Sunday, July 23, 2006
No options with math society
I don't know if any of you get it yet but the problem here that I'm having with math society is that if they want you out, you have no options.
No options.
And it's not about the correctness or value of your research.
Send a paper to get it published, even if you get lucky, like I got one through, you can have the paper yanked and the freaking math journal die, and it not matter.
It seems to me that many of you are naive about the kind of power the math society has.
And given that power, like people everywhere, they got corrupted.
So how do you know anything they tell you is true?
Why do they have to tell the truth?
There's no motivation. All they have to say is stuff that advances their careers in a perfect position, with perfect power, and no where else for anyone to go.
The world created a situation where people learned that no one really cared, so it's not even so much of negatives about mathematicians, as they're victims in a sense as well, of a world that lost sight of the importance of the mathematical field.
Some of you may think you know so many things when in reality you know what some career academics told you, in a situation where they can put things up against evidence that is talked about within the discipline, but shut-down by the majority to hold a position that they know the public likes or tolerates that is better for their careers.
So you can research Halton Arp if you want to delude yourself about how this all works, as if it's about me. It's not about me. It's about the system.
It's a simple thing—give people the power to lie and advance their careers with no fear of accountability and it will happen.
The world corrupted the mathematical field. It bears the responsibility.
[A reply to someone who suggested that James should publish his papers on the web.]
My work is on the web. I've put it all on my blog.
But hey, this is Usenet, so it's a perfect place to whine. I have the right to whine. I am joyfully whining.
Seriously though, one of the first things I learned is that it doesn't matter about all this connectivity and putting things out there as it can just be ignored.
You could have the cure for cancer and it could be on the web—and ignored.
The real world is that you have very few options in modern society to get people's attention when they don't want to give it, no matter what you have, and it's just not true that people really can pick out the wheat from the chaff.
They can't.
Reality is that people go with the crowd—whatever they think their crowd is.
And who knows what the truth is?
Best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.
Most of you will never even come close to the truth. You will never have much of a clue about anything real about reality itself.
And that is the truth.
But you will believe otherwise—against all evidence.
THAT is the human condition.
[A reply to someone who said that the problem with James is that he is an idiot.]
Social forces are powerful because without society, you will die.
I challenge your society, in your mind, so to you, I must be an idiot who does not get it.
When you know that without that society, you will die.
It's not really a maybe, as I feel confident that you are not someone who could survive without the support of society, so some people believe that because of their dependency, the majority is always right.
But the majority gets things wrong.
And without people willing to keep pushing against things that are wrong, the entire system eventually fails.
Notice that if I am right, then the proof is in the mathematical arguments that I have.
Greater attention would not make those arguments look better if they fail.
Limited attention allows correct arguments to be ignored despite being right.
The world has always been turned by individuals who have to do what most people think of as impossible.
So history has been determined by those people who have to push against the majority for the greater good, and ask people, to consider the truth as something more than just what people think, as more importantly, it's what a person can prove.
The truth is important because it is the truth, and a hallmark of the truth is that it can stand against opposition that is about the needs of the moment.
No options.
And it's not about the correctness or value of your research.
Send a paper to get it published, even if you get lucky, like I got one through, you can have the paper yanked and the freaking math journal die, and it not matter.
It seems to me that many of you are naive about the kind of power the math society has.
And given that power, like people everywhere, they got corrupted.
So how do you know anything they tell you is true?
Why do they have to tell the truth?
There's no motivation. All they have to say is stuff that advances their careers in a perfect position, with perfect power, and no where else for anyone to go.
The world created a situation where people learned that no one really cared, so it's not even so much of negatives about mathematicians, as they're victims in a sense as well, of a world that lost sight of the importance of the mathematical field.
Some of you may think you know so many things when in reality you know what some career academics told you, in a situation where they can put things up against evidence that is talked about within the discipline, but shut-down by the majority to hold a position that they know the public likes or tolerates that is better for their careers.
So you can research Halton Arp if you want to delude yourself about how this all works, as if it's about me. It's not about me. It's about the system.
It's a simple thing—give people the power to lie and advance their careers with no fear of accountability and it will happen.
The world corrupted the mathematical field. It bears the responsibility.
[A reply to someone who suggested that James should publish his papers on the web.]
My work is on the web. I've put it all on my blog.
But hey, this is Usenet, so it's a perfect place to whine. I have the right to whine. I am joyfully whining.
Seriously though, one of the first things I learned is that it doesn't matter about all this connectivity and putting things out there as it can just be ignored.
You could have the cure for cancer and it could be on the web—and ignored.
The real world is that you have very few options in modern society to get people's attention when they don't want to give it, no matter what you have, and it's just not true that people really can pick out the wheat from the chaff.
They can't.
Reality is that people go with the crowd—whatever they think their crowd is.
And who knows what the truth is?
Best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.
Most of you will never even come close to the truth. You will never have much of a clue about anything real about reality itself.
And that is the truth.
But you will believe otherwise—against all evidence.
THAT is the human condition.
[A reply to someone who said that the problem with James is that he is an idiot.]
Social forces are powerful because without society, you will die.
I challenge your society, in your mind, so to you, I must be an idiot who does not get it.
When you know that without that society, you will die.
It's not really a maybe, as I feel confident that you are not someone who could survive without the support of society, so some people believe that because of their dependency, the majority is always right.
But the majority gets things wrong.
And without people willing to keep pushing against things that are wrong, the entire system eventually fails.
Notice that if I am right, then the proof is in the mathematical arguments that I have.
Greater attention would not make those arguments look better if they fail.
Limited attention allows correct arguments to be ignored despite being right.
The world has always been turned by individuals who have to do what most people think of as impossible.
So history has been determined by those people who have to push against the majority for the greater good, and ask people, to consider the truth as something more than just what people think, as more importantly, it's what a person can prove.
The truth is important because it is the truth, and a hallmark of the truth is that it can stand against opposition that is about the needs of the moment.
# posted by James Harris @ 19:40 
