We’ve had 3 “once in a lifetime” financial meltdowns in like 25 years now.
Our banks need bailing out like every 10 years.
The arrogance of thinking that we’ve figured out the economy even in the Newtonian sense is part of why, I think.
Like, I hear you, but at the same time it just doesn’t align with even the broadest observations.
And when a theory doesn’t align with observed data, I have to be critical of the theory…
I’m interested in if you can expand your explanation to account for it, though. It’s super low stakes and I don’t think it’s really possible to prove any of it so I think it’s a great subject for thought experiments.
I mean, we see the exact same uncertainty all the time in real-world applications of the hard sciences as well.
Weather prediction, for example, is still just as inexact a science as macroeconomics in its application, even though it’s entirely physics-driven and we have a pretty complete understanding of each of the variables involved on a theoretical level. The system is just complex and chaotic enough that understanding the theory of weather doesn’t mean that we can successfully model the real-world behavior of weather.
This doesn’t mean that we should conclude that all theory relating to weather is incorrect - that would we throwing the baby out with the bathwater - it just means we still have a ways to go when modeling the real-world complexities that come with the theory.
The economist’s fundamental assumptions are wrong. The free market rational actor model is wholly incompatible with the ability of a finance or marketing industry to exist because marketing could never inform or convince anyone of anything and contracts can provide anything financialisation does without giving 10% of your income to someone who did nkthing. Given that both exist and together dominate the industry of the wealthiest countries, we know that none of it is real, and that the people pushing it also know this.
Psychology and physics are founded in empiricism, not post-hoc rationalisations of what the powerful wanted to do anyway.
The economist’s fundamental assumptions are wrong. The free market rational actor model is wholly incompatible with the ability of a finance or marketing industry to exist because marketing could never inform or convince anyone of anything and contracts can provide anything financialisation does without giving 10% of your income to someone who did nkthing.
This is either an intentional strawman of economic theory or a naive understanding based off a single Intro to Economics class.
It’s like arguing that physics’ fundamental assumptions are wrong because basic physics problems assume that cows are spheres with no air resistance.
Psychology and physics are founded in empiricism
A significant amount of modern economic research is empiricist, but even if it weren’t, empiricism and rationalism go hand-in-hand in scientific inquiry. Rationalism is what allowed Mendel to posit “units of inheritance” over a century before the existence of DNA was empirically verified, and Schwarzschild to posit the existence of black holes almost a century before black holes’ gravitational waves were first measured. Decades of productive research were had in advance of these empirical discoveries thanks to models built on rationalist inquiry, so “it’s not empiricist” isn’t quite the insult you seem to think it is.
Oh. You were serious with the “it doesn’t matter if it conflicts with reality if I thought a bit because it’s ‘rational’ and directly contradicting reality is the same as an approximation” schtick?
Ah, I see that I’ve made the mistake of engaging in this conversation in good faith when that was never your intention. I won’t make that mistake with you again.
If air pollution policy was set based on assuming all humans are spherical cows in a vacuum, you might have a coherent point, but when the dominant controlling power in your field is based on the assertion that we should just remove the air to make reality more like the models then your field is a laughing stock.
If I posit for a moment that you actually come from a sub-field interested in describing reality rather than altering reality to suit the wealthy, then you should rename what you do or get rid of the ones giving you a bad name. Clean up your shit or call what you do if you want to be taken seriously. Otherwise you get to be lumped in with the feckless ghouls your field holds up as experts.
I still don’t see this as an oranges to oranges comparison. Or even oranges to mandarins. Or oranges to limes.
I accept that both systems (weather and economics) are both “chaotic systems”. That doesn’t make them equivalent though. Some infinities are larger than others.
Trying to model the behaviour of a single human is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behaviour of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with their means of sustainance. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
I accept that some PORTONS of the models are pretty sound. Supply and demand curves? Sure.
I’ll hit you with a thought experiment:
If it’s the case that it’s just a matter of reading your econ textbook and then you can accurately model the economy, or even a small part of it, then extracting disproportionate wealth becomes a simple matter of doing some math.
Why isn’t every econ grad wealthy? Why are there wealthy people who run exactly the inverse plays? Why do the most powerful institutions require bailouts?
I’m not saying that the theory is bad, but it’s a masterbutory exercise. Applying the theory results is such disparate actual outcomes make it more like legend then law.
