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Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 11:16):Please, I would like to draw attention to this thread: https://github.com/HoTT/book/pull/1101
I'm nervous about bringing this up here, and I won't hesitate to mod-nuke my own thread. We know from experience how difficult it is to walk the line between "things whispered behind closed doors" and "internet pile-on". The thread I linked is a HoTT space, but it is directly relevant to us category theorists because many people overlap between our communities
For the record, in any professional space in which I have any kind of power (which mostly means applied category theory in practice) I will not accept this kind of gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behaviour
Todd Trimble (Apr 11 2022 at 12:05):I like Emily Riehl's take, and would prefer to avoid the pronoun minefield altogether if I am at all unsure -- and feel that tack ought to be a respected choice. Cf. the Monica Celia kerfuffle over at Stack Exchange. (I respect personal pronoun choices, but find that in extemporaneous speech I sometimes stutter or stumble when applying "their" to a specific singular person. That stuttering is unintentional and in the moment -- if a pronoun collides with my internal sense of language, then the smooth flow of speech may be interrupted. In writing it's different -- I have time to think and regroup.)
Many of us (especially the older among us) may be on a learning curve. People might unintentionally offend on occasion, so I hope the approach that mods take is one of kindness and understanding. The tone of "I will not accept" is a little worrisome to me: it doesn't sound like one of giving benefit of the doubt. Intentionality matters a great deal here.
Maybe here in this zulip we can go easy on this thumbs down business. Ugh, social media.
Oscar Cunningham (Apr 11 2022 at 12:16):I understand that it could feel awkward to use 'they' to refer to someone who you already think of as male or female, but this case was about the sentence '... let us describe how a mathematician reading the above English proof might simultaneously construct, in their head, an element of ...'. In this case we're just talking about an arbitrary mathematician, not someone of known gender.
Todd Trimble (Apr 11 2022 at 12:17):Oscar, I agree: it's different. I still prefer Emily's workaround.
My stumbling over "they" when speaking in the moment is not a matter of sex or gender, it's the number.
Oscar Cunningham (Apr 11 2022 at 12:27):As for the grammar of singular 'they', I have had the rare experience of actually convincing the other side in internet arguments about this topic. The trick is to simply scroll back through the posting history of anyone who objects to using 'they' as a singular, and find an example of them using it themselves. I note that Ellie Hermaszewska already performed this trick for Mike Shulman, and it's also not hard to find an example for Dan Grayson who was the other objector. I suggest anyone else who objects to it first checks their own post history!
Oscar Cunningham (Apr 11 2022 at 12:27):(Here I am using it three times in one post!)
Todd Trimble (Apr 11 2022 at 12:30):And whether people have been using singular "they" for centuries wasn't really my point either. I too can do it and have done it. Whether it invariably feels like the choice I would make if it were up to me -- an entirely different matter. As I say, on some such occasions, I may jump ship altogether and choose a workaround.
Oscar Cunningham (Apr 11 2022 at 12:35):(My comment about singular 'they' wasn't particularly aimed at you. I was just already typing it when you replied .)
Ian Coley (Apr 11 2022 at 12:57):The singular 'they' is perfectly comprehensible in modern (and not so modern) English and doesn't require convoluted passive-construction workarounds. We have reclaimed a third-person singular gender neutral pronoun and should employ that rather than the clunky 'his or her'.
Ian Coley (Apr 11 2022 at 13:04):But many of these points were brought up in the thread already and I probably don't need to reiterate them here.
Todd Trimble (Apr 11 2022 at 13:05):Don't forget "one" as a pronoun! Very useful, that.
Ian Coley (Apr 11 2022 at 13:09):I don't ever use "one" as a pronoun in speech except with when trying to sound supremely impersonal (usually in a sarcastic way). One may have differing opinions from mine.
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 13:29):Already considering to nuke this thread. To be clear, this is not really about grammar. Making mistakes is totally fine, nobody is going to get in trouble for making mistakes, using "they" to refer to individuals in speech is very jarring at first! I still get it wrong and then correct myself when I catch myself, which is not always. The bad behaviour is not making mistakes, it's doubling down on them
Todd Trimble (Apr 11 2022 at 13:48):Thanks for clarifying, Jules! That stance definitely makes sense to me.
The Monica Cellio episode (I misspelled her* name before; sorry) was awful, but it doesn't sound like there's much chance of anything similar happening here.
I believe 'her' is correct in this instance.
Tim Campion (Apr 11 2022 at 14:09):I, too, have difficulty using "they" in the singular, but it's a challenge I choose to embrace! I imagine Shakespeare would have just as much grammatical trouble using "you" in the singular.
Language evolves. We can choose to fight it, or to embrace it. I would prefer to speak a language with no grammatical gender at all. (Or at least a language where grammatical gender doesn't correlate with complex concepts like social gender or biological sex). This particular evolution of pronouns seems like the next best alternative. Grammatical discomfort seems a small price to pay to change our language for the better.
Morgan Rogers (he/him) (Apr 11 2022 at 14:20):@Tim Campion I've been learning Turkish for a few years now, you might like that feature of it.
Oscar Cunningham (Apr 11 2022 at 14:23):Tim Campion said:
I, too, have difficulty using "they" in the singular, but it's a challenge I choose to embrace! I imagine Shakespeare would have just as much grammatical trouble using "you" in the singular.
By Shakespeare's day singular 'you' was in use as a formal alternative to 'thou'. Shakespeare has a lot of fun using it to subtly indicate status relations.
Steve Awodey (Apr 11 2022 at 14:28):Jules Hedges said:
For the record, in any professional space in which I have any kind of power (which mostly means applied category theory in practice) I will not accept this kind of gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behaviour
@Jules Hedges I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behaviour". We're trying to work out something sensitive in a public discussion, and that involves some back and forth, misunderstandings, flaring tempers, accusations (and worse). But please don't unfairly, and blanketly, accuse the people having the discussion in good faith of something unjustified that could stick to them.
Tim Campion (Apr 11 2022 at 14:37):Morgan Rogers (he/him) said:
Tim Campion I've been learning Turkish for a few years now, you might like that feature of it.
Nice! I've heard Turkish also has grammatical evidentiality which seems like a much more useful linguistic feature than gender! Interestingly, another language which both lacks grammatical gender and has grammatical evidentiality is Wolof.
Graham Manuell (Apr 11 2022 at 15:54):Tim Campion said:
Nice! I've heard Turkish also has grammatical evidentiality which seems like a much more useful linguistic feature than gender! Interestingly, another language which both lacks grammatical gender and has grammatical evidentiality is Wolof.
Well the majority of languages don't have gender so this isn't too surprising. Though, I think Wolof actually does have gender, it's just not masculine/feminine. (I checked because I was surprised to hear about an Atlantic-Congo language that did not have gender, since they are famous for usually having very many.) I don't know how robust the gender/noun class system in Wolof is, but then again, gender in English is marginal too, occurring only in pronouns. Quechuan languages do have evidentiality and lack gender though. (Though perhaps all of this is straying too far from the original topic...)
Tim Campion (Apr 11 2022 at 17:23):Graham Manuell said:
Tim Campion said:
Nice! I've heard Turkish also has grammatical evidentiality which seems like a much more useful linguistic feature than gender! Interestingly, another language which both lacks grammatical gender and has grammatical evidentiality is Wolof.
Well the majority of languages don't have gender so this isn't too surprising. Though, I think Wolof actually does have gender, it's just not masculine/feminine. (I checked because I was surprised to hear about an Atlantic-Congo language that did not have gender, since they are famous for usually having very many.) I don't know how robust the gender/noun class system in Wolof is, but then again, gender in English is marginal too, occurring only in pronouns. Quechuan languages do have evidentiality and lack gender though. (Though perhaps all of this is straying too far from the original topic...)
Ah, ok -- I was just reporting what I was told by a Wolof-speaking friend. It seems quite plausible that the language "has gender" by standard linguistic classification but it's just so different from gender in e.g. French that he considers them to be not analogous things.
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 17:42):Apparently people still don't get what this is about, so let me be 100% explicit. By framing this as a discussion to be had, you are saying that there might be a possibility that grammatical correctness is more important than who somebody is as a human being. You are doing this in a professional space, and possibly as a person of authority in that space. And this is the important point: you are doing it in full view of the human beings in question
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 17:44):If you do in fact believe that grammatical correctness is more important that who somebody is as a person, then I have nothing to say to you. In the far more likely event that you're a bit bewildered about the whole thing and think there should be a civil discussion about it, I ask you to think about what I said
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 17:48):(Corollary: while singular "they" in English apparently does have ancient historical precedent, this fact is utterly irrelevant to this discussion)
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 17:50):Fair warning: I will delete ANY post in this thread after this point that is about the grammar of English or any other language
Oscar Cunningham (Apr 11 2022 at 18:20):I think that would be a poor use of mod powers. But what did you want to talk about?
Tim Campion (Apr 11 2022 at 18:25):Jules Hedges said:
Apparently people still don't get what this is about, so let me be 100% explicit. By framing this as a discussion to be had, you are saying that there might be a possibility that grammatical correctness is more important than who somebody is as a human being. You are doing this in a professional space, and possibly as a person of authority in that space. And this is the important point: you are doing it in full view of the human beings in question
Sorry for the linguistic sidetracks.
If this thread is meant to be not a discussion but rather a policy statement, then it makes sense to be 200% explicit -- more explicit than a link to a long internet discussion followed by "I will not accept this kind of gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behaviour". The unfortunate fact is that not everybody is on the same page on this issue. So I see 3 options:
My preference is (1). I would object to (3).
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 18:34):Oscar Cunningham said:
I think that would be a poor use of mod powers.
