In logic, there is a subtle but important distinction between the concept of mutual knowledge – information that everyone (or almost everyone) knows – and common knowledge, which is not only knowledge that (almost) everyone knows, but something that (almost) everyone knows that everyone else knows (and that everyone knows that everyone else knows that everyone else knows, and so forth). A classic example arises from Hans Christian Andersens’ fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes: the fact that the emperor in fact has no clothes is mutual knowledge, but not common knowledge, because everyone (save, eventually, for a small child) is refusing to acknowledge the emperor’s nakedness, thus perpetuating the charade that the emperor is actually wearing some incredibly expensive and special clothing that is only visible to a select few. My own personal favourite example of the distinction comes from the blue-eyed islander puzzle, discussed previously here, here and here on the blog. (By the way, I would ask that any commentary about that puzzle be directed to those blog posts, rather than to the current one.)
I believe that there is now a real-life instance of this situation in the US presidential election, regarding the following
Proposition 1. The presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, is not even remotely qualified to carry out the duties of the presidency of the United States of America.
Proposition 1 is a statement which I think is approaching the level of mutual knowledge amongst the US population (and probably a large proportion of people following US politics overseas): even many of Trump’s nominal supporters secretly suspect that this proposition is true, even if they are hesitant to say it out loud. And there have been many prominent people, from both major parties, that have made the case for Proposition 1: for instance Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, did so back in March, and just a few days ago Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee this year, did so in this speech:
I highly recommend watching the entirety of the (35 mins or so) speech, followed by the entirety of Trump’s rebuttal.
However, even if Proposition 1 is approaching the status of “mutual knowledge”, it does not yet seem to be close to the status of “common knowledge”: one may secretly believe that Trump cannot be considered as a serious candidate for the US presidency, but must continue to entertain this possibility, because they feel that others around them, or in politics or the media, appear to be doing so. To reconcile these views can require taking on some implausible hypotheses that are not otherwise supported by any evidence, such as the hypothesis that Trump’s displays of policy ignorance, pettiness, and other clearly unpresidential behaviour are merely “for show”, and that behind this facade there is actually a competent and qualified presidential candidate; much like the emperor’s new clothes, this alleged competence is supposedly only visible to a select few. And so the charade continues.
I feel that it is time for the charade to end: Trump is unfit to be president, and everybody knows it. But more people need to say so, openly.
Important note: I anticipate there will be any number of “tu quoque” responses, asserting for instance that Hillary Clinton is also unfit to be the US president. I personally do not believe that to be the case (and certainly not to the extent that Trump exhibits), but in any event such an assertion has no logical bearing on the qualification of Trump for the presidency. As such, any comments that are purely of this “tu quoque” nature, and which do not directly address the validity or epistemological status of Proposition 1, will be deleted as off-topic. However, there is a legitimate case to be made that there is a fundamental weakness in the current mechanics of the US presidential election, particularly with the “first-past-the-post” voting system, in that (once the presidential primaries are concluded) a voter in the presidential election is effectively limited to choosing between just two viable choices, one from each of the two major parties, or else refusing to vote or making a largely symbolic protest vote. This weakness is particularly evident when at least one of these two major choices is demonstrably unfit for office, as per Proposition 1. I think there is a serious case for debating the possibility of major electoral reform in the US (I am particularly partial to the Instant Runoff Voting system, used for instance in my home country of Australia, which allows for meaningful votes to third parties), and I would consider such a debate to be on-topic for this post. But this is very much a longer term issue, as there is absolutely no chance that any such reform would be implemented by the time of the US elections in November (particularly given that any significant reform would almost certainly require, at minimum, a constitutional amendment).
494 comments
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2 December, 2016 at 12:55 am
Jeffrey Helkenberg
I appear to draw out poison; have I ever stated that I am in any way superior to those gathered here? I am sure we are all quite “fit” for our jobs. We are familiar with the symbols of our trades, but surely the inner workings of our government are known only as shadows to those of us who get our “facts” at a distance.
I appreciate the erratum. Functional languages only overlap so much with poetic expression. My logic was spot-on as relates to Mr. Tao’s assertion that a man not fit to be President has become so. Had he met Mr Trump prior to his becoming President-Elect Trump? If so it was not mentioned in the Proposition.
######
Proposition 1. The presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, is not even remotely qualified to carry out the duties of the presidency of the United States of America.
######
Alternatively,
######
Machine 1.
Where,
“A man who is not remotely qualified is the most likely to be elected,”
it must be that,
“The United States (as a population) is not even remotely qualified to gauge the duties of the Office of President.”
#######
16 December, 2016 at 3:57 pm
Ben
Stop. Just stop making a complete fool out of yourself.
10 December, 2016 at 1:20 am
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Daddy, why didn’t you blog about Trump?
[…] typically focuses on things like gaps in the primes and finite-time blowup in PDEs, wrote an unusual post, arguing that virtually everyone knows Donald Trump is unqualified to be President, so the […]
22 December, 2016 at 2:15 pm
Nuclear Trump
OH MA DAYS this must be some sort of nightmare is this guy crazy or what “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes” https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/811977223326625792
6 January, 2017 at 7:29 am
Anonymous
This is the Reverse Sokal Hoax.
6 January, 2017 at 7:32 am
Anonymous
Hate is OK, as long as it’s toward a hater.
All misogynists love women.
Any other paradox?
9 January, 2017 at 1:21 am
How Polling Works…Or Doesn’t Work – Study Score Calc
[…] are a host of quantitative ways to deal with the election right now – and some slightly more qualitative ways as well – but I find the best thing to do is light some aromatherapy candles, immerse […]
9 January, 2017 at 2:11 pm
Tracey Cullen
What now?
Seriously.
