@Cosmobird research is essentially academia. One's research can be on activism, a lot of people study various kinds of movements. Also can you please elaborate your query related to questions. Are you asking what kind of questions can one ask in research generally?

@Paridhigupta
No, u asked for a academic thread, I am interested to know the reason for the polls.

Furthermore, why should research be limited to academia and in turn why should academic activity be limiting itself away from justice and politics. I think they cannot be isolated and they are deeply interpenetrated within a wider socio-political-economy. Its a part of complex system.

We are witnessing practice of science is alienating itself away from justice, creating more and more technocratic conditions that determine parameters of democracy.

This demands emergence of new sciences that wants to connect and understand more about complex nature.

I'm also interested the points u chose for polls. !

@Cosmobird I don't think academia is different from activism in praxis, in the way when there's such a massive attack on education, to research is literally a form of activism. It's intertwined in multiple ways, some people literally work on activism and questions of social movements (like me), some researchers approach it through policy, legality, while others are resisting by even having an access to education. Research is not limited to academia at all, also what is academia really? (1/n)

@Cosmobird it is an intersection of multiple things, one uses theoretical frameworks to approach all the questions you asked. And the point of this poll is to understand what people want the next academic thread to be, suggestions are welcome, the mastodon poll only allows 4 options per poll so that's that. The last thread for example was on mental health in a academia. The point is so people in research don't feel alone and can talk and learn from each other on issues they are bothered by (2/n)

@Cosmobird especially social sciences and humanities have been working on this complex relationship you are talking about since time immemorial. So i dont think academia is isolated from questions of justice. The present poll is specifically on building one's research in its infancy, so once people pick a topic, a thread would be created on the topic to help researchers. From what I can gauge you will like a thread on choosing a topic and it's approaches right? (3/3)

@Paridhigupta
I think many of the decisions, policies, schemes are heavily governed by mathematical models that arm the ideologies behind it. We learn systematic oppression of ruling class (caste too) by deploying rules and regulations for economic inequality... As in manu.

Also as a continuum we now have technocratic super weeds from food to information. And everything commonly seems to be man handled by mathematics, which have a popular narration of unbiased and just, somehow.

We have illustrative proofs about algorithm discriminating and accelerating discrimination, can decide how much to pay for ones labour power (still theories find it hard to do it), makes labourers run after targets, decide whom to give ration to, .... Etc... Can also help ruling class to divide people and zone them based on stratification parameters like language, caste, etc... So that they can devise plans to neglect people dont need to establish class hierarchy, caste hierarchy etc... Recent uidai, ncpi, tdfsbs, etc... Are just examples within country.

Who are all considering math must be viewed in political angle ?

@Cosmobird there are several works which have focussed on racist and sexist biases within algorithms. A lot of studies have been released. You can try reading "Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism" by Safiya Umoja Noble. And a whole series of articles you can look at. And even say things like psychoanalysis tests have been now understood as having racist biases. So this has been looked at.

@Paridhigupta
Yeah, I am part of the collective that discusses about mathematics and its political economy from both historical and contemporary perspective. Most of the material and works that are available are mostly addressing the developed nations concern.

There is close to nothing when it comes to Indian perspective. How come algorithms, and math models play its role in caste ? How come political parties use it for their advantage to win votes ? How come services in internet (psyops) favouring rightwing, why ?

What is the status of algorithm auditing in india ? Who should do it ? Civil society ? Govt ? Private ? ... Who inspect the inspectors ?

Why math models that decide credit worthiness are not transparent and who decides and makes it ? .... Etc...

Relationship between math, algorithm, labour .... Any alternatives, solutions ? ....

@Cosmobird that's very interesting, what's your collective called? Also, as part of your collective, what's your research said on these issues?

@Paridhigupta
It is Maitri social science collective, maitrissc. It is like a community of collectives with several relation/network of academicians and activists from crafts, finance, agrarian, coastal, biodiversity, labour, women, cooperatives, mathematics, etc....

@Paridhigupta
One, to learn deeply about the history from each issue perspective. Instead of keep blaming the hegemonic oppressive forces, form alternatives which again will be learned from alternatives and how to orchestrate it.

On algorithms specifically, it needed to be initiated from mathematics and its political nature. How free software movement and auditing can form integrated solution, etc...

Find what are all latent math models, that influence mass behavior, individual identity, decisions etc..

@Cosmobird I agree with you, esp from scholars of mathematics, who should approach these questions, who have the academic skills to, this also disrupts this divide and hierarchy between social and other sciences.

@Paridhigupta
Also how gender, credit, working women, financialization through cash transfer affects women livelihood, identity plunder, why there is increasing black box policies ?

What is the role if neo-porn in current india ? Etc....