However, I personally think that the frequent rejection of that reality serves a different psychological purpose, which is the need to translate wealth distribution to an explainable system… Specifically one that explains favourably to people who already have the wealth.
Why am I rich and you’re poor? It’s simple: I merely understand the physics of the economy. You don’t. If you did, you would be where I am.
And, if someday you gain great wealth, it will be as a direct result of the actions you took, made with confidence as a result of unmistakable stimuli, that anyone could have done.
Understand me when I say I’m not discounting economic theory wholesale… Not at all. I am just saying giving it more credence than it truly deserves has a peripheral benefit in providing a justification for some kinda shitty social structures that exist now… That ALSO have science backing them. For example, the study of social mobility.
Trying to model the behaviour of a single human is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behaviour of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with their means of sustainance. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
Trying to model the behavior of a single eddy of wind is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behavior of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with the causes of those individual eddies. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
If it’s the case that it’s just a matter of reading your econ textbook and then you can accurately model the economy, or even a small part of it […]
It’s not the case. My entire comment was about why that’s not the case at all. Extracting disproportionate wealth is hard for the same reasons weather forecasting is hard. Not because of the theory, but because of the complexity of the system the theory describes.
I’m not saying that the theory is bad, but it’s a masterbutory exercise. Applying the theory results is such disparate actual outcomes make it more like legend then law.
You still haven’t shown how this is any different to applying the theory of weather forecasting, or applying the theory of plate tectonics and still failing to predict earthquakes, etc.
However, I personally think that the frequent rejection of that reality serves a different psychological purpose, which is the need to translate wealth distribution to an explainable system… Specifically one that explains favourably to people who already have the wealth.
You’re conflating the science of economics with the meta-discussion surrounding the politics of economics.
This is just like someone arguing that weather science is bullshit because we can’t successfully predict the weather, and it therefore only exists as an excuse to implement more damn liberal environmental policies.
You still haven’t shown how this is any different to applying the theory of weather forecasting, or applying the theory of plate tectonics and still failing to predict earthquakes, etc
Well the sentience and self-determination of the agents involve, in my mind, make the constituent agents significantly more difficult to predict in the case of the economy than predicting the weather.
Do… You disagree? Maybe I’m missing something, I probably am, I’m not a smart man… But it appears that you’re appealing broadly towards some echo of “rational market theory” and I don’t really understand how people do that in the age of Elon Musk. Many major factors in how the economy works are governed by passionate and irrational agents.
The air, and pressure systems, while complex, aren’t rational or irrational. They don’t have childhood trauma, fear, mortality… Greed, desire of any kind.
So, you’re right, I suppose I can’t show that humans are more difficult to predict the behaviours than air. It seems obvious to me, but I can and will freely admit the difference between what I know, and what I think I know.
I guess, from my undeducated and naive perspective, economics is primarily applied sociology with some pretty rudimentary math sprinkled in… And so I would assume that it would inherit the same issues as sociology (being that it’s actually pretty hard to develop models to describe how groups of people behave).
I don’t mean to strike a nerve. I took like 2 econ courses like 15 years ago… so I admit I have a super elementary understanding of what the study entails. I’m just a guy on the internet with not a very valuable opinion on the subject, coloured primarily by what, in my opinion, the study of economics has failed to do or achieve, rather than having an in depth understanding of what the study is.
We have a fairly solid understanding of an ideal economy. If the economy was run according to current theory, we’d avoid a lot of issues (and find new ones we would address, of course).
However, the economy is run according to political whims, so most of the economic theory gets thrown out the window. It’s pretty easy to run into major issues when nothing stays consistent for more than a couple years, and the interests of those in charge do not include a stable and sustainable economy.
“If reality was the thing we made up, the thing we made up would be science” isn’t a great defense. Neoclassical economics is not science, it’s barely even a semi-coherent fairy tale.
It’s more “if people quit trying to break the system to enrich themselves, and the politicians actually agreed to empower the agencies which are supposed to oversee and regulate large companies and financial institutions, and we actually listened to the data instead of the soundbites that sound good as long as you don’t think about them much, we’d be much better off.”
Economists are not in charge of anything, politicians and rich people are. And they aren’t incentivized to run things like an economist, because then they would make less money.
Just because the people with an incentive to blow up the economy to make money end up blowing up the economy to make more money every few years doesn’t mean economics is at fault for that. It’s like saying climate science isn’t real because earlier projections of global warming were more optimistic, when the real reason is the science was suppressed and downplayed by the people making boatloads of money off fossil fuels.