Noted. Misuse of mod powers is a serious thing, anyone who wants to say something about that should do so on #general: meta rather than here. I'll remind everybody including myself that mods are supposed to serve the community and the health of the forum, and moderation policy is something that everybody should have a say in
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 18:35):As a general rule I try to only moderate threads that I'm not involved in. I'll either step out of this discussion, or I won't use mod tools on this thread, whichever option seems like a better idea later
Todd Trimble (Apr 11 2022 at 19:58):Jules Hedges said:
Apparently people still don't get what this is about, so let me be 100% explicit. By framing this as a discussion to be had, you are saying that there might be a possibility that grammatical correctness is more important than who somebody is as a human being. You are doing this in a professional space, and possibly as a person of authority in that space. And this is the important point: you are doing it in full view of the human beings in question
It sounds like you're referring to the discussion over at the HoTT zulip, which as I understood it was about the writing of a book involving more than a few authors. That writing is none of the business of this zulip, although people here may hold some strong opinions about what they are discussing.
To get one thing out of the way: obviously we're all human beings. As a human being, as a general rule I don't want to be told how I should write. I for one wouldn't be an asshole and "double down" on calling person P "him" if P wants to be called "they". But if we're talking about a person in the abstract, then maybe it would go against my grain, as a human being, to feel compelled to use singular "they" at times when I'd rather not. (Leaving aside how I, Todd Trimble, actually feel about this -- this is only an example. In other words, I'm using "I" in a peculiar way.) How people write is a very personal thing and can be something deeply felt.
Since actually "in any professional space in which I have any kind of power (which mostly means applied category theory in practice) I will not accept this kind of gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behaviour" does carry more than a whiff of laying down the law -- especially since the notion of power was invoked, I for one would want to get clear on what, then, is considered acceptable to powers that be. The aforementioned episode of Monica Cellio shows what can happen: she was asking whether use of pronouns is compulsory in situations where such use could be avoided (as is virtually always the case, for competent writers). For example, she noted that there may be situations, involving human beings whose first language is not English and who are not immersed in debates involving political correctness, where use of an ostensibly plural form could be genuinely confusing or unclear. And for making inquiries into what the newly emerging Stack Exchange policy was, precisely, she wound up being stripped of her position, and with damage to her reputation. The episode was quite hideous.
Casting the discussion in terms of "grammatical correctness [being] more important than who somebody is as a human being" is putting it pretty tendentiously and in black-and-white terms, in my opinion. There are some nuances here.
By the way, as a moderator myself (over at MathOverflow), I know it's not always an easy job -- and I've had accusations of being "PC police" flung in my direction plenty over the years. It's super-hard threading the needle, sometimes. I hope you don't mind weathering the storm too much.
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 20:55):Todd Trimble said:
I hope you don't mind weathering the storm too much.
Hah, I live most of my life on Twitter, youse'll have to try much harder than that to wear me down with internet stuff
Jules Hedges (Apr 11 2022 at 20:57):Todd Trimble said:
That writing is none of the business of this zulip
I'm afraid it is, because many people (including some of the authors) belong to both communities, there's a lot of overlap. The reason I posted the link in the first place is so that people here would see what is being said there, because it may be relevant to them to know. The alternative is to instead whisper it in private channels, which is how this has been done since the dawn of time
David Egolf (Apr 11 2022 at 21:35):For what it's worth, I really like the use of "they". I have to stop myself from using "they" to refer to someone who prefers "she" or "he". I find it cleaner and more accurate to conceptualize gender as a one-dimensional interval than a collection of two points labelled "he" and "she" (although this interval model is far from perfect, and one could also argue that "he" and "she" could also be conceptualized differently). However, in this interval model for gender, it is then tricky to concisely refer to a point (or subinterval) on this interval in a concise and convenient way. The potentially lower degree of gender-specificity in "they" strikes me as a reasonable way to indicate the usage of this 1D model for gender. I'd prefer using "their" to "he or she" for a similar reason - in my mental model for gender "he or she" refers to a collection of two points, while "their" refers again to the use of a 1D object for modelling gender.
Hopefully these thoughts are roughly on topic!
Zanzi (Apr 11 2022 at 22:29):@**Jules Hedges** I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behaviour". We're trying to work out something sensitive in a public discussion, and that involves some back and forth, misunderstandings, flaring tempers, accusations (and worse). But please don't unfairly, and blanketly, accuse the people having the discussion in good faith of something unjustified that could stick to them.
@Steve Awodey I think what Jules is referring to as 'gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behaviour' is for example when Mike Shulman explicitly says that people describing themselves as 'transgender, non-binary, etc' sometimes behave in ways that make him 'uncomfortable'. In this case, I think the 'accusation' of being exclusionary is a fairly accurate representation of the situation and Mike Shulman's actions.
I think you make a great point about the necessity to avoid unfair blanket accusations. For example, I would argue that it was an unfair blanket accusation when Mike Shulman claimed that "there is a movement to replace the fact of biological sex with a socially constructed non-binary notion of gender", a claim that had nothing to do with the PR in question, but served to blanket-paint people Mike disagrees with as ideologically driven.
Since you are actively involved in the discussions both here and on github, is it fair that you're chastising Jules for stating a concrete, verifiable claim, while mentioning nothing to Mike for whom your comment is far more appropriate?
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 11 2022 at 23:00):To be frank, as a person belonging to the conservative side of the political spectrum regarding many issues, much of the public discourse around inclusivity policy makes me feel very much excluded almost all the time. I have multiple times being afraid to speak my mind openly especially on public channels like Twitter. Basically, as someone having opinions sometimes orthogonal to what is the more common posture in academia, the risk of people misreading, misunderstanding and deciding to tag me as a bigot or as a fascist make it just not worth it. Obviously I do not consider myself either of the two, and especially I consider fascism utterly repulsive, but experience has taught me that it is easier for people to simplify and distort your opinion when they do not agree with you. Some people actually may even find doing so enjoyable. And yes, this has often very tangible consequences.
...The way I personally cope with this is by saying absolutely nothing, avoiding mentioning politics/value/morals as much as I can especially on the internet, and basically keeping my opinions to myself. But if I have to be frank no, I do not think that many of the inclusive policies I've seen around are as inclusive as people promoting them think they are. And no, I will refrain from being more specific than this, especially in public, exactly due to what I've said above.
Todd Trimble (Apr 12 2022 at 00:11):Jules Hedges said:
Todd Trimble said:
That writing is none of the business of this zulip
I'm afraid it is, because many people (including some of the authors) belong to both communities, there's a lot of overlap. The reason I posted the link in the first place is so that people here would see what is being said there, because it may be relevant to them to know. The alternative is to instead whisper it in private channels, which is how this has been done since the dawn of time
What I meant is that what the authors write in their book is their decision and their decision alone to make. Of course we on the outside can seek to influence their decision; after all, the discussion is being held in public. Probably we don't really disagree about this.
Tim Campion (Apr 12 2022 at 02:30):Fabrizio Genovese said:
To be frank, as a person belonging to the conservative side of the political spectrum regarding many issues, much of the public discourse around inclusivity policy makes me feel very much excluded almost all the time. I have multiple times being afraid to speak my mind openly especially on public channels like Twitter. Basically, as someone having opinions sometimes orthogonal to what is the more common posture in academia, the risk of people misreading, misunderstanding and deciding to tag me as a bigot or as a fascist make it just not worth it. Obviously I do not consider myself either of the two, and especially I consider fascism utterly repulsive, but experience has taught me that it is easier for people to simplify and distort your opinion when they do not agree with you. Some people actually may even find doing so enjoyable. And yes, this has often very tangible consequences.
...The way I personally cope with this is by saying absolutely nothing, avoiding mentioning politics/value/morals as much as I can especially on the internet, and basically keeping my opinions to myself. But if I have to be frank no, I do not think that many of the inclusive policies I've seen around are as inclusive as people promoting them think they are. And no, I will refrain from being more specific than this, especially in public, exactly due to what I've said above.
You'll notice that one thing notably absent from this discussion is somebody who steps forward and explicitly says "here is my take on the matter, as a person who is frequently misgendered". I'd hazard to venture that the self-censorship-out-of-fear which you describe is also being experienced on the other side of the aisle.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 12 2022 at 09:09):Indeed, and I don't deny it. But in my opinion many of the policies discussed to foster inclusivity are skewed towards one end of the political spectrum. I'm not saying this is inherently wrong. I'm saying that a natural consequence of this is that it alienates people, often preventing the possibility of fruitful discussion from the start. For instance, the argument of pronouns as of now is not limited to gender issues. Supporting/not supporting pronoun enforcement has often become an identifier for a given political stance. This is negative, as it creates a distorted logic where people in favor of some ideas may end up openly not supporting them, as they are felt as 'expression of a more general political posture I do not support'.
I think this gives rise also to more radicalization, on both ends of the political spectrum.
Tim Campion (Apr 12 2022 at 13:02):Fabrizio Genovese said:
Indeed, and I don't deny it. But in my opinion many of the policies discussed to foster inclusivity are skewed towards one end of the political spectrum. I'm not saying this is inherently wrong. I'm saying that a natural consequence of this is that it alienates people, often preventing the possibility of fruitful discussion from the start. For instance, the argument of pronouns as of now is not limited to gender issues. Supporting/not supporting pronoun enforcement has often become an identifier for a given political stance. This is negative, as it creates a distorted logic where people in favor of some ideas may end up openly not supporting them, as they are felt as 'expression of a more general political posture I do not support'.
I think this gives rise also to more radicalization, on both ends of the political spectrum.
So how would you suggest we foster gender inclusivity here?
Jules Hedges (Apr 12 2022 at 13:21):For the record, I'm not aware of any problems whatsoever on this forum
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 12 2022 at 13:45):Tim Campion said:
Fabrizio Genovese said:
Indeed, and I don't deny it. But in my opinion many of the policies discussed to foster inclusivity are skewed towards one end of the political spectrum. I'm not saying this is inherently wrong. I'm saying that a natural consequence of this is that it alienates people, often preventing the possibility of fruitful discussion from the start. For instance, the argument of pronouns as of now is not limited to gender issues. Supporting/not supporting pronoun enforcement has often become an identifier for a given political stance. This is negative, as it creates a distorted logic where people in favor of some ideas may end up openly not supporting them, as they are felt as 'expression of a more general political posture I do not support'.
