I think people underestimate the importance of "culture clash" between *professional* cultures. People expect to make allowances for people of different ages, nationalities, or genders to have different perspectives, but less so for professional backgrounds.
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Some examples I've observed: 1. In academic math and physics, overt self-promotion is taboo. Mathematicians have a *very* sensitive threshold for what they think sounds "arrogant", and give *very* understated praise.
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What a technologist would see as just "sharing the impact of their work", a mathematician might see as "boasting", and read as a sign of selfishness or narcissism. Meanwhile, industry people might see the mathematician's modesty as "low self-esteem". Neither is necessarily true.
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2. I have met an accomplished businesswoman (with a background in marketing and design) who flatly did not believe me when I told her that in math, sometimes you can prove counterintuitive things are true.
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She said "no, my intuition is very good, and I can visualize anything." I told her about Banach-Tarski; she said "no, that's impossible, I can visualize it and it doesn't work." She did not believe her intuition could be false, since it had always served her so well.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
How is this an example of something cultural we should make allowances for, vs. someone simply being obstinately wrong and having to unlearn something they incorrectly learned from experience before they can make progress?
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She was incorrect, but due to lack of exposure to examples of counterintuitive-but-true things; someone who wasn't taking account of cultural differences might assume she was stupid (she's not.)
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