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Latest revision as of 18:04, 27 January 2026
On X[edit]
2009[edit]
Arrow's impossibility theorem can be seen as a cohomological obstruction to constructing representative consumers without magical thinking.
Becker's theory of stable homogenous tastes on the other hand is....words fail me...the greatest indictment of peer review. Ever.
Just for a moment...put yourself in my shoes. I have an amazing theory of welfare with evolving tastes and a cult that claims stable tates.
Why stop at stable tastes? Why not declare yourself the last Pasha of Scotland and immune from bigamy laws as a winged son of Zeus?
$500 Challenge: Get me an invited Econ gig at Chicago / Harvard to confront the theory of ordinal welfare with stable homogenous tastes.
2016[edit]
I read about great mathematical lineages & get sad. I don't know other selfadvised PhDs. Something wants to belong.
The great Harvard mathematician Raoul Bott lent me his name as advisor as a mensch lends a surname to a bastard. I didn't know 2 say thanks.
Because I view my needing a PhD as a sign of my own weakness, I have not yet been able to say "Thank You" to the 2 brave men who stood 4 me.
So let me finally say it: my thanks 2 @drorbarnatan & the late Raoul Bott, for heroically saving me & my PhD from my own university 20y ago.
2020[edit]
I got tired of MSNBC suppressing @AndrewYang. The @DNC suppressing @TulsiGabbard. @HillaryClinton suppressing @bernie. @ABC editors suppressing reporting on Epstein. @nytimes not covering @EvergreenStCol in real time. @Harvard burying my wifeâs & my work: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/18-slipping-the-disc-state-of-the-portal-chapter-2020/id1469999563?i=1000462651162
I got tired of @RonPaul being suppressed by @GOP. The @UMich wasting years of my brotherâs life and peer review suppressing his discovery. The Boskin commission suppressing truth about inflation. How the @nsf and @theNASEM suppressed the reason for H1-B. We must name the enemy:
The enemy is the DISC. Its the complex of structures that resulted in fantastic income inequality & unrest breaking out all over the đ. It is what keeps Jamie Dimon safe from Len Bole. David Baltimore from Margot OâToole. Biden safe from Yang. Institutions safe from Individuals.
The first goal of The Portal is to install a Portal allowing young researchers in our STEM departments and Research Universities to avoid being subjected to submission to these instutions. No loyalty oaths. No signing over your intellectual property. No theft of your retirement.
I donât want you having to submit your work to an anonymous referee if you donât trust that process. What if it is an unethical competitor? What if your advisor is jealous of you or has come to dislike you? You and your work need adult options. You are a scientist not an infant.
You have a right to unionize. You have a right to know if your department canât place its graduates into professorships and is blaming you for its failures. You have a right not to be subjected to the intellectual âDroit du seigneurâ that has come over âgraduate trainingâ.
And what do I want in exchange for trying this? Selfishly, I am about to take on a fair amount of negativity and risk so I would be honored to be mentioned in your thesis acknowledgements if I can help get you a real income and the rights to your own work. But I want more.
What I most want is that you have the courage I lacked. I couldnât imagine standing up to Harvard.
I want you to swing for the fucking fences w/ your research. I want you to remember that we need you to get out of our stagnation. I want you to believe pathologically in yourself.
So letâs go after the exhaust vent in the DISC. Letâs get you a future. Jobs in the same city as the one you love. Careers while youâre young. Letâs get you savings for retirement & help raising your kids.
But to make this work: stop fetishizing âidentityâ & build our future.đ
2021[edit]
Isadore Singer & Raoul Bott worked in almost exactly the same area. They collaborated with exactly the same people. They worked in adjacent zip codes (02138 vs 02139). They both had claims to the "greatest topological theorem" of the 20th century.
They never co-authored a paper.
I've known only three minds personally who I'm convinced will be discussed 1000 years from now if humans survive: James Watson, Raoul Bott and Isadore Singer (I met Atiyah & Witten but did not know them).
Is & Raoul however both collaborated on my rescue in Graduate school.
Perhaps with both of these giants now gone it is time to tell my story. I'm not sure. I have never told it publicly in full. But they both are heroic men beyond being great minds.
Had they surmounted their personal difficulties their collaborations could have changed the world.
They worked down the same street. I was at times a ping pong ball they sent back & forth between Building 2 at MIT & Harvard Science Center rm 508 (I think) along a 45 minute walk. I very much respected that they chose not to air any difficulties. They had respect for each other.
One reason I largely kept quiet about my story is respect for both men. They both defended and believed in the system. But, in part they believed in it BECAUSE they were so powerful that they could act as an underground railroad when that system failed:
So, in part, I'm their collaboration. Raoul was not my advisor. He had no real idea what I was doing. But he was far more than that. Is was my shtarker. My ace in the hole. They worked as a team to help me; their failure to talk directly was the main clue I had of anything amiss.
Lastly, there is the matter of my wedding. Is came to our event but I didn't invite Raoul. I did not understand what he had done for me. It is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. When the internet tries to insist to me that I am his student, I want to tell them what happend.
The truth is that I would have been proud to be the student of Raoul Bott. I would have a storied lineage to claim.
The truth is Raoul gave me his name for a self-advised thesis. And like a fool I resented it. Yet how much greater is the man who lends his last name to a Bastard.
In any event. I miss Is very much, but never expected to see him again. And I'm wrestling w the idea that I'm now free to tell my own story after 25yrs of saying very little in public. One of the reasons I don't take kindly to internet warfare is that I have large debts to pay.
The more I subject myself to mindless politics, catfighting, shadowbanning & trolling, the harder it is to fight for others/myself and to pay the debts to the giants who rescued me along my way. I don't know how I'd have done w/o them.
But I needed to grow this voice to do it.
Lastly, I used to have a relationship to a very different @nytimes. Thus when I read Is' obituarty I was shocked to see @julierehmeyer's beautiful tribute including my own quotes on Is. It made me sad to think about how much has been lost. Sadly, those quotes came from long ago.
If you haven't read her piece, I think it is quite moving even though it is no more than a sketch. End.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/science/isadore-singer-dead.html
[Not to be crass: but I can usually tell within the 1st minute what is happening to the throttling of my tweets: this is not being widely seen. I'm trying to say something meaningful about a departed friend @jack. Could you please take a personal interest & stop the throttling?!]
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