I think this gives rise also to more radicalization, on both ends of the political spectrum.So how would you suggest we foster gender inclusivity here?
For sure I won't discuss any of this if not in person, for the issues I mentioned above. I do not think it is possible to have a productive yet critical discussion on the matter, on the internet, in the current political climate. :smile:
John Baez (Apr 12 2022 at 14:58):Jules Hedges said:
For the record, I'm not aware of any problems whatsoever on this forum
Well, there are very few comments by women on this forum... and I don't know of anyone making serious efforts to change that.
Valeria de Paiva (Apr 12 2022 at 15:38):FWIW I support the use of singular "they/their" whenever the need arises: it's a low-cost, easy solution. I would say it's a non-brainer.
it applies without problems here and everywhere where he or she/ him or her is needed. But I am not one of the 30+ authors of the book, so I can only applaud Martin and Andrej for discussing the proposal, which I endorse.
Valeria de Paiva (Apr 12 2022 at 15:41):and yes, I am painfully aware of the lack of women in this forum. math bros can be as much as a pain as tech bros, it seems.
David Michael Roberts (Apr 13 2022 at 01:36):Valeria de Paiva said:
math bros can be as much as a pain as tech bros, it seems.
It makes me think of this incident:
Johnstone's CT20->21 talk around 42:00
I felt very uncomfortable watching it on YouTube after the fact. I cannot imagine what it felt like to those in the room.
David Michael Roberts (Apr 13 2022 at 01:40):Even if one is convinced Caramello is getting a lot of mileage out of something small, this is not the way to approach it. We should celebrate fresh approaches, alternative proofs, clearer conceptual pictures. No one would lose anything by being excited and gracious about work in CT getting recognition outside the club of old-guard topos theorists.
David Michael Roberts (Apr 13 2022 at 01:43):And, one should be doubly careful about the possibility of "punching down", given the a relative standing in the community, as is the case here, though I still disliked this type of pettiness when it was practiced on the category theory mailing list between old guys who were all at La Jolla.
Valeria de Paiva (Apr 13 2022 at 01:43):Very uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons indeed: the pronouns they/their are much easier!
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 13 2022 at 09:07):David Michael Roberts said:
Valeria de Paiva said:
math bros can be as much as a pain as tech bros, it seems.
It makes me think of this incident:
Johnstone's CT20->21 talk around 42:00
I felt very uncomfortable watching it on YouTube after the fact. I cannot imagine what it felt like to those in the room.
What happened here was very ugly, but in all fairness Johnstone skipped that slide completely in the live presentation. I am not saying that he is excusable - he is not. But presenting as "proof" something that he himself skipped during the talk is not the best possible ethical choice either.
Zanzi (Apr 13 2022 at 10:09):David Michael Roberts said:
Valeria de Paiva said:
math bros can be as much as a pain as tech bros, it seems.
It makes me think of this incident:
Johnstone's CT20->21 talk around 42:00
I felt very uncomfortable watching it on YouTube after the fact. I cannot imagine what it felt like to those in the room.
It blows my mind that this open bullying of Caramello has been allowed to go on for so long, and I can only imagine the kind of message that it sends to young female academics who are considering whether to join this field...
Jules Hedges (Apr 13 2022 at 11:02):Zanzi said:
It blows my mind that this open bullying of Caramello has been allowed to go on for so long
Problem is I don't know what anybody can do. PJ is a Cambridge professor close to retirement, so he can in practice do virtually anything he wants to. More generally in academic nobody really "allows" anybody to do anything. (There's the nuclear option that conference organisers can "deplatform" a researcher from giving a research talk, which is something I suspect the vast majority would be extremely uncomfortable with.) It seems to me the best (or least-worst) thing we can do is just to talk about it publicly to make it clear what the rest of us think
Jules Hedges (Apr 13 2022 at 11:03):Valeria de Paiva said:
math bros can be as much as a pain as tech bros, it seems.
This thought is utterly horrifying.
Zanzi (Apr 13 2022 at 13:26):It seems to me the best (or least-worst) thing we can do is just to talk about it publicly to make it clear what the rest of us think
Mmmm, yeah. For all the talk of 'cancelling' out there, talking about an incident openly and publicly is the only power that most of us have.
David Michael Roberts (Apr 13 2022 at 13:44):@Fabrizio Genovese no, what I gave was a slide that was discussed in full (I know the one you mean—and it wasn't left out of the written version of the talk). It was a 10-15 minute takedown of Caramello, I could have picked any one of several slides.
@Jules Hedges the public silence about this by the organisers was a choice. I hadn't heard even a rumour about the talk until I saw it myself, months later. Another conference might have released even a non-targeted statement about the expectations about behavioural standards by participants, in particular towards marginalised people. It's not deplatforming, but making it clear to the community such a thing is a highly unprofessional act and not welcome. Maybe senior category theorists had a quiet word in private. But that does not help eg women ECRs or students reconsidering their career choices.
On a personal note, I was on the receiving end of a similar thing on a smaller scale from Bénabou, in public emails IIRC. I had a job outside academia, with no plans to return, so I could shrug it off to some extent. It still wasn't pleasant. People knew he was prone to such things, but I'd hate to think how it would affect someone aiming for a career in ct research.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 13 2022 at 13:53):Oh, I must have confused myself with the other one then, sorry.
In any case, first generation category theorists seem to be rather infamous when it comes to treating people harshly, if not discriminating them outright. I think this is one of the reason why the ACT community was started as an independent endeavor: The tabula rasa approach allowed us to implement better policies, and to my knowledge the situation in ACT is orders of magnitude better when we compare it to the many unhappy circumstances that happened in traditional CT
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 13 2022 at 13:57):So no, talking about it is not the only thing we can do. Moreover, deplatforming is not really going to work in my opinion. Also I'm conceptually kind of opposed to it as I fear the consequences it could have on freedom of expression when it is applied blindly. What we can really do - and we are doing that - is starting new communities/research fields as independent, setting a very clear policy from the start. At that point, whoever wants to join said communities will know which behaviors are tolerated and which ones are not. Clearly it could happen that we have incidents or unpleasant situations, and it will happen that we will need to rediscuss our code of conduct from time to time. Yet, these discussions will be framed in a much clearer framework, and imho this helps a lot.
Zhen Lin Low (Apr 13 2022 at 15:04):I have to say I never saw anything like what's on that screenshot when I was in Cambridge – but then again, Olivia was in Cambridge at the time too. I knew back then there was something of a disagreement but it looks like it has escalated in recent years.
Zhen Lin Low (Apr 13 2022 at 15:04):Incidentally, as far as I know, PTJ is already retired. He and Martin Hyland are the same age.
Tim Hosgood (Apr 13 2022 at 15:18):Jules Hedges said:
It seems to me the best (or least-worst) thing we can do is just to talk about it publicly to make it clear what the rest of us think
although it probably has very little effect, ever since hearing about this specific debacle I just refuse to cite Johnstone in anything, and will go very much out of my way to find a different reference if necessary. it's petty and doesn't really achieve much, but at least gives me a feeling of satisfaction :shrug:
Todd Trimble (Apr 13 2022 at 15:31):I would not go so far as Tim, because I suspect that the situation with Caramello might be much more complicated than it's being portrayed. In particular, some very serious allegations were made by her against Martin Hyland, who has unquestionably done the community a great deal of good. I don't know what to think, but here I'd withhold judgment.
I agree that the CT20-->21 talk was indecorous to say the least and PTJ shouldn't have aired this stuff, but I'm sure he's felt very maligned by Caramello, in a situation which had been going on for years before then.
Mathematically, even if we assume Caramello was rediscovering stuff known to the cognoscenti, she's doing a great deal of good bringing attention to the conceptual power of topos theory to a wider world.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 13 2022 at 15:36):Tim Hosgood said:
Jules Hedges said:
It seems to me the best (or least-worst) thing we can do is just to talk about it publicly to make it clear what the rest of us think
although it probably has very little effect, ever since hearing about this specific debacle I just refuse to cite Johnstone in anything, and will go very much out of my way to find a different reference if necessary. it's petty and doesn't really achieve much, but at least gives me a feeling of satisfaction :shrug:
The real problem with this is that one can be at the same time a great researcher and an awful human being. There are countless examples of this, starting with Newton if not before. Having taken note of this unhappy fact of life, I guess what one can do is setting guidelines so that awful person X has to behave nicely when working in direct contact with our community. I feel that complete deplatforming may end up hurting the community way more than it hurts the person.
Todd Trimble (Apr 13 2022 at 17:14):To what Fabrizio said (and I mostly agree with the spirit), I would add that "awful person" is such a blanketing term. We can agree that some people sometimes do things we consider awful, but in other instances, they do a great deal of good.
I would also say that people can change and evolve. In the US we have countless stories of people who believe that gay people are wicked, or who "choose" to be gay as a lifestyle choice [against what God intended, etc., etc.] -- until their son announces (with great trepidation) that he is gay, and then some hard internal questioning and searching may take place and the parent eventually turns around. Doesn't always happen, obviously, but it certainly can. I've seen it happen with people close to me.
Deplatforming (which would be sort of like punishing) is not the way to go, in my opinion. Open conversation, including with the person we think is behaving badly, is much much better.
All this being said -- and in case it wasn't clear, based on things I said earlier -- I take strong exception to some things Mike Shulman said in the other forum, and I feel badly about pain that was undoubtedly occasioned by his words. I also know him to be on many occasions a kind and gentle person, on top of being an excellent mathematician.
Ralph Sarkis (Apr 13 2022 at 17:22):Fabrizio Genovese said:
I feel that complete deplatforming may end up hurting the community way more than it hurts the person.