29 January, 2017 at 8:53 pm
Anonymous
Just noticed the quote at the top from the The New Colossus. Bravo!
30 January, 2017 at 5:01 pm
Anonymous
Just noticed it too!
31 January, 2017 at 9:07 am
Anonymous
I can not believe that the partition is closed
From Gordon Ball
31 January, 2017 at 9:56 am
Open thread for mathematicians on the immigration executive order | What's new
[…] of the qualifications, or lack thereof, of the current US president can be carried out at this previous post.) I would therefore like to open this post to readers to discuss the effects or potential effects […]
20 February, 2017 at 8:43 am
Terry’s inference about the president Trump – 站点标题
[…] 通过 It ought to be common knowledge that Donald Trump is not fit for the presidency of the United States… […]
16 March, 2017 at 4:48 am
Trump Cutting Science Funding is Sad
Trump is cutting a lot of science funding for the military, sad!
20 May, 2017 at 8:42 am
Anon123
This blog entry has aged very well.
24 May, 2017 at 11:51 am
TrumpSupporter
Terry,
I saw you removed my comment. Too bad. Silencing critics is never the way to go, particularly in the age of the internet. I am replying here, per your indication.
Hillary Clinton and the left wing media learned the lesson painfully that silencing views in traditional media today is pointless these days. Fewer and fewer people get their information from there.
I get that you are new to using your scientific celebrity for political purposes, particularly in the US.
So let me offer a piece of unsolicited advise.
Unlike the world of mathematics, where there is a somehow objective way to measure good ideas, particularly say, proofs to theorems known to be very difficult, like both Wiles and Perelman did, or by coming up ideas that, while mathematical in nature, end up affecting society at large as say John Nash did with his work in non cooperative games, the world of politics, particularly in the US, is eminently subjective.
What this means is that the reason people vote for this or that candidate are very personal and most times do not have a very rational explanation. That applies to both people voting for right wing candidates as well as left wing candidates. Take for example the candidate you preferred for the general election. We know, and this is factual, from the Wikileaks revelations, that she is politically corrupt. I don’t know how many of the Podesta emails you read, but in case you didn’t read any, somebody did the effort of compiling the most compromising ones and making the case why each of them showed political corruption of the first order: http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/ .
I get that you probably like Hillary Clinton for other reasons, such as the Democratic Party’s traditional support of government funding for research, but that opinion would essentially prove my point: you too probably find things you don’t like about her, but there are other reasons you believe she was the best candidate. Fair enough.
The world of academia in the US is essentially an echo chamber for left wing ideology. If you feel you are surrounded by very smart people and that those smart people lean left and you are making the mental connection “smart people are leftists” is because few in academia would openly declare their support for right wing ideas, let alone Trump, for fear of retaliation from people like you. I can assure you, and I have both anecdotal as well as more rigorous evidence, to back this up, that academics with right wing tendencies or that support Trump are not unicorns. They are real and they exist in every top notch American university, yet they have to live in the halls of academia like gays in the 50s: leading a double life. Over time, you also have the pernicious effect that young scholars give up the opportunity of joining the tenured academic ranks altogether because whatever benefits academia provides, they do not make up for having to live silenced during one’s most valuable years.
You are at a crucial point in your career. You have gotten great awards already but none of your achievements amount to anything that would make you belong to the pantheon of mathematicians when you pass away. The only Millennium problem solved to this day is the work of Grigori Perelman who decided to quit mathematics altogether and refused to join you guys at the 2006 ICM because he understood that 100 yeas from now all that people will remember is that he is the one who solved the Poincare conjecture, not the names of those of you who accepted to be part of the charade. Nobody remembers today what were the most sought after scientific awards in the the time of Gauss and who won them. We remember Gauss for the monumental contributions he made to mathematics and physics.
So it is your choice frankly. Getting on board with hating leftists will get you celebrity today and this life for sure. But, are you sure you want this your legacy to be vs say, proving the Riemann hypothesis?
Once thing is for certain. The more you come across as an anti-Trump bigot, the more non leftists will shun you out. Even the same leftists who hail you today will have no problem running away from you the day you are first and foremost known for your political agenda vs your mathematical contributions.
This doesn’t mean it is a bad idea to have your political views known by the public. But it matters that you do it in a way that makes people who support the candidates you don’t like, like me, feel that they don’t belong to your intellectual discussion.
I voted for Trump and I would vote again for him. I also happen to be highly educated. From my vantage point, he is the best thing that has happened in US politics since Ronald Reagan. The events of the last few weeks show to what point the swamp is real and the degree to which all US presidents since Eisenhower had gladly accommodated the wishes of the military industrial complex. We are lucky we have a president who doesn’t back down and who is willing to put a fight with the losers who have been ruining the United States since the end of the cold war.
24 May, 2017 at 4:26 pm
Anonymous
you sound highly educated.
24 May, 2017 at 5:07 pm
TrumpSupporter
Not sure if this is a serious comment. Just in case it is: what Terry did with this post is to cross what I call the “William Shockley line”. Shockley, a brilliant man, made possible for you and I to have this conversation since without the transistor there would not have been an electronics age. Debates aside whether the transistor would have been invented by other people any way -such as by co-inventor and co-winner of the Noble Prize in physics for doing so John Bardeen- the reality is that Shockley was a brilliant man.
In the latter part of his life, he became obsessed with the pseudoscience of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgenics ; he started to preach that data showed that blacks were genetically inferior to whites when it came to intelligence and that they -blacks- should be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization for the benefit of the United States. He died, and duly so, ostracized and in infamy.
