Well, federalism as it was originally designed was an attempt at that. I don't know if that experiment failed as much as it was abandoned.
It may be time to revisit our interest in it.
We can likewise consider ways to provide free association (vote-with-your-feet options) and compartmentalization (keep bad ideas out of here by giving them room to be at peace over there) in the other organizations we have influence over.
It is.
What I'd like to ask is: do you know of any mathematician who (publicly) shares your views on mathematical notation? The thing is, I agree 100% with what you wrote, but I also know how hostile and defensive the mathematicians (and "mathy type" programmers) can get about this. I figured they'd be more likely to listen to "one of their own"... Basically, I'd like to have a link to some blog post or something which explains why the notational wild-west is not a good thing from the perspective of a mathematician. Are you aware of such a thing? I couldn't find any, unfortunately :(
Gerry Sussman from MIT. I've seen him lecture in particular about how math notation relies far too much on implicit assumed knowledge (like operator precedence) rather than on explicit syntax. He said it's vastly easier to teach people math when you make everything explicit and thus he likes teaching in Scheme, force them write out the full algorithm with no implicit hidden assumptions.
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Alice: I think A, B, and C.
Bob: Did you say you think A, B, C, and D?
Alice: No, I said A, B, and C, but now that I think of it, I misspoke about the C part. I think A, B, and C(2). I don't know where you got D. I don't think that.
Bob: OK. C(2) makes more sense, and let's forget about D. Here's why you're wrong about B.
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Here's what seems to happen a lot these days.
Alice: I think A, B, and C.
Bob: I hate your thoughts. We're done here. If I were your boss, you'd be fired.
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People would be a lot less angry and a lot smarter if they actually dialogued more.