able to read and understand a given presentation of a
| subject in a mathematics textbook. Let A be the author's
| stated prerequisites. Then usually: A <<<<<<< M
|
| > ... My intended audience might be described as peri-
| graduate students, ranging from advanced mathematics
| undergraduates, to graduate students, to perhaps even
| research mathematicians in other disciplines.
| einpoklum wrote:
| So, you're saying a well-read Ph.D. in abstract math is the
| pre-requisite for reading that book?
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(page generated 2021-03-03 23:00 UTC)