Terry is basically implying in this post that only absolute and complete morons would even consider voting for Trump for who would vote for somebody who is not qualified to be president of the USA knowingly? To be clear, I am pretty sure that some absolute morons voted for Trump -just as I am certain that some absolute morons voted for Hillary Clinton- but really, are there 63 million morons in the United States? That’s what Terry implies with this post!
To the best of my knowledge he has not apologized for writing this crap nor has he tried to reach out to those 63 million people in the aftermath of Trump’s election with something like “I deeply disagree with your decision to vote for Trump, but I feel your pain”. If he -Terry- has, I apologize for my comments.
Ultimately, Terry’s is a sad case. Up until he wrote this entry, he had an impeccable reputation as somebody who was a pleasure to work with and who was always willing to entertain working on interesting mathematical problems with people regardless of any other consideration. Who will now approach him knowing that he thinks that Trump voters are morons? Certainly not Trump voters or supporters. So he has suddenly reduced the universe of potential collaborators by roughly half (the half of people who support Trump). I am sure he got a lot of great supportive emails from leftists, but he already had their support anyway. I don’t know what he gets by coming across so insensitive with the people who voted for Trump. Only to confirm the widespread belief that academics live in ivory towers detached from reality. Et tu,Terry! The Terry Tao myth was just busted.
24 May, 2017 at 8:41 pm
TrumpSupporter
@Shocked It is not an overreach. If anything, Tao’s position is even worse than Shockley’s as measured by the numbers. William Shockley was obsessed with the intelligence of blacks. There were 22.5 million blacks living in the US in 1970, when Shockley’s lunacy was at its peak. Today there are around 40 million blacks living in the United States. That’s still blow the 63 million people whose intelligence Terry Tao questions. Granted, Terry Tao hasn’t asked that Trump voters follow voluntary sterilization as Shockley did but I think that’s a minor difference. On both cases you have an individual who considers a big chunk of his fellow American citizens as not worth having a big role in society because they are too dumb to have one. If you think that racial animus is worse than political animus, then that’s a different matter, but honestly, I don’t see much of a difference except for the victim: political preferences can be hidden from plain sight whereas racial status cannot. Still, as a Trump supporter who lives and works in a very liberal place, I can assure you that it is not fun to be surrounded by people who hate Trump as much as Terry.
25 May, 2017 at 8:50 am
Anonymous
How much is the GRU paying you for this BS?
26 May, 2017 at 3:09 pm
ADT
It’s “Nobel Prize”, not “Noble Prize”.
Yeah, you really sound “highly educated”.
Here’s some “unsolicited advise [sic]”: better to keep your mouth shut and be thought perhaps a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.
Let’s guess: you are “Jeffy Helkenberg’s” latest sockpuppet.
25 May, 2017 at 6:47 am
Anonymous
Hey moron, you posted your chickenshit Trump ass-kissing in a thread devoted to a math issue, and now you’re whining here that you’ve somehow been “silenced”….after Tao allows you to post.
Go away. You’re obviously an idiot.
25 May, 2017 at 10:01 am
TrumpSupporter
Do you have any substantive refutation to my arguments? Because frankly, but resorting to insults you are just proving my point.
25 May, 2017 at 1:59 pm
FreedomSupporter
Ugh. What “arguments” did you make, victim? You are a petulant child, sobbing you were “silenced” by posting on the very website you claim “silenced” you.
You’re the one who wandered in to insult the host with your utter stupidity. Now you’re whining that we’re insulting you. Hypocrite much?
We get it. You’re an eternal victim with the insecurities of a baby bunny. No wonder Trump appeals to you.
You posted illogical nonsense, inappropriately, in a thread devoted to a mathematical discussion. You are now here complaining that because you couldn’t be bothered to abide by simple site rules and common courtesy, you were…wait for it…”silenced”.
The fact that everyone is here reading your ongoing stupidity means you weren’t “silenced”, right genius? So much for any grasp of logic on your part. Do you bother to even read your own illogic and misspellings that put the lie to your odd “highly educated” self-description?
As for your vapid support for a racist, sexual-assaulting, draft-dodging, failed businessman, tax-cheat, gutless serial liar, that’s not an “argument”. But it says everything we all need to know about your own values and ethics.
As you yourself noted, that’s something you and the people who are unfortunate enough to be around you are painfully dealing with. You’re bringing it on yourself.
Work out your personal issues somewhere else, idiot.
25 May, 2017 at 6:25 pm
TrumpSupporter
63 million Americans voted for Trump. Thanks for confirming that this post has transformed Terry Tao into a cult leader. The cult of bigots who look down at people who don’t think like them. As I said, the parallel with William Shockley could not be clearer.
26 May, 2017 at 1:59 pm
Anonymous
Fantastic. Arguing ethics…from vote counts. Why, the logic of it all. The mind reels…
A certain politician received 18 million votes in 1933 — about the same percentage of voters as Trump in 2016 — and went on to shut down the courts, tell countless “big lies”, shut down the free press, and build any number of xenophobic walls in the holy service of nation-first and generalized anxiety disorder.
Here are bleating idiots like you in 1934: “how can 18 million people be idiots? Any contempt toward such voters MUST be “bigotry”. How could it be otherwise? It’s 18 MILLION people”.
Could you possibly be any more illogical?
Trump is a demonstrably mentally-ill coward. You keep mentioning William Shockley for some unknown reason – he’s a racist idiot. He and his few followers are despicable. Trump is a racist idiot. He and his followers (the numbers are shrinking rapidly) are despicable. You and they are creating enormous suffering via your ignorance.
You ARE the typical Trump supporter – illogical, semi-literate, ignorant, and quasi-hysterical. You’ve proven that here, right before our eyes. This site is a celebration of logic and reason. Trump and your views are the antithesis of such. You came in and tried to ridicule Dr. Tao with your long-winded stupidity, then whined like a child when your silly, impotent attack was rightly ridiculed.