I don't think that is the right comparison to make. Deplatforming is warranted when it causes less harm to the community than the harm done by "awful person X" to the community (it is in no way meant to hurt that person, although it inevitably does). This assessment is very hard to make and I don't want to comment precisely on the concrete situations discussed above, but in general, I value the quality of the research environment above all of the scientific production in the world. Thus, I am against making a huge effort (as a community, I don't mind if individuals want to make that effort) to keep someone in line no matter their position in the community.
Zanzi (Apr 13 2022 at 17:53):Todd Trimble said:
In particular, some very serious allegations were made by her against Martin Hyland, who has unquestionably done the community a great deal of good. I don't know what to think, but here I'd withhold judgment.
Todd, I mean no disrespect, but I am puzzled by the structure of this sentence. Is your argument that because Martin Hyland has unquestionably done the community a great deal of good, then the very serious accusations by Caramello are not worth listening to? Or that it was wrong for Caramello to make serious accusations against someone who has done the community a great deal of good?
And if the allegations are so serious that we should hold our judgement in whether PTJ is justified in publicly bullying her, then shouldn't we hear them before making up our mind, rather than discuss them with vague allusions?
I am also very uncomfortable to hear that PTJ was criticising Caramello's work as a proxy of airing his personal grievances with her. I hope people can see the problem with this kind of intellectual dishonesty, and how bad it would be if it became standard practice within an academic community?
Zanzi (Apr 13 2022 at 18:04):@Todd Trimble I do not mean to single you out in the above, I am sure that you've meant your comment with the best intentions. I just strongly believe that it does not help anyone if serious allegations get relegated to private channels and we never hear of them. This was the case with how academia worked in the past, and I believe that it's important to change that.
If it wasn't for the HoTT github thread, I at least would have never known that Mike Shulman has a trans grad student, and that his beliefs have caused a friction between them. And I think it's important to ask ourselves, as a community, how we will respond if as a result of this friction she will leave the field? I can only speak for myself, but if I was in her situation, that's what I would be seriously thinking of.
Would people here really be okay with sweeping the whole situation under the rug, and only referring to the incident in the vaguest of terms as some "serious allegations against Mike Shulman, who has unquestionably done a great deal for this community and the advancement of categorical logic"?
Todd Trimble (Apr 13 2022 at 18:27):Zanzi, I'm not making that argument. Here I'm suspending judgment: it's possible that Hyland did the things she said, on general grounds that people do bad things on occasion. At the same time, it's a bit of she said/he said [nothing], and I'm having trouble balancing her allegation against the idea I've formed of the man, whom I know a little, and who has been a champion of young women starting careers in mathematics and has supported them greatly. I suspect we might not be getting the whole story, but I'm trying to keep an open mind.
I'm not sure what you mean by private channels. We're talking openly here, aren't we? If you feel I'm speaking obliquely, it's because I'm not sure whether I should mention a student by name who is associated with Mike and who is trans. Maybe it'd be okay, or maybe she wouldn't like to be discussed by strangers. I'm not good with these things.
Todd Trimble (Apr 13 2022 at 18:32):Oh, sorry, you seemed to be making an implicit request for more information about Caramello's account. Here is the link, h/t to David Roberts: https://www.oliviacaramello.com/Unification/InitiativeOfClarificationResults.html.
Zanzi (Apr 13 2022 at 19:22):Yes, thank you, that's what I was asking about! I will have a look, but it looks like a lot of writing to be honest. It'd help to narrow down which specific allegations are the ones that seem the most questionable, but I'll admit that maybe it's best if I focus on one issue at a time. I only brought up Olivia because her and Astra's situation seemed similar on the surface, since both Mike and Martin are well-established community members who have made great contributions to the field.
Zanzi (Apr 13 2022 at 19:22):I assume it's fine to use Astra's name and refer to the public information that she shared, since she did choose to come forward with it. And I do feel that it's important to discuss this, given that we're talking about gender inclusivity and why some women leave the field, and here is an actual woman with a tangible risk of leaving the field.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 13 2022 at 21:57):Ralph Sarkis said:
Fabrizio Genovese said:
I feel that complete deplatforming may end up hurting the community way more than it hurts the person.
I don't think that is the right comparison to make. Deplatforming is warranted when it causes less harm to the community than the harm done by "awful person X" to the community (it is in no way meant to hurt that person, although it inevitably does). This assessment is very hard to make and I don't want to comment precisely on the concrete situations discussed above, but in general, I value the quality of the research environment above all of the scientific production in the world. Thus, I am against making a huge effort (as a community, I don't mind if individuals want to make that effort) to keep someone in line no matter their position in the community.
The assessment is often mob rule, which is mainly why I do not endorse the practice. As I remarked above, I do not think the age of the internet is the best suited to evaluate situations that have nuisances.
Jules Hedges (Apr 14 2022 at 09:29):I must inform youse that one previously-theoretical part of this discussion is no longer theoretical: https://twitter.com/carloangiuli/status/1514425319452778499?s=21
We believe the speaker’s recent statements in the context of the HoTT Book stand in opposition to these values, and have made the difficult decision not to hold the upcoming HoTTEST Distinguished Lecture Series. —Carlo Angiuli, @dan2christensen, Chris Kapulkin (2/2)
- Carlo Angiuli (@carloangiuli) Oscar Cunningham (Apr 14 2022 at 10:06):For context, who was it who was going to give the Lecture Series? It's not possible to find out from the link provided there, since it's no longer in the schedule.
Matteo Capucci (he/him) (Apr 14 2022 at 10:10):Mike Shulman
Pawel Sobocinski (Apr 14 2022 at 10:47):I was really looking forward to those talks.
Tim Campion (Apr 14 2022 at 15:56):I was looking forward to them too. Mike will have surely have an opportunity to talk about this research at a more appropriate time.
Jules Hedges (Apr 14 2022 at 16:45):Please, take out your temptation to emoji-react on this post and resist it on other posts. Voting by emoji is no way to conduct this sort of thing
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 14 2022 at 16:48):I'm sorry, but I'm going to intervene here. As long as it is not insulting people are free to use whatever feature this platform provides.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 14 2022 at 16:52):Also, it is my feeling that some people are too shy to explicitly state their opinion, or they simply do not want to. Reactions offer a form of "soft opinion stating" by just signaling (dis)agreement with other people's comments. I think this is a feature, not a bug.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 17:41):Tim Campion said:
I was looking forward to them too. Mike will have surely have an opportunity to talk about this research at a more appropriate time.
Yes, it would have been a great talk. It's unfortunate that Mike chose to go on this transphobic rant right before the seminar series. In the future I hope he will be a bit more considerate to those of us who think he's a great mathematician and airdrop any further bigoted opinions when he doesn't have any speaking engagements.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 17:55):I think Thorsten's comments miss the point. As multiple people in this thread have pointed out, all of us here have wildly different opinions, yet all of us are capable of maintaining a social filter in order to keep up professional decorum. I think that's just the reality of existing on the internet.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 17:56):And I don't think it has anything to do with which side of the political spectrum you are on. If Mike Shulman was on the far left, and responded to that PR with an anti-capitalist rant where he said that the singular "they" is a ploy by the bourgeois to suppress the working-class masses... it would have been just as inappropriate, and I say this as someone who is to the left-of-centre of the political spectrum.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 18:02):At the end of the day, If Mike Shulman's political opinions are so extreme that he loses any awareness of professional boundaries, and these opinions start influencing his decisions in his professional life, such as whether to accept an edit to a book or how he behaves towards his own grad student, then it's pretty clear that he's a liability as a speaker, and I don't blame the seminar organisers for not wanting him to speak at this moment.
John Baez (Apr 14 2022 at 18:04):What I'm curious about is whether Shulman will be permanently excluded from future HoTT events. Or maybe only until he delivers some sort of formal apology?
I think it's hard, once some HoTT conference organizers have decided to exclude him, to simply let him back in. If they try, there will probably be a massive firestorm of complaint.
Steve Awodey (Apr 14 2022 at 18:12):John Baez said:
What I'm curious about is whether Shulman will be permanently excluded from future HoTT events. Or maybe only until he delivers some sort of formal apology?
I think it's hard, once some HoTT conference organizers have decided to exclude him, to simply let him back in. If they try, there will probably be a massive firestorm of complaint.
I have to point out that Mike already has issued a formal apology.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 18:15):John Baez said:
What I'm curious about is whether Shulman will be permanently excluded from future HoTT events. Or maybe only until he delivers some sort of formal apology?
I think it's hard, once some HoTT conference organizers have decided to exclude him, to simply let him back in. If they try, there will probably be a massive firestorm of complaint.
I think that's a good question. Are you back on Twitter now, John? If so, you might have some insight for how to best handle this.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 18:15):I think the absolute worst way would be to double down and start picking fights with even more people. And I say this from experience, as I actually ended up in an argument with someone the year you left twitter, because that person kept accusing the students (who were upset with your joke) of being stasis, and when I - to the best of my ability - suggested a more diplomatic approach, I got called a stasi as well. So, erm, I strongly advise not doing that.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 18:28):Steve Awodey said:
John Baez said:
What I'm curious about is whether Shulman will be permanently excluded from future HoTT events. Or maybe only until he delivers some sort of formal apology?
I think it's hard, once some HoTT conference organizers have decided to exclude him, to simply let him back in. If they try, there will probably be a massive firestorm of complaint.
I have to point out that Mike already has issued a formal apology - that's what makes this decision so outrageous, in my opinion. It is a needless fanning of the embers of a fire that had burned out.
I am sorry, Steve, and I say this with the most sincerity and no intention of picking a fight with you, but I'll repeat what I've said on twitter - that wasn't an apology by any measure of the term, unless you define as an apology any sentence that has the word "sorry" in it.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 18:28):Personally, the people who know me here will attest that I am pretty good at talking between political lines, and given that I hold Mike Shulman in the highest regard as a logician (I've read his notes on categorical logic cover-to-cover multiple times), I would normally be ecstatic to offer any insight I can for how he could best do damage control of the situation.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 18:28):Unfortunately, as it turns out, Mike Shulman finds me personally 'uncomfortable' by virtue of me being trans. So I will pass on offering any concrete advice on this occasion. But the offer is valid to any of my friends here who are to the right of centre - if you ever feel worried about being "cancelled", I will happily offer any support that I can.
