[jleyank]

Nobody will care if the conference isn’t held in Philly. Holding it elsewhere will probably make it a little easier and possibly a little cheaper for people to attend. I doubt mathematicians are part of the 1%, so cash and travel hassle should matter. And given today’s Internet, there’s going to be remote attendance which can happen most anywhere.

While it’s still convenient to gather together to discuss a field, it’s not crucial as it was in past times. Easier to do what’s best for the largest number of people.

[ktallett]

Huh? This is primarily because travelling to the US is not worth the risk right now.

[FridayoLeary]

It's just grandstanding.They are mathematicians not political activists. If they want their organization to slide into irrelevance, getting involved in left wing (or right wing, but with academia it's usually left wing) politics is a great way to do that.

[tdeck]

Anyone can be a "political activist". An activist is just an ordinary person who has had enough. Unless you believe the only valid way to influence political discourse is with money.

[hagbard_c]

Sure, anyone can be an activist but it is clear that academia has been turned into an activist training centre. It is also remarkable how these supposedly intelligent people go astray when it comes to the causes they support, from supporting Hamas to defending those who'd throw them off high buildings or putting them against the wall if they got their chance.

[nullc]

Training would imply that it made effective activists, but activism from these quarters tends to alienate outsiders. It's more purity spiral than activism.

[hagbard_c]

Well, no, I don't think training necessarily would make them effective given the context of academic activism. If the whole world would look like a college campus it might but there is such a big disconnect between the real world and academia that even the best trained academic activist ends up doing just what you describe. In some parts of society it has worked though, viz. the rise of the 'DEI' phenomenon driven in part by the infusion of academics into organisations who used their positions to bring in more academics of similar mindset while shunning those who did not subscribe to the desired narrative. Where it used to be said that it did no harm to let those silly students larp revolutionaries because they'd drop all that when they re-entered 'the real world' the truth turned out to be reversed in that they took all that ideological baggage with them into society.

[xigoi]

Not wanting to travel to a dangerous country is not politics.

[ramblenode]

Looking out for the best interests of your members isn't activism.