Please take it somewhere else.
27 February, 2020 at 11:19 am
573
>claiming you were “silenced” by posting on the very website you claim “silenced” you.
Do you need some reading glasses? Terry removed his comment.
25 May, 2017 at 2:07 pm
Anonymous
“Because frankly, but resorting to insults you are just proving my point.”
Yessirree, that’s a sentence only the “highly educated” write.
Looks like you are proving a different point here, Mr. TrumpSupporter (that’s like Trump jock-strap, right?)
25 May, 2017 at 6:26 pm
TrumpSupporter
Dude, I don’t follow you anymore.
27 February, 2020 at 11:20 am
573
>that you’ve somehow been “silenced”….after Tao allows you to post.
Do you need some reading glasses, idiot? Tao removed his original comment.
24 May, 2017 at 7:35 pm
Shocked
someone who compares the level at which Shockley and Tao ever worked needs to get his brain checked up
26 May, 2017 at 8:25 am
Shocked
But I do think that Trump will be winning in 2020 as well.
18 July, 2017 at 6:36 pm
Jubalix Zxcain
Fitness to be president is not by the population saying or believing proposition ‘x’ in general, it comes from meeting constitutional requirements and a specific manifestation of belief via voteing from a specific group of people, which not necessarily coincidence (though part of it could be) with the forms of knowledge you propose.
You maybe confusion the meaning of ‘Fit to be president’ within a popular but irrelevant context, rather than the specific context which actually qualifies you to be president, meeting the various constitutional and subordinate legislation.
The important part is the system where you can try to effect constitutional change, to encompass a bundle of markers you may see as a better mix to establish who or what entity holds what power. This seems to be the correct point of redress to your issues.
Looking at the pointy end and saying person X in not fit sort of misses the whole machinery of trying to establish a balance of powers that can operate over a long period of time and give some sort of benefit (arguable in itself but put it to one side).
I proffer the real complaint here is one of constitutional operation as the proper feed back mechanism and how the separation of powers are apportioned and gained, and the debate has been sort of uselessly co-opted to near lowest common denominators of “fit to be president” in a sound byte form rather than actually dealing with what that means.
14 August, 2017 at 4:48 am
Guilherme
Reasonable ideas. Unfortunately, wrong ones. You could not prove your proposition that Trump was unqualified to the position. That is not a mathematical problem. We did’t/don’t have all the sufficient premises to get to that kind of strong conclusion. Not even close. In politics, “right” or “wrong”, “qualified” or “unqualified”, depends hugely on what you want. To people who wanted an outsider, a conservative, or maybe even a “crazy” president to “drain the Washington swamp”, maybe in this case Trump was perfect and fit. For example, the fact that Trump has a rough and rude rhetoric, which you consider very bad, could never be considered an absolute bad: it could actually be a good thing in the view of people who are very angry with Washington politicians, and so on. So, you can not “prove” that Trump was unfit, to everybody, as a fact and an universal truth. At least you can not so easily prove that. In politics, subjective factors matters a lot. By the way, you forgot to define “qualified President” (or “a good President”), which would be logically necessary.
Besides that, even taking your premises and your implicit definition of “qualified President” as the “right” ones, even in this case it would be very very hard to ensure that Trump was unfit to the job. There are so many variables, there are so many uncertain things, there are so many misleading “facts” (from all sides), there are so many lies (from all sides), there are so many secrets (about Trump, Hillary, USA, the world and everything). Plus: you can not believe 100% in CNN, or NYTimes or Fox News. How could you 100% ensure that NYTimes and CNN only work for sake of the truth? What about if the lie(d) about Trump? And even if they only publish(ed) true stories, how could you guarantee that they don’t/didn’t omit inconvenient truths in order to favor people they support?
In fact, if you watch Fox News or CNN or NYTimes you have two very different perspectives. Who is saying the truth? I give you a very good example. Do you remember when NYTimes and CNN media said that Trump had mocked a disabled reporter? They even published the video “proving the truth”. Had you believed that story? Everybody believed. Well, that was an untrue story. Trump had already made very similar gestures to mock many other people who were not disabled. But the (fake) media of course didn’t tell us that detail. Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgaC0leEb68
You could find many other similar examples to that effect. You see? The media can mislead people not only telling false stories (which is not so frequent) but also omitting some truths (which is common), or even focusing too much in some specific truths (which happens all the time). Another example: http://www.factcheck.org/. Ok, a good website, but what about if they mostly fact check Trump? Maybe if they fact checked every politician they would find the same number of mistakes or lies.
Even YOU did that here, Sir. You wrote this text claiming that Trump is disqualified for the job, but you did not mention anything about Hillary qualification. That could mislead people. Politics is the art of the “least worse”, so it is indispensable to evaluate all the possibilities.
It is often very disappointing to read or listen to some experts in areas such as math talking about politics. We realize that expertise in one fields doesn’t guarantee good opinions in other ones. Even mathematicians, physicists or engineers, who work so much with logic, who work everyday so rigorously to find truths, even those people make so big mistakes when the are out of their specialized field of knowledge. Those people so often express very childish, naïve, superficial and even false opinions. It’s so disappointing and almost unbelievable. That shows the total difference between intelligence (“IQ”) and culture, knowledge and experience.
Finally, I know that Trump has and had many failures, many problems. Of course I know. But to state categorically that he was/is unqualified and unfit to be the President is not THAT easy. Man, politics is even more complex than mathematics and I thought that your knowledge of dynamic systems would prevent you from venturing with such strong opinions into complex fields that you apparently don’t know very well, with all due respect.
Thank for the space. (Sorry about my english, it’s not my first language).
