The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics

Re:The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics by bazhova on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @05:47AM (#33607630)

A British academic "rolling eyes" at efforts to decolonise their material. Yikes but also typical. Mathematics is a pure subject, and logic itself is not colonial. Of course. But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching. It's not a wild idea to take a moment and consider how your department may be complicit.

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Re:The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics by Gordonjcp on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @06:29AM (#33607898)

Can you clearly and lucidy explain how mathematics might be "colonial"?

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Re:The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics by Fomite on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @07:05AM (#33608129)

From an application context, "Weapons of Math Destruction" is a good place to start.

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Re:The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics by Gordonjcp on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @03:27PM (#33614555)

Okay, but that's not relevant to mathematics. That's about business decisions.

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Re:The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics by Fomite on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @01:46AM (#33619752)

Aided and abetted by putting a veneer of mathematics over the top. That is the important context for the idea of decolonizing math - that it doesn't actually take place in a vacuum.

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Re:The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics by kwhitefoot on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @07:09AM (#33608162)

> academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching

In mathematics? How do they do that?

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Re:The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics by kennend3 on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @07:51AM (#33608522)

> But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching.

So my ex-wife is Chinese and not to play into the stereotype but math is important to the Chinese.

When she was growing up in China, learning Math, what aspect of this was "colonialism"?

Now when our kids went to math class in Canada and the instructor was also Chinese, were they teaching "colonialism" as well as math?

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