Comment by lioeters
1 day ago
This experience of alienation is a social consequence of the mechanization and automation of mathematics as intellectual and creative work. There is no author or thinker behind the creation of the proof, only the practical result. It's the same process as the industrial revolution, but applied to the intellect and mental work, where factories and machines replaced manual craft, devaluing the community, culture and humanity around the work.
I don't know, I work in a field that could be seen as the logical culmination of the Industrial Revolution (to this point) - highly technical, machine assisted knowledge work - and I have community, culture, and humanity in my working life.
Weavers don't have dibs on those intangibles.
Being the 'logical culmination' of the Industrial Revolution does not mean you've been automated (and thus suffered the alienating consequences), rather the opposite: you're currently on the un-automated cutting edge. Your intangibles are exactly what others have lost, and you personally will lose, with further progress in automation.