16 August, 2017 at 11:31 am
Give it a rest
Blah blah blah we get it, you don’t know the difference between a proposition and a proof and you spread misinformation and you want us all to overlook Trump’s widely acknowledged and documented draft-dodging, racism, sexual assault bragging, business failures, tax-dodging, and probable treason.
Trump is FAILING. There is no doubt of that. He is DANGEROUS in his ignorance and hatred.
Tao warned us about it months ago. He was exactly right.
Oh. And quit using repeated sock puppets to post the exact same mindless drivel here. Your endless, ineffectual axe grinding is stupid.
17 August, 2017 at 3:04 am
Guilherme
You didn’t contradict anything I said in my comment. I only see feelings, empty words and names coming out from your reply. Usual…
You just repeat the leftist pattern of histeria and partisanship. I challenge you to prove that Trump is racist, sexist and criminal, as you said. That’s not true, thats just propaganda! The fact that Trump has many flaws, the fact that he said many stupidities in his life, the fact that he committed many mistakes etc., doesn’t mean he is that devil that some people paint and imagine – some of them with political or economic motivations. We all have flaws, man. But part of the media only exploit and show his flaws!
Furthermore, Trump is not failing as President. Besides the fact that this assertion is partly subjetive, I give three briefs arguments: (1) Economy and jobs are doing very well; (2) illegal immigrations has been decreasing; and (3) North Korea is finally being controlled (Kim Jong Un has just backed down on his last missile threat).
Finally, I don’t want to discuss Trump’s administration. My point was a philosophical one. And I repeat it here: “good” or “bar”, “right” or “wrong” in politics and ethics depends highly on subjective factors (as interests, culture etc.), something very different from mathematics. I didn’t say “totally”, I said “highly”. So it’s not simple to state that A or B is absolutely unqualified or unfit. Respect Trump and his supporters, respect democracy and before expressing your histeria and hate, try to see that Trump is a human being like us and, although he has MANY PROBLEMS, he has virtues as well.
My suggestion: try to read different perspectives. Read people who criticizes Trump but also read people who support Trump. It’s vital.
21 November, 2017 at 9:14 am
Give it a rest II
There’s nothing to “contradict” in your statement, moron. You spew opinion and think of it as fact. Like Trump himself…
We get it. You have mommy issues. Work them out somewhere else besides a math blog.
My suggestion: grow a brain. And a spine. Your support for someone of Trump’s horrible character and his cowardice says volumes about you and your values. And your grasp of math is as tenuous as your ethics.
16 August, 2017 at 5:55 pm
LiberalsAreNewNazis
I come here a bit late, but given what happened last Saturday, and that the label “Nazi” has been thrown around as a mantra I need to say this.
First of all, I condemn unambiguously and without qualifications the violence perpetrated in Charlottesville, the so called “neo Nazis”, the KKK and all white (and in fact all “race”) supremacists. Period, no qualifications. They are all evil, as far as I am concerned.
I want to add to that, in fact. When one thinks about the label “Nazi”, one is referring to the original ones, those who lived during the 1930s and the 1940s. Those people had the following characteristics,
– They were, on average, more educated than the rest of the world population. It is not only that Nazi Germany, itself, was more educated than the rest of world societies -including the US-, it’s that those around the world who professed love for the German Nazis were also the most educated of their respective societies, specially here in the US.
– They had a blind faith in government; to be more precise, they strongly believed that if only they- the Nazis- became in charge of governing without democratic controls, a more “perfect” society could be achieved. Obviously “perfect” meant, whatever those Nazis deemed perfect.
– Speaking of “perfect”, in their “perfect” society, a series of people where declared anathema and undesirable: not only Jews, but gays, Gypsies, mentally and physically disabled, etc.
This week, CBS did a special on how Iceland had virtually eliminated people with down syndrome,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/down-syndrome-iceland/
Now, you tell me which group of people, in 2017, puts a high premium on higher education -ie, not that they believe that higher education is valuable, but rather, that they treat it as if it was some sort divine oracle-, believe that government should have the power to tell most people how to live their lives and believe in eliminating -via abortion- people they deem undesirable, like people with down syndrome. Let me tell you, it is not the average Trump voter. It is the average liberal who is more likely to be like this, and therefore a genuine 2017 Nazi.
17 August, 2017 at 9:12 am
Anonymous
Jesus this is dumb.
17 August, 2017 at 4:11 pm
LiberalsAreNewNazis
How so? For a label to have meaning, it needs to focus on the substance, not on peripheral characteristics. It’s basic mathematical reasoning A -> B by no means is the same as B -> A. Just because these so called “neo Nazis” use the same label, it doesn’t mean they are as corrosive as the original ones. To be as corrosive as the original ones, they would need to be highly educated -much higher than average-, have a belief in government’s ability to so called “improve society” and finally, have a meticulous plan to get rid of large groups of people whom they deem undesirable. As I said, this substantive description fits better the way of American liberals, particularly highly educated ones, than the ways of the losers that call themselves “neo Nazi”.
18 August, 2017 at 9:59 am
Maths student
As a German, let me educate you on German history. The Nazis were not keen on education. To the contrary, Hitler promulgated the kind of perverse view that the only healthy individual was a physically adept one, ready to fight against the people he wanted to destroy; after all, this was Hitler’s significant character trait: The desire to destroy and kill. The educated were bullied (e.g. large portions of the Jewish intellectual elite were driven out of the country or, in fact, murdered) and if you had any social democratic ideas, you were at risk of suffering repercussions.
You will find upon reading the corresponding Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany) that Hitler in fact went for a free-market economical programme in order to boost Germany’s economy into a ready-for-war state, despite having promised the exact opposite before the election. Furthermore, individuals subject to slave labour had NO social security, workplace rights etc., which would perhaps be things which a U.S. liberal may endorse.
