Three reactions, or: ideology as jargon

I
I don't know how I feel about that statement about the goal of that part of the contract being to fight against "white supremacy" or "imperialism". Partly I'm not convinced most of the people who make such statements really know what they are talking about when they say "imperialism". I'm also just not convinced that it's meaningful to talk about those broad abstract terms other as useful frames for analysis. In terms of actual changes we want to see in the world, it seems much more useful to me to articulate these in concrete terms, and to articulate the rationales in similarly concrete terms: who is being harmed, and how, and how do we propose to address that? Articulate that in plain language, not all adorned in fancy ideological garb. Even if I am partial to some of that ideological garb, I don't know that it serves any useful purpose here, beyond possibly a purely tribal one of pulling together all the other people who are partial to that garb.
II
Maybe white supremacy, or some sort of imperialism, broadly but not so broadly construed, does constitute the substantive background to the issues we are fighting over. But it still seems to me not so useful to just name-drop that, unless you have concrete, compelling ways of tying in that background to the issues at hand. Otherwise all that would do is trigger the anti-SJW anti-PC right-wing types without adding anything truly substantive to the fight.
III
Also I'm still not convinced you really know what you talking about. If you are, you should be able to break it down into concrete, specific terms. To some extent this annoyance I'm feeling is of a piece with the annoyance I feel towards people who spout jargon like "motivic integration over formal stacks" without ever bothering to explain what the hell that means and why they (or anyone else) should care about it.

That's a rather mild translation, innit

"Death to tyrants" would have been a feistier but still accurate rendition.

Mladen could probably've told ya

I had a dream in honor of my late friend and co-author Gilbert Baumslag. Gilbert and I were both in Berkeley, and he invited me to come over for lunch in the free product with amalgamation that he was renting. It was not clear which factor I was supposed to come to, and figuring this out involved some tricky group theory. I was still puzzled about it when I woke up.

Peter Shalen, via Facebook

Meh fact of the day

"Meh" might come from the Yiddish, via the Simpsons. From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Etymology: Probably <  Yiddish me be it as it may, so-so (1928 or earlier), probably imitative.
Probably popularized by the U.S. cartoon series The Simpsons , in which its earliest use was in the episode Sideshow Bob Roberts , first broadcast on 9 Oct. 1994.

A RAAG, an Anosov representation, and a Higgs bundle walk into a bar.

They start debating what GEAR could stand for. They immediately reject the notion that it could possibly stand for "Geometric structures and representation varieties", noting that this goes against everything that acronyms are supposed to do. After some back-and-forth the right-angled Artin group proposes that the acronym captures the way that the network functions: "Guesses, Errors And Retries". The Anosov representation and the Higgs bundle don't like this very much ... after more debate, the Anosov representation claims that the acronym is all about the guiding principle of the network: "Give Everybody Ample Renumeration". This is not universally accepted either, and the argument goes on ... finally, the Higgs bundle comes up with what is obviously the most perfect answer ... but nobody can understand a word of it.

(from Steve Bradlow, at the GEAR retreat banquet)

I am sorry for your loss.

I am sorry for our loss.
Let us do our best to honour her wonderful legacy.

Meanwhile, in math grad school

My sentiments exactly

Grad school in 2017: an absolute riot.

Gloom, schmoom

The storm clouds may be gathering

But blithely shall we fly by them

And soar as we always have

Surely and swiftly through even the darkest night

2017 January 4-7, Singapore and Ann Arbor (i.e. home and home)

Danke schön Österreich

Now we can keep going for a little longer. 

Resolved

1. I am rubber, you are glue. Any nonsense coming my way will bounce off me so fast ...
2. If need be, I will be a bystander intervention ninja (although hopefully I will never need to.)
3. Even as I remain safe in my bubble (or not), I will give all aid to those who fight the good fight.
4. Knowledge is power. The battle against ignorance and bigotry starts today.
5. I've lost enough sleep and productivity. Going back to work and life now (with adjustments as necessary.)

I could sit around and wallow in despair for a while

But, well, let's not. The next time you feel like doing that (i.e., probably every hour or so for the next two weeks [years?]): take a deep breath, remember that you're not quite going to bear the brunt of it, look forward and think of what you can do to change things, look around you and listen and offer support to those who need it more, and act. And remember that in the shitstorm of rhetoric that's still flying around you, the truth, as always, lies somewhere in the hazy unarticulated middle, and that you would do well to listen carefully and discern the inside voices and subtle overtones hiding in the cacophony. (Of course, all of this will be moot if nuclear winter actually happens.)

Oh well. What the hell.

NATE SILVER 2:10 AM

Something to remember: Whatever your feelings about the state of the country right now, it’s fundamentally not that different a place whether the final call is that Clinton has narrowly won or narrowly lost. Add just 1 percent to Clinton’s vote share and take 1 percent away from Trump’s, and she would have won Florida and Pennsylvania, therefore would probably have been on her way to a narrow Electoral College victory.

Not actually the worst description of moduli spaces

"Yo dawg I heard you like geometry, so we put some geometry on your geometry, so you can geometry while you geometry."

Victory is ... nobody's?

W: Shouldn't that be true more generally?
M: I don't think so ...,
W: ... well, one of us wins.
C: Nah, it's not such a nice game. We could all lose. 

---from this week's Topology seminar

Just one more thing now ...

Not too long ago the (apparently still English) current chair of the doctoral committee informed me that "now all that's left to do is to write and defend a thesis." That seems to have sparked a little bit of a dark mood in me. Now comes the part where you fall deep into a rabbit hole, for years and years on end, and never emerge, possibly not ever again, to see the broad sweep of the plains and the distant majesty of the mountains, is what some part of me seems to have heard.
But that was not what was said, and that is not what you should do. You should remember the way down the rabbit hole, the better to climb up back out of it. You should take note all of the tunnels that go between the rabbit holes, and the intricate networks that they form, and how they transverse the broad sweep of the plain and take you, sight unseen, towards the mountains. You should never forget, as you seem dimly aware of now, that the rabbit holes, for all of their fascinating depths, are only ever part of the story, and that you should never lose sight of the whole.
It will be a constant struggle to remember this, to remain as broad as you could be even as you delve deep into your chosen rabbit hole. But it's something that you can at least try to do, that you must at least try to do---and your work and life will be the richer for it.  

We only like the semisimple stuff around here

Parabolics just make us hurl.

Fine, you can name those after me

L'un des auteurs insistant pour que l'on adopte cette terminologie, aujourd'hui généralement admise, l'autre auteur s'y résigne

Armand Borel and Jacques Tits, "Groupes réductifs", footnote explaining the origins of the term "Borel subgroup" 

Ignorance and bigotry are like cancers

And we should treat them like we treat cancers, or other diseases of the body. Not with outrage and loud denunciation, or at least not with those alone. Those might be useful for drawing attention to the problem, but they're not going to make it go away.

No, we should study them closely, and understand deeply their origins and how they grow and spread. We should use this knowledge to systematically and methodically eradicate them, the same way we have eradicated smallpox and are so close to eradicating polio.