John Baez (Apr 14 2022 at 18:32):@Zanzi wrote:
If so, you might have some insight for how to best handle this.
Actually I have no idea how to handle it. I expect that the exchange just now between Steve and you is a tiny sample of the kind of conversation we'll be seeing in the months to come - often in much more heated forms.
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 20:11):Ah, now that put a smile on my face.
If Steve and me - two people with some of the most diametrically opposed perspectives on this situation - can maintain a somewhat level-headed conversation with each other, then maybe there's hope for communication on the internet after all! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Valeria de Paiva (Apr 14 2022 at 23:08):well, I think I will just post here Eugenia Cheng's talk in 2019
https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/Category+Theory+July+2019+Eugenia+Cheng+Public+Lecture/1_5hy0j4ne
There's a sense in which "category theory makes connections that help us understand the reasons for many disagreements in life"
John has a cameo appearance
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 23:22):Oh, I was there!
Zanzi (Apr 14 2022 at 23:23):Eugenia also made a great twitter thread on this topic, so I feel it's appropriate to share it here:
https://twitter.com/DrEugeniaCheng/status/1514679165110341637?s=20&t=HzM6Qbg6ohhrWzx7IHNbJQ
I am appalled by the non-inclusivity that has been pushed by some mathematicians, but I'm afraid I wasn't very surprised by this specific example. https://twitter.com/astradiol/status/1513963071156326402
- Dr Eugenia Cheng --no advice please-- (@DrEugeniaCheng) Jules Hedges (Apr 15 2022 at 09:52):John Baez said:
What I'm curious about is whether Shulman will be permanently excluded from future HoTT events. Or maybe only until he delivers some sort of formal apology?
I think it's hard, once some HoTT conference organizers have decided to exclude him, to simply let him back in. If they try, there will probably be a massive firestorm of complaint.
Time will tell, but I wouldn't predict this - presumably the field isn't run by a shadowy left-wing cabal but rather, as usual, individual event organisers will use their individual judgement. There's the question of whether there'll be a "firestorm of complaint" and, if so, whether most event organisers will give into it. Time will tell, but I'll predict not
Jules Hedges (Apr 15 2022 at 09:57):Speaking for myself, I also hope this doesn't happen. We still have science to do, and my experience of trial-by-internet-mob is it usually backfires horribly and ends up hurting everyone. Speaking as an event organiser, I've never had to make this kind of judgement and I hope that it says that way, but if I ever have to, I would wish to be left alone to make the judgement myself
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 15:52):Zanzi said:
And I don't think it has anything to do with which side of the political spectrum you are on. If Mike Shulman was on the far left, and responded to that PR with an anti-capitalist rant where he said that the singular "they" is a ploy by the bourgeois to suppress the working-class masses... it would have been just as inappropriate, and I say this as someone who is to the left-of-centre of the political spectrum.
I'm pretty sure that in this case nothing would have happened. If this is your standard, I have an almost kilometric list of people constantly intertwining their research output with political ideology. Even more funnily, even if someone would complain I'm pretty sure people would laugh about it.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 15:55):Jules Hedges said:
Speaking for myself, I also hope this doesn't happen. We still have science to do, and my experience of trial-by-internet-mob is it usually backfires horribly and ends up hurting everyone. Speaking as an event organiser, I've never had to make this kind of judgement and I hope that it says that way, but if I ever have to, I would wish to be left alone to make the judgement myself
Trial-by-mob is funny, because everything turns into a big deal until it is not anymore. People just forget and go on with their life. The internet mob is basically a chaotic swarm of locusts that almost never remembers and almost never looks back. ...Which makes any cry for justice in the internet sphere even more paradoxical in my opinion. And yes, in case you are asking I am utterly pessimistic when it comes to the future of our species, I do not believe social media politics will do anyone any better, ever.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 15:59):Basically, to me everything looks like a short term goal in the age of social internet. Either you obtain results immediately or you don't, as you will gradually lose the interest of the crowd. It's literally like protests. If prices go up and people swarm the streets and break stuff long enough, maybe the government will do something to calm everyone down. If people go home before the government acts, most likely the government won't. The internet is like this, but on steroids. ...Which basically flattens any possible debate about everything to its immediate consequences. But when it comes to complicated issues this turns very quickly into a curse. :confused:
Jules Hedges (Apr 15 2022 at 16:12):Fabrizio Genovese said:
If this is your standard, I have an almost kilometric list of people constantly intertwining their research output with political ideology. Even more funnily, even if someone would complain I'm pretty sure people would laugh about it.
To some extent this depends on where it's being written. I think I know the kinds of thing you're referring to, which on people's personal Twitters I consider fine, but if it was written on this Zulip I'd consider it off-topic, and I would definitely call out if it was in a paper I was reviewing
But yes, there's lots of truth in this
I'm reminded of Conor's anecdote about how he gave a talk and invisibly built up to the punchline "Unification is the process of turning orange things green"
Jules Hedges (Apr 15 2022 at 16:41):Jules Hedges said:
Apparently people still don't get what this is about, so let me be 100% explicit. By framing this as a discussion to be had, you are saying that there might be a possibility that grammatical correctness is more important than who somebody is as a human being. You are doing this in a professional space, and possibly as a person of authority in that space. And this is the important point: you are doing it in full view of the human beings in question
Nevertheless it comes back in the end to this kind of thing. Obviously I don't expect everyone to have the "right political opinions", that way lies madness. Believing in democracy means believing that it is a good thing that there are people who disagree with you. However I do expect everyone to treat everyone else a certain way. Nobody's political beliefs give them the right to do certain things, and intentionally mis-gendering people is one of those.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 18:42):I agree, and you are rising a good point: There is a great difference between what people think and their behavior. As I said, on some issues I identify as conservative and my opinion would be pretty much orthogonal to the opinions of many people here and in academia in general. Still, I do not think my opinions allow or justify me to behave inappropriately in a given context. I always strive to treat people as kindly as I possibly can and I really do my best to make everyone feel welcome. Yet, I have to ask: Is this enough? To me, it feels like the issue here is not necessarily behavioral. I've seen countless tweets and topics everywhere that could be summarized as "you are not allowed to have a given opinion". This feels very different from "you are not allowed to behave in a way that makes other people feel excluded", which I believe is what code of conducts try to fix. In a nutshell, living in the age of internet for a conservative person feels like a constant "reductio ad Hitlerum" where everything you say can be considered as arbitrarily close to fascism. The way you behave feels totally marginal. I do not think this is right for two reasons: First, it is a gross approximation of a person's beliefs. Second, the way you behave with other people doesn't seem to matter. What matters is if the opinions you have are deemed acceptable or not by the majority of the internet crowd. Personally, I find the idea of living in a world like this repulsive.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 18:48):Jules Hedges said:
Fabrizio Genovese said:
If this is your standard, I have an almost kilometric list of people constantly intertwining their research output with political ideology. Even more funnily, even if someone would complain I'm pretty sure people would laugh about it.
To some extent this depends on where it's being written. I think I know the kinds of thing you're referring to, which on people's personal Twitters I consider fine, but if it was written on this Zulip I'd consider it off-topic, and I would definitely call out if it was in a paper I was reviewing
But yes, there's lots of truth in this
I'm reminded of Conor's anecdote about how he gave a talk and invisibly built up to the punchline "Unification is the process of turning orange things green"
Man, my calculus course of notes were literally decorated with hammers and sickles all over. It was the same in my high school and the same in my middle school. I cannot say anything about my elementary school, probably I was too little to notice any element of communist indoctrination back then. When I look around I don't think it's much better now. Maybe I've grown up with the wrong expectations at this point -- that is, if I enrolled in a Math degree I don't see why I should be exposed to citations by Mao and Marx, which is what literally happened to me. Point is, I didn't say anything, I just thought "Ok, evidently the universe is perma-fucked" and I kept going with my life. But yes, since we are bringing this stuff up I'd like to remind everyone that this stuff happened, it keeps happening, and it is somehow the norm in the Italian education system.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 20:28):Jules Hedges said:
Nobody's political beliefs give them the right to do certain things, and intentionally mis-gendering people is one of those.
I think this nails the issue at hand, thank you. And I want to say some words on this topic, because a few people still seem to be unsure about whether this situation is really about beliefs or actions, and it's probably the key issue to address if, as @John Baez says we want to move past it.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 20:28):But before that - and I'm sorry to be blunt - but can I ask everyone to please try to stay on topic more? I don't know when this turned into a debate about conservative rights, but as far as I know Mike Shulman never claimed to be a conservative, so it kind of feels like off topic soapboxing about personal grievances with the wider internet.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 20:28):At least for me, a very important maxim that I follow is that when I make an accusation, I am always prepared to justify it with relevant examples (because I agree with @Steve Awodey when he says that we need to avoid unfair blanket accusations).
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 20:28):So it's really weird for me to hear sentences like "being a conservative, I keep getting accused of being Hitler", because... is that a thing that actually happens in this community? And if not, then maybe... it's not something relevant to the topic of gender inclusivity in category theory?
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 20:30):I am sorry for the harsh words, but I want to remind everyone the most important issue at hand, which is - as @John Baez aptly pointed out - whether we as a community can repair this situation. And hijacking this thread and turning it into some kind of culture war soapbox is not going to help anyone do that
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 21:07):Zanzi said:
But before that - and I'm sorry to be blunt - but can I ask everyone to please try to stay on topic more? I don't know when this turned into a debate about conservative rights, but as far as I know Mike Shulman never claimed to be a conservative, so it kind of feels like off topic soapboxing about personal grievances with the wider internet.