Equating abortion with murder always upsets me somewhat, since abortion is not about murdering a living creature, but merely aborting a fetus that has no feelings, since it does not have a central nervous system.
Finally, I believe that if people like, say, Andreas Mölzer of Austria were to gain power, it may well happen that atrocities like the murderous internment camps of Nazi Germany respawn. Neo-Nazis are still evil, but since, as back then, they recruit themselves from the rather more shallow thinkers (indeed, note that many of the greatest German mathematicians (Hilbert, Weyl, Friedrichs, Artin etc. and certainly not the Jewish ones like von Neumann, Hausdorff, Noether etc.) were not Nazis, and further note that the other nations had their fair stock of genius which possibly ultimately defeated Nazi Germany) they are simply powerless to implement their vicious agenda.
The Nazi period is a shameful spot on Germany’s history. It was by no means a historical necessity. My obligation is, I feel, to do everything in my power to prevent a Nazi resurgency, and yet, some (probably you too) would call me a “liberal” for my political stances.
And finally, let’s hope that Obamacare remains in place, so that people with Down syndrome can get access to the care they need, disregarding the financial status of their parents.
18 August, 2017 at 12:00 pm
LiberalsAreNewNazis
Maths student,
I see you are very confused about several things. Let’s begin with this,
“Equating abortion with murder always upsets me somewhat, since abortion is not about murdering a living creature, but merely aborting a fetus that has no feelings, since it does not have a central nervous system.”
I don’t think you realize you are making my point by dehumanizing -just as the Nazis did with Jews, gays, Gypsies and disabled- unborn children. Now, that thinking of fetuses as unborn children is proper is something that very intelligent people agree with these days. Just watch this,
Christopher Hitchens, Robert Price, Arif Ahmed and the late Nat Hentoff are among the most important XXI-st century atheist intellectuals.
But you don’t stop there. Then you try to re-write history by trying to make us believe that the overwhelming majority of highly educated German Nazis opposed the eugenics agenda of Hitler. Or that Hitler, the poster example of what a totalitarian ruler is, somehow defended free markets. The recent publishing of letters by Bohr addressing his meeting with Heisenberg in September 1941 when the Nazi victory seemed assured directly contradicts what you are saying.
Look, I understand that it must be hard, as a German who loves science, to live with the cognitive dissonance that some of Germany’s greatest intellectuals, such as Heisenberg, were at the very minimum supporters of eugenics and in most cases outright Nazi sympathizers. But you don’t get to a better destination by denying and forgetting history. You get to a better destination by analyzing it and fight hard not to make the same mistakes. For example, to pretend that Iceland is not committing genocide against Down Syndrome people is just delusional. Iceland’s government, admittedly, is in a quest to get rid of these people. Does it really matter that their lives are terminated inside their mothers’ womb rather than the Aktion T4 way from a moral point of view? I don’t think so.
The arrogance that comes with intellectual brilliance is way more dangerous for humanity than the uneducated “neo Nazis” of today. Remember that it was the best of the brightest that got the US into Vietnam War, into the Iraq War and who caused the 2008 financial crisis via sophisticated financial engineering.
If we are going to use the “Nazi” label properly, today’s Nazis are overwhelmingly liberal Democrats in the US. I know a bit less about German politics, but from a distance it seems to me that both the CSU/CDU and the SPD embrace Nazi like ideas like the annihilation of Down Syndrome people.
18 August, 2017 at 12:28 pm
LiberalsAreNewNazis
Maths student,
And I forgot. This reference to Obamacare must be one of biggest red herrings -which in case you don’t know is a logical fallacy- ever. If the availability of government paid benefits that enable people to lead normal lives were the way we decide the value human life, pretty soon tons of people would join the list of undesirables.
If you truly believe that the reason Down Syndrome people are being eliminated by Iceland is to save costs, then again you are making my point that Germany didn’t get very far in its Nazi detox program. They just massaged the 1930s Nazi concepts to make it more amenable for people like you.
18 August, 2017 at 12:44 pm
LiberalsAreNewNazis
Maths student,
And my apologies for yet another post, because your so called “reasoning” keeps getting worse. From the Wikipedia link you sent,
” When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he introduced policies aimed at improving the economy. The changes included privatization of state industries, autarky, and tariffs on imports. Wages increased by 10.9% in real terms during this period However, reduced foreign trade meant rationing in consumer goods like poultry, fruit, and clothing for many Germans.”
That’s something that Bernie Sanders would propose in the US. One of the biggest mischaracterizations of Trump’s economic program is that he is a protectionist. He isn’t. He is for re-negotiating existing trade deals, like NAFTA, to ensure they have the interest of the American people first (and not Mexico’s or Canada’s) and to not get into new ones unless the terms benefit the American people. As a matter of principle Trump is pro-trade, but trade that is mutually beneficial to the US, not trade that enriches countries like Mexico and China at the expense of destroying American’s middle class. It is Bernie Sanders who is a true protectionist.
But it gets better. Then you read,
“Even before the war, Nazi Germany maintained a supply of slave labour. “Undesirables” (German: unzuverlässige Elemente), such as the homeless, homosexuals, and alleged criminals as well as political dissidents, communists, Jews, and anyone else that the regime wanted out of the way were imprisoned in labour camps. Prisoners of war and civilians were brought into Germany from occupied territories after the German invasion of Poland. The necessary labour for the German war economy was provided by the new camp system, serving as one of the key instruments of terror. Historians estimate that some 5 million Polish citizens (including Polish Jews) went through them.”
