Mathematicians inhibit and explore a world that is completely made up and exists only in abstract.

I wonder if this makes them slowly get disconnected from the lived realities of billions of ordinary people.

alansaber 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How could a theoretical mathematician not be massively disconnected from the reality of life for the ordinary person? We usually celebrate their quirks until they come into conflict like this.

	▲	qup 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I agree, how could he --also being so smart. It's a good reason not to take his advice about the real world--like how to manage AI's trajectory. The cancer example illustrates this gap perfectly. He thoughtfully crafted the point, and defeated himself in argument. Unless it was a move?

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ks2048 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When thinking about math, Tao is in another world unfamiliar to us. But, he grew up in our world and is a professor in our world and if you listen to him, seems like a pretty normal guy. I think he just made a bad analogy here.

	▲	3 hours ago \| parent [-]
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3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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