If it becomes - as it is - a topic about present and future code of conduct drafting then everyone's grievances are pretty much on topic.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 21:17):The conversation started with Jules saying he will not accept any kind of gender-nonbinary-noninclusive behavior in this space, which I guess everyone here agrees with. What we do not necessarily agree upon is the definition of behavior. If that wasn't the case, everyone would have said "cool" and there would be no conversation at all. Instead we are having a conversation, that it is very clearly steering towards the broader question of "how should we behave in these situations? And what kind of behavior should warrant a reaction from the community"? I think, then, that me asking "are my behaviors and my political ideas considered to be synonyms?" is a pretty damn good question to ask.
...About examples, with names and surnames, I have plenty. As I already repeated, for very obvious reason, I am absolutely not willing to go into such details in this venue.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 15 2022 at 21:19):So, to be equally blunt, the way I see it is that the 'Mike affaire' has just been the spark igniting a much broader discussion, both here and within the HoTT community.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:12):Jules Hedges said:
To some extent this depends on where it's being written. I think I know the kinds of thing you're referring to, which on people's personal Twitters I consider fine, but if it was written on this Zulip I'd consider it off-topic, and I would definitely call out if it was in a paper I was reviewing
Yes, exactly. I don't want people to think that I'm picking on conservatives specifically, there are some far-left people in the field who I'm just as uncomfortable with as with the transphobes. I'm an Eastern European, so when I see self-proclaimed Stalinists or Leninists, I can't tell you how offensive I find that. Especially given what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now.
But while those people are pretty active on Twitter, they don't bring their politics into PR requests of projects that I follow. And if people as extreme as that are somehow able to filter themselves and maintain professional decorum, I don't see what the problem is with the rest of us having a bit of a filter too, when our beliefs are much mode moderate.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:23):All of us work with people whose believes differ from ours every day. I'm an atheist but I work with Christians and Muslims. I am an Eastern European but I work with Russians. I like pineapple on my pizza but I have Italian friends.
So if all of us can work with each other even if we disagree on questions as fundamental as "Was the world created by an omnipotent entity or did it appear by itself?" then why is Mike Shulman unable to maintain a non-hostile work environment with his own PhD student because he disagrees with her over something as trivial as pronoun use?
fosco (Apr 15 2022 at 23:47):I'm sorry but if your Italian "friends" didn't set up an intervention to eradicate your heretic customs, they were not friends.
Pineapple, yuck. :grinning:
Ryan Wisnesky (Apr 15 2022 at 23:51):Speculation about Mike's motives is hearsay. 'Hostile work environment' has a legal meaning. This entire conversation may be on the public record because of cross-referenced tweets to the media. I recommend limiting the subject of discussion to those areas where self-evident technical progress can be made (writing consensus codes of conduct, etc)
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:55):That's a good point, Ryan. I am sorry for misusing terminology when I myself have been arguing to be more precise
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:56):What wording do you suggest for this situation? Mike has said that trans people make him uncomfortable, and his PhD student has corroborated that this was an issue in their interactions.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:56):I am not speculating over Mikes "motives", only his actions. Remember, we're discussing behaviour, not opinions.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:56):If we are to discuss codes of conduct, we need to be absolutely clear over what behaviours are unacceptable.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:57):Calling someone an 'abnormality', that should be against the CoC, do you agree?
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:57):And yes, this conversation will be on public record. That's okay, as many people here have pointed out, do not say anything that you are uncomfortable with.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:57):I am happy for everything I say to be on public record, and I am happy for any of it to be challenged. If I am wrong, such as when I misused the term 'hostile work environment', then I will admit so.
Zanzi (Apr 15 2022 at 23:59):But I will not apologise for calling Mike a bigot or a transphobe. If you call someone an abnormality based on their physical characteristics, you are a bigot. If you say that X makes you uncomfortable, then I am allowed to call you an X-phobe. And Mike said that trans people act in a way that makes him uncomfortable, hence is is a transphobe.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 00:01):"Heaarsay" also has a legal meaning btw, and we are not in court, Ryan.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 00:02):I'm sorry to say, but freedom of speech goes both ways. If Mike is allowed to speculate over my motives for supporting a grammatical change, and say that I am "part of a movement to abolish the biological fact of gender", I am sure as day allowed to speculate on his motives for saying that
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 00:08):I will also not apologise for liking pineapple. Yes, my food choices are controversial. Alas, this is my burden to bear :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Tim Campion (Apr 16 2022 at 03:16):Fabrizio Genovese said:
Zanzi said:
But before that - and I'm sorry to be blunt - but can I ask everyone to please try to stay on topic more? I don't know when this turned into a debate about conservative rights, but as far as I know Mike Shulman never claimed to be a conservative, so it kind of feels like off topic soapboxing about personal grievances with the wider internet.
If it becomes - as it is - a topic about present and future code of conduct drafting then everyone's grievances are pretty much on topic.
Please, if you view this thread as a forum to air your own grievances about codes of conduct, I beg you to be more specific about what these grievances are. I find it counterproductive to assert that one has grievances, but to refuse to specify what those grievances are. In particular, I find it insufficiently specific to say "many codes of conduct are skewed against me" without specifying in what way they are skewed against you. At this point, I feel that your unspecified grievances are a distraction from the matter at hand.
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 09:48):Point of order: I previously believed that the #general: values stream was intentionally not included in the public archive (https://mattecapu.github.io/ct-zulip-archive/), but I just checked and discovered that it in fact is included
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 09:51):I think there's a good argument for not archiving this whole stream, although it might be a bit too late for that... possibly worth a separate discussion over on meta?
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 09:54):Ryan Wisnesky said:
This entire conversation may be on the public record because of cross-referenced tweets to the media.
Could you say which tweets in particular? I wasn't aware of this and it sounds like something relevant to everyone in the thread
Ryan Wisnesky (Apr 16 2022 at 13:25):There's a tweet to Carlo and FIRE (a media org that litigates on behalf of free speech) on April 13.
IMO, if the values stream was started as private but accidentally made public, that alone is a good argument for re-starting the stream in a way that actually will be private, or re-starting it in a way known to be public from the get-go.
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 13:43):Hopefully nobody thought this place is truly private, after all anybody can sign up to the forum with minimal effort. But apologies to anyone who didn't realise this was web-facing (including myself!!)
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 13:48):#general: meta > public-facing archive Opinions on this matter go here
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 13:56):Jules Hedges said:
I think there's a good argument for not archiving this whole stream, although it might be a bit too late for that... possibly worth a separate discussion over on meta?
Hmmm, I can very much see your point, and I understand the very real concerns that others have mentioned in this thread before, but personally I would be very weary of saying that we should "archive everything, except this very important thread on our values and harm prevention", especially now that it's been public for days now.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 13:56):Everyone here knows that this is a public forum, and many others have pointed out that they already take steps to avoid saying things they're uncomfortable with being attached to their name.
But nuking this thread from public would be a disservice to those of us who are willing to risk our reputations and publicly stand behind our views in support of trans and non-binary students.
And it will be a disservice to those trans and non-binary students who come to this community in the future and have no way to trust that decisions about the code of conduct are made transparently and openly.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 13:56):As @dfarrell42 said on github
There are a huge number of trans and gender non-conforming people interested or involved in HoTT or adjacent fields who are watching this comment section very closely right now, and the way it plays out is going to have an enormous and long lasting impact on them and the community.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 13:56):And make no mistake about it, while the view that Mike Shulman is a bigot may be non-controversial in some small pockets of leftie math twitter, it is absolutely controversial here in a community of his closest collaborators.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 13:56):And yet I am able to state this view openly and directly - even to people as influential as Steve Awodley, who has been Mike's mentor for many years - because I am prepared to defend my view if challenged, and because I am willing to accept the consequences of being misunderstood.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 13:56):So I have little sympathy for people who complain that their "very moderate" views are repeatedly misconstrued as extremist, and yet play coy and refuse to specify what those "very moderate" views are, even as they say this to a forum of some of the most reasonable and level-headed people that I've met.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 13:56):Because, and let me be blunt here, if someone complains that their "very moderate" views result in them being called Hitler, then either this person is unable to read the room and articulate their "very moderate" views in a way that doesn't make them sound like an extremist, or they're unwilling to accept the consequences of the fact that their "very moderate" views might not be seen by other people as being moderate at all.
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 15:14):Mod comment: I'm thinking to split this thread after some point into one with a different name. I'm quite happy with this thread (compared to some others we've had in this stream, which do have a habit of going off the rails), this is purely for organisational reasons
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 15:16):It organically turned into a broader discussion about freedom of speech and freedom of politics and professional ethics, which deserves to have a thread indicating what it is
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 15:17):I definitely think that there are two conversations here muddled into one.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 15:17):Personally I feel quite strongly about the topic of gender inclusivity, and specific behaviours that happened within this community that run against that.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 15:18):I'm not really interested in discussing freedom of politics in the abstract though and I am quite upset that some people chose to hijack this conversation and make it about that. I have gotten several PMs about this too, so it is not just me.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 15:28):A lot of people have come to defend Mike, but I want to point out that while I have been very explicit about which of Mike's actions I condemn, his supporters have preferred to speak in the abstract, saying that they support "expressing differences of opinion".
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 15:28):So I want to challenge those people to instead be specific, and say exactly which of his opinions do you support, and where he should express them.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 15:28):Because I have a feeling that if you were to say "I support Mike Shulman in calling intersex people 'abnormalities' in the HoTT book github" then you will have much less of a leg to stand on than if you claim you support "differences of opinion".
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 16 2022 at 16:25):Zanzi said:
So I have little sympathy for people who complain that their "very moderate" views are repeatedly misconstrued as extremist, and yet play coy and refuse to specify what those "very moderate" views are, even as they say this to a forum of some of the most reasonable and level-headed people that I've met.
Because, and let me be blunt here, if someone complains that their "very moderate" views result in them being called Hitler, then either this person is unable to read the room and articulate their "very moderate" views in a way that doesn't make them sound like an extremist, or they're unwilling to accept the consequences of the fact that their "very moderate" views might not be seen by other people as being moderate at all.
