RE : Re: Not invariant but good

[John Baez <baez@math.ucr.edu>]

Andre wrote:

>I guess you have introduced the "evil" terminology
>because you wanted people to pay attention to
>the fact that certain constructions in category theory
>and higher category theory are not invariant under
>equivalences.  If this is so, you have succeeded in your goal.

Good!  But I never really thought of it as a piece of "terminology"
that I "introduced".  I've never used in any published paper,
for example.  I've always thought of it as a JOKE.

In the future I'll try to avoid telling this joke in the presence of
people who find it upsetting. This should be easy, because
I'm not working on pure math anymore, except for a few
projects that I'm trying to finish up.  I'm working on
environmental issues.

The planet is headed for an ecological disaster within this
century.  We cannot prevent it, we can only minimize the
damage.  I hope some people on the category theory
mailing list can help out here:

http://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Azimuth+Project

If you aren't sure how to help, send me an email.

Best,
jb


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