perversion — an action of turning aside from truth; corruption, distortion
1. A Book On Decision Theory
I published my Estonian book on decision theory in the Leanpub publishing house electronically (PDF):
210 pages, with drawings. Price $10.
It is an introduction to decision theory and utility functions with applications in economics. In Estonian.
Philosophical observations on academic perversions
Philosophical or sociological notes on the behaviour of scientists concerning this mathematical book are as follows.
Decision and game theorists have written hundreds of times that they need a simple utility function with specific properties, but it is not easy to find.
I invented such a function after two weeks when I heard about it.
A year later, I finished a book in English about this function.
A year later, an Estonian book as well.
But while they wrote that it would take someone to find such a function, they didn’t need the wrong person to find it.
Ten years later, I still hadn’t managed to publish either these books or the shorter articles.
Western scientific journal reviewers replied that such a utility function had been known for a long time, but no one showed me where and who had used such a function upon my request.
The people at Estonian Business School, to whom I showed my book, gave me absolutely no feedback.
I did not get feedback from other Estonian mathematicians and economists either.
The rector of EBS promised to publish the book, but since the second boss demanded that I completely rewrite it and because I left the job altogether, it was not published there. Fortunately. I wouldn’t have wanted the logo of this Potyomkin university in my book.
I received an anonymous review of the book in Estonian from Tartu University Press.
It announced that I was not saying anything new and was constantly criticizing popular opinion. No examples were presented or analyzed by the reviewer.
— But I didn’t just criticize popular opinions; I refuted these opinions with mathematical proofs. These refutations were one of the places where my book said something new.
The reviewer of Tartu University Press suggested publishing a translated book on decision theory instead of my book. He presented the work to be translated with such characteristics that it was immediately evident that he did not know what the well-known books on decision theory were. His wisdom as an authority was that he suggested translating a book that did not exist, and he had read a book that had not yet been written. He did not name the title or the author of the book he recommended.
I would also not like to see the logo of the University of Tartu in my books because, in his or her works, it would only bring shame to a serious intellectual.
I published the English book Utility Function u = x/(x + 1) abroad in one of the lesser-known academic publishing houses, Lambert.
I have now published the Estonian book (a different version from the English version) for Estonian readers in the foreign publishing house Leanpub.
Antiacademia 