How this is “free market” is beyond me. In fact, making an analogy to today’s America, which party defends the influx of uneducated laborers so that these laborers work in the US in such harsh conditions that they they could be called properly “indentured servitude”? Well, you guessed it: the Democratic Party for the most part. You also have the Republican faction of “Never Trumpers” defending this too. This faction, while being the majority among the so called “establishment Republicans” is the minority among Republican primary voters who soundly defeated it by nominating Donald Trump for President.
I’ll stop now. I hope you get the idea. Not only you didn’t refute any of my points, but your attempts to play semantics and massage words ended up backfiring badly.
20 August, 2017 at 5:37 am
TRUMP FOR 2020
Trump for 2020!!! GO TRUMP #MAGA!! LIBS BTFO
20 August, 2017 at 6:43 am
LiberalsAreNewNazis
Amen brother! Nazis are as pervasive in the higher echelons of academia today as they were in the 1930s, only they have learned to adapt their language and manners to sound reasonable when they speak to the public. At the same time they have found it too convenient to have the losers who call themselves “neo Nazis” as a way to deflect attention.
You want to hear what Nazi self-righteous speak looks like? Attend a high profile academic conference or meeting of academics and listen how the attendees talk when they believe nobody is watching. I have literally, heard people praising both William Shockley and James Watson racist ideas in these settings.
These racists have to be soundly defeated again in 2020!!!
18 November, 2017 at 2:33 pm
Bigfoot is real
Trump has proven beyond any doubt that he’s our smart leader and will fix our country from the false song of GLOBALISM #MAGA #2020 #SethRich
19 November, 2017 at 3:04 am
Trump for 2020
It ought to be common knowledge that Donald Trump is the only person on earth that can shatter the false song of globalism
19 November, 2017 at 5:26 am
Anonymous
An opinion is an opinion. Without a supporting argument, it is a useless slogan. Please stop your crap. Mr Trump himself would not even appreciate your pointless comment here.
19 November, 2017 at 12:51 pm
Build that Wall Deport them All
RussiaGate explained:
19 November, 2017 at 1:19 pm
Build that Wall Deport them All
Why would any country value foreigners more than its own citizens? Isn’t the whole point of being a citizen that the state values you above all others?
I say: Deport them all.
20 November, 2017 at 10:04 am
Trump Lover
I <3 our president, makes me proud :')
20 November, 2017 at 12:49 pm
Anonymous
Mr President said: Thank you for your love and support. But PLEASE stop the nonsense crap and go home to learn more math. In that way, you would understand the world better and truly make America great again.
20 November, 2017 at 11:56 am
The Minion (not pinyin)
To all site users and admin
A key component of this ‘life lesson’ engineered by ‘blog admin’ is to watch/listen to the speech by Hillary Clinton, and the first two minutes were a bit slow of her speech but then it gets really entertaining on some levels, it’s as though a real political speech has turned into a scene from a Hollywood film albeit a comedy one.
I just think sequentially (and it is a maths based blog) one needs to accept ‘blog admin’ knows best, and if one can put that piece of the puzzle together then try to actively learn and listen from it, it is high quality teaching, even if a person like me has to receive the lessons in this form, I mean, how you receive a lesson like that is irrelevant, yet the receiving seems the operative…
I’m still listening to the speech by Hillary Clinton, when that is complete I will have a listen to the rebuttal.
Cheers
IB
20 November, 2017 at 12:58 pm
The Minion
To all site users and admin
In maths education, this is called a diversion, such as a mathematical joke for instance. Key materials one could acknowledge for higher appreciation of this diversion is the proposition one, and, the speech by Hillary Clinton along with the website about Trump’s rebuttal.
It is also up for debate whether site admin have really stated anything tangible with this diversion, however it seems educational, it seems experimental and overall some lessons one can take from this is about judgment, is site admin right to say that Proposition one is true? Is site admin giving away their political beliefs, I mean, there is no conclusive evidence that site admin aren’t voting Trump?? It seems to me to be a very clever educational diversion, and can I just say, people use diversions to take a rest and I think they should, just because I took notes on Hilary’s speech (a depressing experience I assure you) but that isn’t why site admin published this. I suspect it is to give us a rest, and in doing so, done what any smart human being would do and created extra output by providing high interest.
cheers
IB
20 November, 2017 at 1:31 pm
The Minion
Using quotes from site users:
“I think, this is not the real issue.” 2016 — The real issue here is that good maths study is likely always best
“”go home to learn more math.”” 2017 — Yes, in total agreement, maths improves one’s intelligence, teaches hard work and countless things
I think a huge problem is diversions, the maths costs high intensity concentration, which due to restrictions on self promotion, one feels hesitant to discuss, but site admin has mentioned in other articles about how to deal with the need to do high concentration tasks and lower concentration tasks.
Site admin welcomes quotes from all people, and processes it accordingly, Finally, with one’s last ounce of posting tolerant strength says, there are other superbly talented people and mathematicians, from other Fields winners to successful students, I’m left to question why I am writing this and why I am even being read?
In Bolognie (talk)
21 November, 2017 at 1:54 am
Trump Rambling
“Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.” snopes.com/donald-trump-sentence/
22 November, 2017 at 2:38 pm
Ajit Pai Fan
Thanks to Trump we will get rid of commie Net Neutrality backed by George Soros and the globalists, can’t thank Trump enough for appointing that Indian American patriot that is Ajit Pai! Woohoo!
23 November, 2017 at 1:29 am
Dem libs
Haha no more net neutrality, get that liberals! #DrainTheSwamp #FalseSongOfGlobalism #MAGA
28 November, 2017 at 2:29 am
Anonymous
The lack of net neutrality is going to affect *everyone* including “non-liberals.” I hope you could put two thoughts on something before speaking.
