[btilly]

It's a bit of a white lie but I don't see it being harmful to claim that. It is increasingly becoming true.

I do.

Category theory is something that appeals to some mathematicians, and not to others. Those who it doesn't appeal to are likely to wind up in fields like combinatorics, functional analysis, numerical analysis, and so on. If you inflict category theory prematurely on the latter group, people who might have proven quite talented will be driven away from mathematics.

And I feel this quite personally. I left mathematics for other reasons. But still, had I had to deal with category theory first, I'd have never gone into mathematics in the first place.

[crawfordcomeaux]

I consider your example revelatory, as it points to a different source of harm:

Preferences.

"appeals to some, and not others" - this speaks to the need to normalize the abandonment/minimization of preferences. The harm you describe is self-inflicted limitation due to clinging to preferences. I accidentally abandoned my preferences that lie beyond the meeting of my needs, ie. abandoning preferences for how to meet them. This has led me to realize most, if not all preferences, stem from a combination of arbitrary choices made when young and choices born out of trauma. While there exists preferences with biological/physiological origins, such as those that may have developed around allergies, any conditioned reactions to them are still likely unnecessary. I don't need to feel queasy from smelling something rotten to know it's rotten and to avoid it.

Do you want help with disengaging these means of self-limitation?

[btilly]

Not particularly, oh internet stranger. I do not care for your "help" or armchair psychoanalysis.

Your theory is that I have trauma. Here is mine.

Mathematicians are fairly evenly divided between whether they prefer algebra or analysis. Ask any mathematician and they know exactly which side of this divide they stand on. It is a pretty fundamental difference in what interests them, and what they pay attention to.

Enthusiasm for category theory only exists on the algebra side of the divide. I've yet to meet anyone on the analysis side who particularly likes category theory.

My theory is that I just happen to be on the analysis side.

[crawfordcomeaux]

I said trauma or arbitrary choices. I also forgot about cultural transmission of preferences.

But since you got stuck on trauma and then went on with a "I'm just like this" argument, I'm now willing to bet money on it being trauma-related where before I thought it was a silly possibility.