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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Why mathematicians are boycotting their biggest conference
williamstein wrote 31 min ago:
FWIW, the Joint Mathematics Meeting is bigger, based on number of
registered attendees [1]
URI [1]: https://jointmathematicsmeetings.org/meetings/national/jmm2026...
beloch wrote 1 hour 27 min ago:
"The petition follows months of trepidation about the congress within
the math community. âYou do not get 1,500 signatures in 10 days
without having many, many mathematicians already registering their
complaints to their professional societies and to the ICM
organizers,â says Ila Varma, a mathematician at the University of
Toronto and one of the petitionâs co-authors."
-------------
ICM's peak attendance is around four thousand, so 1,500 would-be
attendees signing a petition to move the conference in ten days is
pretty authoritative.
nullc wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
I'm going to guess that for many signers-- or at least the US ones--
their opposition to the United States and "its unbridled hatred"
doesn't extend to not accepting funding from the US taxpayer.
Entry requirements and the overhead of dealing with visa hoops are a
perennial problem for international conferences, nothing new-- and
presumably a part of why it hasn't been held in the US in recent
memory. But the language on this petition is particularly extreme.
dhosek wrote 1 hour 27 min ago:
Ainât much US taxpayer money going to mathematicians and I think
that if any goes overseas it would be to US citizens.
amelius wrote 1 hour 49 min ago:
Reminds me of:
URI [1]: https://theconversation.com/calls-for-a-boycott-of-the-2026-fi...
jleyank wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
Nobody will care if the conference isnât held in Philly. Holding it
elsewhere will probably make it a little easier and possibly a little
cheaper for people to attend. I doubt mathematicians are part of the
1%, so cash and travel hassle should matter. And given todayâs
Internet, thereâs going to be remote attendance which can happen most
anywhere.
While itâs still convenient to gather together to discuss a field,
itâs not crucial as it was in past times. Easier to do whatâs
best for the largest number of people.
FridayoLeary wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
It's just grandstanding.They are mathematicians not political
activists. If they want their organization to slide into irrelevance,
getting involved in left wing (or right wing, but with academia it's
usually left wing) politics is a great way to do that.
tdeck wrote 1 hour 10 min ago:
Anyone can be a "political activist". An activist is just an
ordinary person who has had enough. Unless you believe the only
valid way to influence political discourse is with money.
hagbard_c wrote 42 min ago:
Sure, anyone can be an activist but it is clear that academia has
been turned into an activist training centre. It is also
remarkable how these supposedly intelligent people go astray when
it comes to the causes they support, from supporting Hamas to
defending those who'd throw them off high buildings or putting
them against the wall if they got their chance.
ktallett wrote 1 hour 44 min ago:
Huh? This is primarily because travelling to the US is not worth the
risk right now.
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