Please, stop claiming the moral high ground. And no, since you are clearly pointing at me I do not allow you to be blunt. Instead, I'd like to point the attention of moderators to this behavior to this.
Fabrizio Genovese (Apr 16 2022 at 16:26):Zanzi said:
So I want to challenge those people to instead be specific, and say exactly which of his opinions do you support, and where he should express them.
I won't bite. Instead I'll do what I should have done long ago; that is,I will mute this topic and won't comment anymore. Feel free to keep going.
Jules Hedges (Apr 16 2022 at 17:10):Jules Hedges said:
I'm quite happy with this thread (compared to some others we've had in this stream, which do have a habit of going off the rails)
I might have jinxed it.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 18:05):Jules Hedges said:
Jules Hedges said:
I'm quite happy with this thread (compared to some others we've had in this stream, which do have a habit of going off the rails)
I might have jinxed it.
I'll admit that I've lost my level-headedness.
Fab and I have a history of arguing on other social networks, and his last message to me was very explicit in stating that he doesn't want to interact with me again (along with calling me a host of other expletives). So while I wasn't bothered when me and him were addressing each other's points indirectly, I was very taken aback when he started tagging me over and over, to the point of having to mute him.
I am sorry in my part in bringing this conversation downhill; I will take a break from it as well, and I hope it manages to return to a more positive note going forward
Todd Trimble (Apr 16 2022 at 19:44):Zanzi said:
And yet I am able to state this view openly and directly - even to people as influential as Steve Awodley, who has been Mike's mentor for many years - because I am prepared to defend my view if challenged, and because I am willing to accept the consequences of being misunderstood.
Where did you get the idea that Steve Awodey was Mike's mentor? News to me.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 20:06):Honestly, I vaguely remember reading something of that sort on Mike's Wikipedia, but I might have misremembered. If so, my sincerest apologies for muddying the issue.
Todd Trimble (Apr 16 2022 at 20:14):You must have been thinking of the multi-million grant that was awarded to Steve Awodey as head of a team of investigators into HoTT, but that is very different from being Mike's mentor, in my understanding of that word.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 20:21):Ah, yes, I've just checked Wikipedia and it does say
Shulman was part of a team headed by Steve Awodey that was awarded a $7.5M grant from the Air Force Research Laboratory for homotopy type theory.[7]
... not sure how I got the mentorship idea out of this, but I do remember reading this. :speechless: I think I'll stick to discussing math and pizza for the next few days.
Zanzi (Apr 16 2022 at 21:06):I'll say one last thing before I go, as I feel it's important to explain why I still feel so strongly about this issue, and why I don't believe that these embers are dying out any time soon.
We've talked about the distinction between disagreeing with someone's actions versus disagreeing with their opinions, and this situation is actually a pretty good case study on this. You might remember that there were two HoTT authors with similarly bigoted opinions in the original github PR. But only one of them has been actively discussed after the PR closed down.
I don't know if anyone here has seen Dan Grayson's twitter account before, but I tried to scroll down his timeline for over a year in order to find a single math tweet, and I couldn't. It was non-stop anti-trans rhetoric. And I'm not saying this to attack Dan, but instead to point out that if people really cared about opinions so much, then why isn't Dan getting as much backlash as Mike?
As far as I can see, it's because Dan's opinions begin and end with his twitter feed. So they really are opinions, not actions. And the only time when his opinions spilled over into his professional life was when he made those comments on the PR, and we've seen how that went.
And when this incident began it really seemed like Mike was in the same boat, just another academic with some unsavoury opinions. But as the thread progressed, it came out that he actually has a trans grad student, and the fact that she is trans has been a source of majour ongoing conflict between them. And that really re-contextualises everything that Mike said in that thread, whether it was about trans people making him uncomfortable, or Mike not wanting to change his language for people with 'abnormalities'.
I myself did not know about Mike's grad student before her post, but it turned out that I have a few acquaintances in common with her (it's a small field after all). And it's not my place to share anything, but I get the impression that the situation is quite ugly, and there's a possibility that it might not be over any time soon.
So the reason why people are still so angry with Mike, and have largely forgotten Dan, is that Mike is actually acting on his opinions in a way that is harmful to a person he has authority over. And the people angry with Mike aren't some faceless Twitter mob, but actual people in our field, mostly grad students.
Personally, I am not trying to 'cancel' Mike, and I look forward to both him returning as a speaker when this situation gets resolved, and to reading his upcoming book. But if this situation gets worse, and his student drops out as a result of this conflict, then ... I have a strong feeling that a lot of people will not forgive Mike for his role in that. And I would agree with them, and would maintain that if this happens then Mike Shulman should not be put in charge of another PhD student ever again.
Eduardo Ochs (Apr 17 2022 at 05:01):I have a slightly different view on that.
Last year we had something similar in the Brazilian Logic mailing list. One person asked how other people were dealing with gender-neutral language, that is much trickier to use in Portuguese than in English, and several people freaked out and started a transphobic rant together. I decided to attack one person in particular - a senior logician, called José Carlos Cifuentes, that apparently is very very important and very very respected in both Brazil and in the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America... I say "apparently" because I've never read his papers. Anyway: I sent an e-mail to the mailing list in which I said that he was treating gender-neutral language as something that _had to be_ ridiculed; he was ignoring all the material that other people had shared about the discussion on gender-neutral language, that has been going on for several years, and treating it as something idiotic - and everyone who had been following these discussions could see clearly the patterns he was reproducing, his arrogance, and his blind spots... and I said that what was going to happen was that in all the future events of the community all the people in the newer generations would look at him not as a great logician but as "oh no, here's that stupid old guy again".
Once he was attacked in this way the other transphobes stopped.
I guess that many people both here and on github decided to focus on Mike by reasonings similar to the one that I had... people are discussing attitudes and behaviors that can be discussed both in abstract/generic cases and in particular cases; and in the moments in which they feel that it is better to discuss particular cases they think that it is better to discuss Mike, and treat Dan as something secondary - and as less interesting, and as a degenerate case.
Eduardo Ochs (Apr 17 2022 at 05:07):For the sake of completeness, here is a link to the main thread of that discussion the Brazilian Logic mailing list... but it's in Portuguese.
David Michael Roberts (Apr 17 2022 at 06:36):I thought I might point out that before writing the longer post explaining his views in detail, Mike suggested a non-exclusionary compromise wording, to use "they" as a plural. This in itself may be seen as exclusive, given that the pull request was to use singular they—which, I personally wouldn't have even blinked at. Maybe not worth much, but let us at least give Mike the benefit of discussing his actions accurately.
David Michael Roberts (Apr 17 2022 at 11:49):To clarify: in complete isolation, both the singular and plural they phrasings are non-exclusionary; but in context it's clear that the plural version is indeed a compromise, rejecting singular they, and one that I'm sure many would feel to be giving too much ground.
Ian Coley (Apr 17 2022 at 17:00):David Michael Roberts said:
I thought I might point out that before writing the longer post explaining his views in detail, Mike suggested a non-exclusionary compromise wording, to use "they" as a plural. This in itself may be seen as exclusive, given that the pull request was to use singular they—which, I personally wouldn't have even blinked at. Maybe not worth much, but let us at least give Mike the benefit of discussing his actions accurately.
Complaining about the singular 'they' is often a dog whistle for transphobic beliefs. I am wary of those who argue more fervently for the prescriptivist use of pronouns than the rights of trans people.
David Michael Roberts (Apr 17 2022 at 23:39):@Ian Coley I know this, which is why I clarified that the context matters, and that "many would feel [it] to be giving too much ground." But it is worth spelling out the why, which I neglected to do (thinking it well-known here).
David Michael Roberts (Apr 18 2022 at 11:45):On reflection, I'm not quite sure whatever point (if any) I was trying to make is adding anything to the discussion. Apologies for the distraction! Mine is not the voice people need to hear, here, in any case.
Tim Campion (Apr 18 2022 at 12:23):One point that Mike made in the linked github discussion was:
... I think when discussing a hypothethical indeterminate person it's standard to assume that person is normal in all ways that are irrelevant to the issue at hand.... It's sensible and polite to avoid unnecessarily calling attention to the disability of any particular person, but when discussing a generic indeterminate person, we wouldn't get anywhere if we had to phrase everything in ways that included all possible sorts of abnormalities that an arbitrary person might have.
This reminds me of a personal experience, so it's now story time. A few years ago there was a discussion group I participated in, generally on a weekly basis. One thing we did each week was some sort of icebreaker activity. One week, the premise of the activity was that everybody sat around and made eye contact with one another for an uncomfortably long time (the consensus ended up being that this was a weird activity and nobody wanted to do it again, but that's beside the point). The issue was that one member of the discussion group -- let's call her Alice -- was visually impaired (legally blind, I believe). In the course of introducing the activity, the facilitator -- let's call him Bob -- actually acknowledged this -- at one point turning to Alice and saying "You probably won't be able to participate". But the group went ahead with the activity regardless, with Alice sitting it out. I think she ended up leaving the room, and only after a time did somebody go check on her. For most of the participants, the rest of the evening proceeded as usual. (I'm missing a few details of how exactly this went down, because I was actually absent the week this occurred, and found out about it the next week when we spent our time discussing what had happened the previous week.)
Alice was extremely distressed by the experience on a few counts. In an ideal world, when Bob realized the activity would exclude Alice, he would have cancelled the activity or substituted an alternative. In an ideal world, when Bob pointed out publicly that Alice wouldn't be able to participate, somebody else would have suggested that the activity be cancelled or substituted for. In an ideal world, when Alice left the room, everybody would have realized right away that she was likely upset, and would have interrupted the evening to support her. Alas, this was not an ideal world.
