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It's an allusion to both the show "Mad Men" and to the phrase which spawned it from the 60s. Also, the alliteration.



Honestly, I like the phrase 'math people' or 'computer people' a bit better.

Not always necessary to follow the formal rules of story telling, to tell a story. Reading the same patterns over and over, sounds kind of boring...


The sentence, "math people and mad men" isn't a play on words, and "math people and mad people" doesn't make sense at all. Nobody uses "math men" in speech, this was done for a unique reason.


Is there an algorithm to humor and/or journalism?


Yes, authors have their own particular algorithms in the employment of literary devices. Easy example is great speakers like MLK.


I don't think MLK would be opposed to a more inclusive statement, and I don't think MLK would have downvoted someone for wanting women to be included in a population that is often presented to the world as largely male, even though it's really not.


We really don't know what his position on a play on words in a feature article in The New Yorker written in 2018 would be. He's been dead for 50 years, and I'd venture to say he'd be more concerned about poverty and criminal justice reform.


Yea, the whole discrimination thing he was on about is so 50 years ago.


Maybe black and underclass social problems are not the same thing as making sure writing is bland yet as inclusive as possible in a publication that mostly rich left-leaning white people are going to read on their $1000 itoy?


I'm female, I work at a university that is considered in 'the ghetto' as a software developer. There are a lot of issues in my city that range from everything from homelessness, to gentrification, mental illness, addiction, etc.

I've seen the consequences of discrimination from everything from skin color (I'm white, many of my siblings are black or mixed), to gender, to socio-economic status, etc.

I've also spoken on the internet for a long time, and I know what it feels like to feel silenced with the push of a button. A downvote. It's annoying. It's annoying to know people studying machine learning are only doing it to control how people think, to control behavior, to control wealth, or whatever the fuck else they want.

So, how many times does this have to wrap around itself for people to understand, downvoting people on the internet for complaining about how the world of math and logic seems largely presented as a male world, is part of the problem?

Even more ironically, MLK gets quoted.

All men are created equal. Are you focusing on the word men in that rhetoric, or are you understanding the message?


> Are you focusing on the word men in that rhetoric, or are you understanding the message?

No. But, it seems you are.

I worked in worse places and I've come from worse places. You aren't going to win the oppression Olympics with me.


Yup, you are right! You win the Oppression Olympics against me.


Cool.




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