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Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#91

Post by nullsense »

runawaybottle wrote: post #38
lordnacho wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perhaps one of my biggest downside surprises about university. Although there were plenty of fun people to hang out with, there were very few people who had a seriousness about getting work done, along with a collaborative instinct. Maybe I was unlucky, but I'd thought that an Oxbridge college would yield a few people who could keep me focussed on the academics. And yes, in another world I would have brought…

Intellectualism hasn’t matured as Barbarism has (still going through refinement). Your gym partner is never going to even attempt to prove to you they are stronger, and you yourself won’t even care if they are (or vice versa). There’s a natural understanding of the physical, and mostly we as a society realize how futile it is to exert physical dominance on one another. So you are stronger, what are you going to do, b…

If you ever get the chance or make time to read Chimpanzee Politics it is uncanny just how closely the behaviors match that of humans.

Except you get to see it without any of the rationalizations that we make. You get the raw distillation of this behavior.

It'll never change.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#92

Post by runawaybottle »

lupire wrote: post #90
runawaybottle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectualism hasn’t matured as Barbarism has (still going through refinement). Your gym partner is never going to even attempt to prove to you they are stronger, and you yourself won’t even care if they are (or vice versa). There’s a natural understanding of the physical, and mostly we as a society realize how futile it is to exert physical dominance on one another. So you are stronger, what are you going to do, b…

What a bizarre claim. Physical competitiveness is a huge part of culture. You don't need to beat someot up to physically intimidate and dominate someone, and you don't need to mentally abuse someone to have a valuable experience in a relationship.

Physical dominance found many abstract gutters to empty into, and necessarily so. It was literally destroying the world with violence.

The Roman identity was literally built on conquering. It took a long time until we were able to say ‘yeah, why can’t this small little land mass be it’s own country?’. Why would a country have to fight for independence? Can you imagine that in today’s society? It’s absurd. Yet, many of our countries had to ... fight for independence. What kind of world was that? A world where dominance wasn’t an undercurrent?

Intellectual dominance hasn’t found socially acceptable gutters, it literally pays in society. Esports and video games is a band aid. The underlying trait is dominance. I can’t prove my thesis in two paragraphs I suppose, but you’ll have to forgive me for that.

Dominant behavior is dysfunctional, and since it is an underlying human trait, it reincarnates itself constantly. Racism and classism are all forms of it, under the umbrella of elitism.

Why can’t my unfit brother go to the same gym I worked hard to get into? Sounds crazy right? Well he’s fat, he didn’t earn it, etc. We don’t even contemplate this anymore physically. Yet, why can’t someone also work at Google because they aren’t the best? Intellectualism at the moment rejects ‘it takes a village’, and it rejects ‘the hand cannot say I am not of the body’.

So be it, it’s just the dark ages. One day we’ll figure it out, as we did with the other manifestation of dominance.

My most serious point is this - the nonsense cannot and should not affect people’s livelihoods. Find the abstract gutter for the nonsense already, and do not fuck with people with your meta game.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#93

Post by MaximumYComb »

monktastic1 wrote: post #72
lordnacho wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a "hot take"? I agree with the answer above. You need to pour a fair bit of effort into getting on an Olympiad team. Whether you get a PhD is more a question of economics, IMO. If you're showing that much promise there will be many other temptations, and bear in mind it's not just rich countries that have math kids, there's plenty of olympiad kids who need to get out and make money when they've done their degr…

Also think they meant "you wouldn't think it would be a hot take, but..."

That's 100% what I meant.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#94

Post by runawaybottle »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #41
runawaybottle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectualism hasn’t matured as Barbarism has (still going through refinement). Your gym partner is never going to even attempt to prove to you they are stronger, and you yourself won’t even care if they are (or vice versa). There’s a natural understanding of the physical, and mostly we as a society realize how futile it is to exert physical dominance on one another. So you are stronger, what are you going to do, b…

As a follow-up to this line of thought (which I find insightful): if we were to become mature with regards to intellectualism as you say - do you think we would then go on to the next thing to be competitive about? Or maybe we need that next thing to trigger our maturing, as a consequence of competition switching to another domain? Or, is it possible that competition about important matters is not an inherently human…

I guess I’ll use the lame saying ‘Bar is closing, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here’ as to what will solve it.

I get people have underpinnings of nature that enflame instincts. That’s great, but you know, when it impacts people’s lives - it needs to find another place to party.

I hope that makes sense. Hitler ad-reductio incoming. Hey, Germany, I get your bullshit pulled you out of the depths of WW1, but look, your nonsense is killing millions of people.

Just find another abstract gutter for your nonsense, find another means of self fulfillment, please, and don’t hurt anyone.

We don’t have to placate every human instinct and constantly romanticize every aspect of the human struggle. Life is absolutely requires empathy and stability.

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#95

Post by YeezyMode »

runawaybottle wrote: post #92
lupire wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bizarre claim. Physical competitiveness is a huge part of culture. You don't need to beat someot up to physically intimidate and dominate someone, and you don't need to mentally abuse someone to have a valuable experience in a relationship.

Physical dominance found many abstract gutters to empty into, and necessarily so. It was literally destroying the world with violence. The Roman identity was literally built on conquering. It took a long time until we were able to say ‘yeah, why can’t this small little land mass be it’s own country?’. Why would a country have to fight for independence? Can you imagine that in today’s society? It’s absurd. Yet, many o…

Would you agree that the fastest/least harmful way to get to that place is to codify practices/laws at the level of a nation-state, or do you think that's ridiculous and it'll just be some organic development of individuals opting for that type of behavior?

Re: Undergraduate Math Student Pushes Frontier of Graph Theory

#96

Post by runawaybottle »

YeezyMode wrote: post #95
runawaybottle wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical dominance found many abstract gutters to empty into, and necessarily so. It was literally destroying the world with violence. The Roman identity was literally built on conquering. It took a long time until we were able to say ‘yeah, why can’t this small little land mass be it’s own country?’. Why would a country have to fight for independence? Can you imagine that in today’s society? It’s absurd. Yet, many o…

Would you agree that the fastest/least harmful way to get to that place is to codify practices/laws at the level of a nation-state, or do you think that's ridiculous and it'll just be some organic development of individuals opting for that type of behavior?

So, I’ll give away a little bit of my teenage naivety (pretty old now relative to my 20s, still a child to some here) in that lately I’ve been influenced by some serious reading on the Holocaust and Nazi-Soviet dystopian ideas. In a sense, we really didn’t see the insanity until it fulfilled it’s natural conclusion (a disgusting simile to the final solution). Such a pattern is more common place amongst addicts, who basically need to bottom out until they get it.

The sadness is that I know it must play out before we can come to the table and solve it.

In other words, there’s no shortcuts, and we have to see it through to the end to prove it, no inductive step. No theory in this.

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