[HN Gopher] Emily Riehl is rewriting the foundations of higher c... ___________________________________________________________________ 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? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-03 23:00 UTC)