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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

When your interests bug some people

Having other people get upset with things that interest you or upset with you in an area where you have interest can be intense emotional pressure.

Thinking about that sentence I realize it can be for good, or ill.

And here I'd just as soon exclude consideration of criminal behavior. Part of me is like, no doubt there! But what about civil rights behavior in the past deemed criminal? Could go with saying nothing that hurts people, and will try to stick with that one. I say no doubt for ill when you make it your business to hurt others for criminal reasons. Ok, what exactly are "criminal reasons" then? I'm moving on.

For example recently the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made an announcement of changes made intended to improve diversity. Social pressure that I think is a great thing forcing changes, while others may disagree.

The issue there is merit and awards given for it, where the Academy Award has a great deal of prestige as an indication of extraordinary work, as decided by people who are to be peers. But now questions have been raised about whether some face arbitrary exclusions which have nothing to do with talent or quality of work, but about meaningless criteria, like race.

For me ran into some serious issues with math. Turns out I decided I'd look for my own major mathematics discoveries. I know, who does such a thing? Well me for one. Wasn't long before faced some serious hostility, and realized only recently I did feel some shame about both my efforts, and my claims of having found some important mathematics.

Today I'm glad to have brought the subject up anyway like recently noting that my claims have not to my knowledge faced any official recognition that stuck--got a paper published but journal that published it tried to remove and later keeled over and died. Which isn't that big of a deal, as it's math. Not like it will change, so I can not worry about it and do other things.

It DOES matter though to inform other people of such things. Like if someone is reading across my ideas, not math, and starts thinking, hey, these are pretty good! I don't want them shocked later if mention to someone and that person says, oh that guy is just some math crackpot. People need to know ahead of time that such charges may be levelled I firmly believe. Though most people probably don't care one way or the other as most aren't into math.

But who likes negative surprises?

I know I don't.

Deciding what merits recognition is a huge arena for human beings, with vast consequences. From awards for entertainers to just some guy with some math, it can be an arena of contention.

And it does raise the question of what do you do when your interests bug some people?

For those able to vote for nominees and winners of Academy Awards that question can be so pertinent. Do you think certain kinds of movies should be interesting versus others?

Who doesn't?

So I guess there isn't an easy answer. With my situation with math it is kind of easy. If I'm right, it will win out over time. If I'm wrong? It will not. Correct mathematics helps constantly drive our world to new heights of learning and intellectual growth across vast areas. The bar is set so high for greatest mathematical ideas it is awesome.

Great movies can inspire for generations. And reality is also can be maybe best found over time.

In the meantime we do the best we can, in the search for quality and merit. So maybe a rhetorical area what to do when your interests bug people, as who knows really who is right, and who is wrong? Except when it's bad criminal, of course. And yeah, what exactly is "bad criminal"? Really wrong things, and have to end, this post. So there.


James Harris

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