The next week, as mentioned, we spent most of the evening discussing what had happened. It was a productive discussion, but there was a disconnect. Somehow, there was still a lack of empathy for Alice's experience. Some participants continued to stress points like the fact that they didn't end up enjoying the whole activity anyway. I think this kind of missed the point (and it reminds me of my own comments above where I said that I don't like gendered pronouns anyway -- I think I missed the point there). One point that Alice came back to a few times was that a central reason that the whole experience was so traumatizing was that she cared deeply about this community. Otherwise she might have brushed it all off, but because she was invested, it was a real gut punch to see the group not only exclude her, but then proceed to minimize her experience at every level, even as they sincerely tried to appreciate what had happened. It was not long after that I moved away and left behind this discussion group, but I think I have the impression that Alice may have ended up leaving the community altogether -- even though that was an outcome which nobody wanted.
I believe the central reason for this empathy gap was that Alice was classified as "abnormal". It is indeed standard in many contexts to assume that others are "normal". I believe this standard state of affairs is often problematic. It can lead to precisely this sort of empathy gap.
Bringing things back to the matter at hand, I think this story is pretty relevant. One thing that people participating in internet discussion forums and people writing books have in common is that they write for large audiences which can be difficult or impossible to visualize. I believe the readership of a book or an internet message board are communities which are relevantly analogous to the small in-person discussion group in my story. There are all sorts of people whom I might consider "abnormal" who might be part of such a community. I believe that we should strive to be inclusive of all these people in a way which is relevantly similar to the way my discussion group should have striven to include Alice.
Tim Campion (Apr 18 2022 at 12:24):So I propose the following rule of thumb as regards inclusivity of all sorts here on this zulip:
When posting here, please speak as though any member of the zulip might be in the room, observing the discussion with the possibility of joining in as a participant.
In particular, if the way you are speaking would be impolite or exclusionary in the case that you'd said it in a face-to-face setting with some member of this zulip, then that is problematic.
If somebody points out that the way you are speaking doesn't meet this standard, or reasonably might not meet this standard, it's not a big deal if you acknowledge this and modify the way you are speaking. And if you need additional guidance, it's okay to ask for that too.
If this happens, please try to learn from the experience, and attempt to continue to take into account this aspect of your audience here in the future.
If there's some question about inclusivity which requires you to manually go through the list of zulip members and ask "is this person of type X?" then you're doing it wrong.
Note that this is in some sense a higher standard than the standards of in-person communication, because it asks you to consider a somewhat open-ended audience of which you'll never have full knowledge. Writing on the internet (like writing in a book) is not the same as in-person communication. It's harder. (But it's a skill which one can learn through practice, with friendly feedback from others).
Tim Campion (Apr 18 2022 at 12:25):Moreover, I believe that when writing for an audience of mathematicians, about an "indeterminate mathematician", implicitly I am generally inviting the reader to imagine themselves in the place of this "indeterminate mathematician". In that sense, my "indeterminate mathematician" variable should permit the substitution of any of my readers. In particular, in Mike's example it would indeed be exclusionary to assume that my reader is ambulatory! I agree it's not as easy to meet this sort of standard as it is to speak one-on-one with a particular person. But I think we can get pretty far while striving to meet this standard. (In fact, ultimately I think we will go further this way!)
Tim Campion (Apr 18 2022 at 12:35):Tim Campion said:
So I propose the following rule of thumb as regards inclusivity of all sorts here on this zulip:
When posting here, please speak as though any member of the zulip might be in the room, observing the discussion with the possibility of joining in as a participant.
If somebody points out that the way you are speaking doesn't meet this standard, or reasonably might not meet this standard, it's not a big deal if you acknowledge this and modify the way you are speaking.
Note that this is in some sense a higher standard than the standards of in-person communication, because it asks you to consider an audience of which you don't have full knowledge. Writing on the internet (like writing in a book) is not the same as in-person communication. It's harder. (But it's a skill which one can learn through practice, with friendly feedback from others).
One immediate potentially problematic case which comes to mind is the case where somebody is in the room, watching a discussion between two people, but doesn't have the technical background to follow the discussion precisely. The standard I'm proposing doesn't mean you have to explain everything you say in a way intelligible to somebody with minimal background. But it does mean that you should be aware of the possibility that somebody might ask you to fill in some technical context, just as if they were in a physical room observing your discussion and wishing to follow in more detail. Just as in this case, there will be a balance to be struck between explaining some context to certain people while perhaps assuming such context with others -- and just as in the in-person scenario, there are various solutions if there's a big gap in background between different people in the room. Among the possible solutions are that such a discussion might split into a few different discussions, etc.
Oscar Cunningham (Apr 18 2022 at 12:54):How accessible are the HoTT book and this Zulip for the blind and partially sighted? I imagine that screen readers interact badly with latex?
Tim Campion (Apr 18 2022 at 13:25):Oscar Cunningham said:
How accessible are the HoTT book and this Zulip for the blind and partially sighted? I imagine that screen readers interact badly with latex?
That's a good question. Pontryagin was lucky to have a mother who dedicated herself to serving as his personal screen-reader, and worked out lots of customizations for mathematical notation that she didn't necessarily understand. I don't know what the state of affairs is today.
Tim Campion (Apr 18 2022 at 13:32):The idea behind my proposed "rule of thumb" is that some of the disconnect we see in these sorts of internet discussions comes from the abstractness of the concept of inclusivity. The idea behind my proposal is to remedy this by reducing to what I think is an easier case: the case of in-person inclusivity. For example, we might debate in the abstract notions of pronouns, but I generally observe that even people who object in principle to the use of certain pronouns will find a way to be polite, even friendly, when they are actually in the physical presence of a person whose pronouns they might refuse to use in the abstract. But maybe I'm putting too many eggs in the basket of "people are willing and able to engage in this exercise of imagining person X in front of them and thinking through how they would interact with them inclusively and with politeness".
David Egolf (Apr 18 2022 at 16:49):Some related thoughts...Language patterns like "normal" and "abnormal" are probably not the best we can do when referring to people. If I'm one of the "abnormal" people, I'll feel at least a bit marginalized by this language. This language makes it sounds like there is a core group of people in a community, and then there are other people at the fringes in some way. If we can, I think it's much better to use language that seeks to affirm and appreciate the value of everyone involved. Actually, I think communities becomes richer when there are people with a variety of experiences! So, if it is appropriate to make note of the differences between the people present, I think it is good to strive to do this in a way that recognizes that the existence of these differences is a strength of the community, not a weakness.
Joshua Meyers (Apr 18 2022 at 18:24):FWIW, I think the deeper problem is that people want to be normal. I don't want to be normal! I remember one of the things we (I and the people I knew) figured out in high school is that Weird is Good! Because "Weird is Good" is thoroughly ingrained in how I think, Mike referring to people's "abnormalities" didn't carry any sort of negative connotation in my idiolect, it just seemed to me that he was referring to personal characteristics that most people don't have (e.g. being non-ambulatory, since most people are not non-ambulatory). It was only after other people discussed what the word meant for them that I realized that it was a gaffe. I don't know whether Mike was intending the negative connotations, as this is the kind of thing which is impossible to communicate on the internet. If he did intend them, then he was being derogatory towards people with characteristics that most people don't have. If he didn't intend them, then he was merely being insensitive towards such people, as he should have known that to many of them "abnormalities" would have negative connotations.
Joshua Meyers (Apr 18 2022 at 18:27):If you are reading this and you have a personal characteristic that most people don't have (such as being super into math, or being trans, or being non-ambulatory) I want you to know that you should not feel bad about having this characteristic on account of it being rare!
Joshua Meyers (Apr 18 2022 at 18:32):If you are reading this and you have a personal characteristic that most people in the CT community don't have (such as leaning conservative, being trans, not having background in math, or caring about math for its practical uses rather than for its intrinsic significance) I also want you to know that you should not feel bad about having this characteristic on account of it being rare in this community!
Sean Gloumeau (Apr 19 2022 at 10:25):I don't think that's a deeper problem at all. I also don't think marginalized people want to be "normal". Instead, they want to be treated with the same dignity and respect as those seen as normal; when people say they wish they could be normal it's usually expressing a desire to avoid any kind of negative social effects caused by their difference. In any case, differences or rare characteristics typically don't lead to marginalization, so a lot of context of gender inclusivity is lost if we generalize to a discussion of being weird.
I really do appreciate the inclusive sentiment of the last three messages, just want to be sure that social issues (in this case, transphobia) are thought of in the right context and not in some general framework where important characteristics and properties of that particular social issue are lost
Joshua Meyers (Apr 19 2022 at 10:39):The reason I thought this was a deeper problem is that we view "abnormality" as pejorative. If we didn't view Weird as Bad, then nobody would take offense to "abnormality" any more than they would to a mention of a non-normal subgroup. Why don't you think so?
Joshua Meyers (Apr 19 2022 at 10:40):And point taken about the particularity of transphobia
David Egolf (Apr 19 2022 at 15:22):From my perspective, different words that broadly mean "uncommon" (or "weird" if you prefer) have different connotations. A word like "abnormal" reads to me as "uncommon and probably bad" while a word like "remarkable" reads to me as "uncommon and probably good". Although, of course, the way in which a word is used in context is also important, beyond whatever connotations it may have in isolation.
I appreciate the refocusing that Sean suggests on the particular topic of this thread.
John Baez (Apr 19 2022 at 18:46):Joshua Meyers said:
The reason I thought this was a deeper problem is that we view "abnormality" as pejorative. If we didn't view Weird as Bad, then nobody would take offense to "abnormality" any more than they would to a mention of a non-normal subgroup.
That's a nice goal to strive for, but in our world, the concept of "normality" is often used as a club for in-groups to bludgeon out-groups. If someone is putting you down by calling you "abnormal", you can't just pretend they're complimenting you - especially if they go ahead and then physically beat you up or kill you.
Simonas Tutlys (May 06 2022 at 05:57):Psychologists have studied normal,here's an easily-absorbed video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKJbp3QgLNY
In my opinion,instead of normality we should try shifting to Xdiversity - gender diversity,neurodiversity etc.