The correct analogy would be if the climate deniers working for Chevron were held up as field experts, and that the institution of climate science stood behind them, then anyone who pointed it out was just told we need to organise agriculture on more +4.5 degree compatible terms.
We’ve had 3 “once in a lifetime” financial meltdowns in like 25 years now.
Our banks need bailing out like every 10 years.
The arrogance of thinking that we’ve figured out the economy even in the Newtonian sense is part of why, I think.
Like, I hear you, but at the same time it just doesn’t align with even the broadest observations.
And when a theory doesn’t align with observed data, I have to be critical of the theory…
I’m interested in if you can expand your explanation to account for it, though. It’s super low stakes and I don’t think it’s really possible to prove any of it so I think it’s a great subject for thought experiments.
I mean, we see the exact same uncertainty all the time in real-world applications of the hard sciences as well.
Weather prediction, for example, is still just as inexact a science as macroeconomics in its application, even though it’s entirely physics-driven and we have a pretty complete understanding of each of the variables involved on a theoretical level. The system is just complex and chaotic enough that understanding the theory of weather doesn’t mean that we can successfully model the real-world behavior of weather.
This doesn’t mean that we should conclude that all theory relating to weather is incorrect - that would we throwing the baby out with the bathwater - it just means we still have a ways to go when modeling the real-world complexities that come with the theory.
The economist’s fundamental assumptions are wrong. The free market rational actor model is wholly incompatible with the ability of a finance or marketing industry to exist because marketing could never inform or convince anyone of anything and contracts can provide anything financialisation does without giving 10% of your income to someone who did nkthing. Given that both exist and together dominate the industry of the wealthiest countries, we know that none of it is real, and that the people pushing it also know this.
Psychology and physics are founded in empiricism, not post-hoc rationalisations of what the powerful wanted to do anyway.
This is either an intentional strawman of economic theory or a naive understanding based off a single Intro to Economics class.
It’s like arguing that physics’ fundamental assumptions are wrong because basic physics problems assume that cows are spheres with no air resistance.
A significant amount of modern economic research is empiricist, but even if it weren’t, empiricism and rationalism go hand-in-hand in scientific inquiry. Rationalism is what allowed Mendel to posit “units of inheritance” over a century before the existence of DNA was empirically verified, and Schwarzschild to posit the existence of black holes almost a century before black holes’ gravitational waves were first measured. Decades of productive research were had in advance of these empirical discoveries thanks to models built on rationalist inquiry, so “it’s not empiricist” isn’t quite the insult you seem to think it is.
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Lol.
Okay. You Poe’d me. Nice parody. Well done.
??
Oh. You were serious with the “it doesn’t matter if it conflicts with reality if I thought a bit because it’s ‘rational’ and directly contradicting reality is the same as an approximation” schtick?
I don’t know if that sad or even funnier.
Ah, I see that I’ve made the mistake of engaging in this conversation in good faith when that was never your intention. I won’t make that mistake with you again.
If air pollution policy was set based on assuming all humans are spherical cows in a vacuum, you might have a coherent point, but when the dominant controlling power in your field is based on the assertion that we should just remove the air to make reality more like the models then your field is a laughing stock.
If I posit for a moment that you actually come from a sub-field interested in describing reality rather than altering reality to suit the wealthy, then you should rename what you do or get rid of the ones giving you a bad name. Clean up your shit or call what you do if you want to be taken seriously. Otherwise you get to be lumped in with the feckless ghouls your field holds up as experts.
I still don’t see this as an oranges to oranges comparison. Or even oranges to mandarins. Or oranges to limes.
I accept that both systems (weather and economics) are both “chaotic systems”. That doesn’t make them equivalent though. Some infinities are larger than others.
Trying to model the behaviour of a single human is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behaviour of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with their means of sustainance. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
I accept that some PORTONS of the models are pretty sound. Supply and demand curves? Sure.
I’ll hit you with a thought experiment:
If it’s the case that it’s just a matter of reading your econ textbook and then you can accurately model the economy, or even a small part of it, then extracting disproportionate wealth becomes a simple matter of doing some math.
Why isn’t every econ grad wealthy? Why are there wealthy people who run exactly the inverse plays? Why do the most powerful institutions require bailouts?
I’m not saying that the theory is bad, but it’s a masterbutory exercise. Applying the theory results is such disparate actual outcomes make it more like legend then law.