30 November, 2017 at 1:50 am
Anonymous
Trump proves yet again that he’s a hateful imbecile: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/29/trumps-anti-muslim-retweets-prompt-backlash-in-washington-the-president-is-racist
24 May, 2018 at 10:45 am
John Pinkerton
Ironically, Trump is also the child in the emperor story. Despite all his failings, he provides value by calling out false narratives where PC norms in mainstream media and establishment politics have hidden the truth from common knowledge.
24 August, 2018 at 6:30 am
Favoritism
OK, finally Trump is close to being impeached, was Terry Tao right all along or the probability of Russian collusion depends on UCLA’s government spending on her favor?
9 October, 2018 at 2:30 pm
Kavanaugh victory lap – posttenuretourettes
[…] Trump manage to convert mutual knowledge into common knowledge? That’s how you do it, […]
27 February, 2019 at 11:13 am
Donald Trump is fit to be president - IND2906
[…] It ought to be common knowledge that Donald Trump is not fit for the presidency of the United States… […]
13 March, 2019 at 3:46 pm
.
I think he will still win in 2020 even if they launch Bernie against him. 1. He has to win Fl, Az and two of Mi, Wi, Oh, Pa. Winning Oh is an indicator of strong showing in last four. So in essence he has to win Fl, Az and Oh only. 2. Ideological underpinnings indicate both legal and white majority would prefer status quo. It is unlikely dramatic changes promised by democrats can swing populace with ease. There is no historical evidence for things changing with ease. People would rather prefer status quo which seems to be a case with DT. 3. He has been lucky all through his life and there is probably a fundamental reason behind this. Will he loose his luck in 2020? 4. His base still values what they valued and in 2018 with all the blue swing democrats won little ground. Similar effort in 2020 in a presidential year likely to produce worser results.
28 March, 2019 at 6:12 pm
.
See luck as reason on 3. Mueller probe did nothing. He might be beatable but it is unclear. With 2 more judges he might even have a shot for long term goals.
20 September, 2019 at 1:08 pm
anonomouse
As usual, Terry is right.
26 February, 2020 at 1:37 am
יומיות 15.06.2016: Pebble להאקרים, אוטובוס העתיד בסין, שערורית כוכב התכנות של Tor והוצאת יניב מציפה את השוק בספרי מדב”פ | ניימן 3.0
[…] הסביר למה טראמפ לא ראוי להיות נשיא ארצות הברית. תראו איזה יופי הוא מנסח דעה פוליטית בכלים מתמטיים. […]
19 October, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Any common knowledge left to be spread?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#State_predictions
The coloring looks pretty much the same as 2016.
Any mathematical predictions?
29 December, 2020 at 3:49 am
Anthroprogenic Political Climate Change. DIe Hard Blowhards and Media Presstitutes , Global Level Extinction Event. NOV 8 2016 – Not The Grub Street Journal
[…] and mathematicians such as Peter Woit, Leonard Susskind and Terence Tao have come out as strong supporters of Hillary in the presidential race, and then of course as […]
22 August, 2021 at 11:49 am
Darby L
STAR voting Rocks!
Ranked Choice / IRV is way overrated, compared to STAR, or even Approval voting. Different criteria can be weighted differently by every individual, but the defects of RCV are glaring. Most notably, it doesn’t fix the problem of two-party dominance. Third (4th, 5th, etc.) parties actually have strong viability with STAR voting. Equal Vote Coalition has the info.
26 August, 2021 at 11:04 am
TJR (@renosaer)
This comment is only about the invitation to debate electoral reform. Mr. Tao briefly indicates a preference for Instant Runoff Voting due to its use in his home country. I also briefly want to point out that IRV still falls victim to Favorite Betrayal (i.e. you can’t always give your favorite the highest rating when voting strategically), it does not empirically solve the problem of 2-party dominance, it ignores most of the information given on most of the ballots (for example, if your 1st-choice loses in the last round, then all of your other preferences are essentially ignored), it exhibits chaotic behavior when there are 3+ strong candidates (just look at the Yee diagrams; yikes!), and there is little evidence that it even helps reduce negative politicking and hyper-partisanship. I humbly recommend Mr. Tao consider other alternative voting systems, such as Approval, Score, STAR, and perhaps even the various Condorcet-style systems.
15 January, 2022 at 7:50 am
Anonymous
This blog post has aged better than fine wine. Kudos to Tao for making his political thoughts public despite the backlash.
13 July, 2022 at 1:34 pm
Roger Schlafly
I look forward to this post being updated with the proposition that Joe Biden is not even remotely qualified to carry out his duties. And also opinion on which Presidency turned out better, Trump’s or Biden’s.
29 July, 2022 at 10:42 am
Bradley R Krantz
Your graduate degree from THE University of Whataboutism has paid off.
24 July, 2022 at 9:43 am
Joe Kelly
It’s always more fun to answer something well after the fact. Anyhow, I completely agree with Terry’s logic above and my head still aches to think millions and millions of people can and did vote for Trump. I try to use logic and reasoning for thinking issues or problems through to completion. Moreover, why people will still vote for Trump is beyond me. I guess an ounce of emotion TRUMPS a pound or ton of logic. 😊.
I think even The NY Post or Wall Street Journal would agree with Terry’s original assumption, he just put the pieces together a little faster.
16 November, 2022 at 11:30 am
What have you been upto?
At least Yitang Zhang got his green card and decided to screw around with mathematics while getting paid for doing lowkey work in the US. Rest of us are doomed. Trump is still running.
28 November, 2022 at 4:23 pm
Obligatory Post Opposing Donald Trump. – rants.org
[…] “Daddy, why didn’t you blog about Trump?” post and Terence Tao’s “It ought to be common knowledge that Donald Trump is not fit for the presidency of the United… — relax, Tao is not indulging in liberal tribalism but rather is using a technical […]