
The Philosophy of Punk Rock Mathematics (interview) - MaysonL
http://technoccult.net/archives/2010/02/25/the-punk-rock-philosophy-of-mathematics-technoccult-interviews-tom-henderson/
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mnemonicsloth
Startup hackers should know more game theory. You can explain a lot of human
behavior as evolutionary adaptations to compete in partially-cooperative sex-
selected games of incomplete information in groups of around 100 players.

For example, why we care about karma on social networking sites, why some
employers require you to wear a suit even though everyone concerned thinks
suits are stupid, why religions are tenacious, why nobody trusts atheists, why
virtually every mid-sized American city has at least one completely
uneconomical skyscraper in what passes for "downtown" and why it's always
owned by a bank or insurance company... the list goes on and on.

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sarosh
Wow, this link was awesome for introducing me to
<http://www.mathforprimates.com/> which was a fun set of podcasts! Thanks!

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scotty79
I checked another project of that guy mentioned in the interview:
<http://www.superstructgame.org/> and I noticed that one of the movies he uses
("Outlaw Planet") has been pulled down by youtube due to copyright complaint
from Stanford University. I didn't know universities are so evil that they
sabotage projects of their graduates on basis of copyright.

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J3L2404
1) People use the average Joe’s poor mathematics as a way to control, exploit,
and numerically fuck him over.

2) Mathematics is the subject in which, regardless of what the authorities
tell you is true, you can verify every last iota of truth, with a minimum of
equipment.

Although seldom noticed, mathematics is one of the few, maybe the only,
subject not open to interpretation.

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imok20
Ah, don't we wish. There's this thing called an "Axiom" that is, ruefully,
generally, arbitrary. Definitions, too.

e.g. Some say the set of natural numbers contain 0, some say it doesn't.

Granted, the kind of math being discussed here isn't open to much
interpretation, but I thought I'd note it.

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hexis
Rarely is a person screwed by a controversial axiom.

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thomaspaine
You'd be surprised. The first thing that comes to mind is modern macro-
economic forecasting, which is built on a host of controversial axioms. These
forecasts are little better than Roman augury, and one could argue they are
actually a net negative because they give us the false pretense of knowledge.

Using game theory to make predictions, expected utility theory, etc the list
goes on and on (sorry to pick on economics, I'm sure there are plenty of other
fields that suffer the same problems).

Just look at some of the assumptions made by the financial engineers who
caused the recent financial crisis if want your head to explode:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black–Scholes#Model_assumptions>

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hexis
You and I might be using the word "axiom" differently.

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thomaspaine
All right, in the black-scholes example I admit that those are not axioms in
the traditional sense. Maybe the expected utility axioms would be a better
example:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis#von...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis#von_Neumann-
Morgenstern_formulation)