However, I personally think that the frequent rejection of that reality serves a different psychological purpose, which is the need to translate wealth distribution to an explainable system… Specifically one that explains favourably to people who already have the wealth.
Why am I rich and you’re poor? It’s simple: I merely understand the physics of the economy. You don’t. If you did, you would be where I am.
And, if someday you gain great wealth, it will be as a direct result of the actions you took, made with confidence as a result of unmistakable stimuli, that anyone could have done.
Understand me when I say I’m not discounting economic theory wholesale… Not at all. I am just saying giving it more credence than it truly deserves has a peripheral benefit in providing a justification for some kinda shitty social structures that exist now… That ALSO have science backing them. For example, the study of social mobility.
Trying to model the behavior of a single eddy of wind is an incredibly difficult task. Trying to model the behavior of billions is harder. Then you need to blend in their relationships to eachother. Then you need to blend in their relationships with the causes of those individual eddies. With their individual values. Etc etc etc.
It’s not the case. My entire comment was about why that’s not the case at all. Extracting disproportionate wealth is hard for the same reasons weather forecasting is hard. Not because of the theory, but because of the complexity of the system the theory describes.
You still haven’t shown how this is any different to applying the theory of weather forecasting, or applying the theory of plate tectonics and still failing to predict earthquakes, etc.
You’re conflating the science of economics with the meta-discussion surrounding the politics of economics.
This is just like someone arguing that weather science is bullshit because we can’t successfully predict the weather, and it therefore only exists as an excuse to implement more damn liberal environmental policies.
Well the sentience and self-determination of the agents involve, in my mind, make the constituent agents significantly more difficult to predict in the case of the economy than predicting the weather.
Do… You disagree? Maybe I’m missing something, I probably am, I’m not a smart man… But it appears that you’re appealing broadly towards some echo of “rational market theory” and I don’t really understand how people do that in the age of Elon Musk. Many major factors in how the economy works are governed by passionate and irrational agents.
The air, and pressure systems, while complex, aren’t rational or irrational. They don’t have childhood trauma, fear, mortality… Greed, desire of any kind.
So, you’re right, I suppose I can’t show that humans are more difficult to predict the behaviours than air. It seems obvious to me, but I can and will freely admit the difference between what I know, and what I think I know.
I guess, from my undeducated and naive perspective, economics is primarily applied sociology with some pretty rudimentary math sprinkled in… And so I would assume that it would inherit the same issues as sociology (being that it’s actually pretty hard to develop models to describe how groups of people behave).
I don’t mean to strike a nerve. I took like 2 econ courses like 15 years ago… so I admit I have a super elementary understanding of what the study entails. I’m just a guy on the internet with not a very valuable opinion on the subject, coloured primarily by what, in my opinion, the study of economics has failed to do or achieve, rather than having an in depth understanding of what the study is.
If weather prediction were based on the idea that eddies were produced by gnomes with wooden spoons, you’d have an argument.
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We have a fairly solid understanding of an ideal economy. If the economy was run according to current theory, we’d avoid a lot of issues (and find new ones we would address, of course).
However, the economy is run according to political whims, so most of the economic theory gets thrown out the window. It’s pretty easy to run into major issues when nothing stays consistent for more than a couple years, and the interests of those in charge do not include a stable and sustainable economy.
“If reality was the thing we made up, the thing we made up would be science” isn’t a great defense. Neoclassical economics is not science, it’s barely even a semi-coherent fairy tale.
It’s more “if people quit trying to break the system to enrich themselves, and the politicians actually agreed to empower the agencies which are supposed to oversee and regulate large companies and financial institutions, and we actually listened to the data instead of the soundbites that sound good as long as you don’t think about them much, we’d be much better off.”
Economists are not in charge of anything, politicians and rich people are. And they aren’t incentivized to run things like an economist, because then they would make less money.
Just because the people with an incentive to blow up the economy to make money end up blowing up the economy to make more money every few years doesn’t mean economics is at fault for that. It’s like saying climate science isn’t real because earlier projections of global warming were more optimistic, when the real reason is the science was suppressed and downplayed by the people making boatloads of money off fossil fuels.
If your argument is “we’d be describing the economy if the economy would be what we described” you’re just demanding reality change to fit the story.
The correct analogy would be if the climate deniers working for Chevron were held up as field experts, and that the institution of climate science stood behind them, then anyone who pointed it out was just told we need to organise agriculture on more +4.5 degree compatible terms.