4 ms·

Economics is worse than religion: it's astrology. It has the trappings of mathematics (ODEs and whatnot) as astrology uses numbers, like astrology and auguring

Economics is worse than religion: it's astrology. It has the trappings of mathematics (ODEs and whatnot) as astrology uses numbers, like astrology and auguring (in their day) economics is a fantasy serving to flatter the powerful.

igravious 9y ago
Not true. Too cynical. That the economy is amenable to quantification is unquestionably true. That it has so far completely resisted our advances is false. Edit: Having said that I see where you're coming from.
- tnone 9y ago
  If economics is the study of macro-psychology, then it would have the same problems as regular psychology: the inability to do truly controlled experiments, only with an even smaller set of entities to build your N out of. I think the closest we can get is to compare the predictions from their theories to reality X years later. It anyone has done that, I'd be very curious to see it.
  - igravious 9y ago
    What's macro-psychology? Do you mean group-psychology? Economics is the study of a particular value system within society, that value system being the monetary/capital one. Human psychology comes into play (both at the individual and group level) because human evaluation and action is involved.
    - tnone 9y ago
      Group psychology vs egregore psychology. The difference is whether you are paying attention to individual desires in aggregate, or whether you are attributing desires to the collective entity that no single individual has.
Retric 9y ago
Economics has many successes, but the problem is it's trying to approach psychology with math. They know that people are not actually rational, but there is some value in treating them as such.
- nabla9 9y ago
  Rational choice theory is usually the right model. There are others.
  - culturalzero 9y ago
    The biggest problem I run into with this is that I believe the bounds of rationality for different individuals had far more variability than is accounted for. I suppose it's still useful to look at for a perspective on some things though
    - NhanH 9y ago
      I know nothing of modern economics, but couldn't you just model the rationality of individual as a random variable like everything else?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - nabla9 9y ago
      Economic models usually look at average behaviour for large groups. There are cases where the model breaks, but jumping into "oh, it was all bs then" is just populism.
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    I hope that 'right', in this context, means that it leads to observationally verifiable predictions of significant real-world events, and not, say, 'makes the math tractable', or 'produces results that conform to the existing tenets of economic theory'. I would be less skeptical if there were not apparently at least two schools of economists, producing diametrically opposed analyses and recommendations for any situation.
blibble 9y ago
I think Futurama got it right with their "voodoo economists"
- Tomminn 9y ago
  Which was originally a quip Bush Sr used to describe Reaganomics.
raverbashing 9y ago
A lot of economics is just concepts built on pure math (interest rates, etc). There's nothing astrological about this Statistical models also are interesting but there are limitations, both at micro and macro levels But I think people take its prediction power too seriously and ignore linked events that seem independent at first (like low graded loans failing affecting payment of other loans)
- mcguire 9y ago
  See Milton Friedman's "The Methodology of Positive Economics" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in_Positive_Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in_Positive_Economics): "Truly important and significant hypotheses will be found to have "assumptions" that are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality, and, in general, the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the assumptions (in this sense) (p. 14)."
- thinkfurther 9y ago
  > A lot of economics is just concepts built on pure math A lot of numerology is also pure math, addition for example.
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    If you can't see the difference between an interest rate and "finding your lucky number" this discussion can't be furthered
    - thinkfurther 9y ago
      Interest rate is "pure math", and used within a framework, parts of it rather arbitrary. "finding your lucky number" is framework and adding up numbers in a name or stuff like that is "pure addition", so that framework uses pure math. That's my point, you're just not getting it.
tempodox 9y ago
> ... it's astrology. And it has alchemists, too. Like the alchemists of old were searching for a formula to make gold (assuming they legitimately tried and were not just scamming their employers), their modern-day peers try to find a formula for producing unicorns.

igravious 9y ago

Not true. Too cynical. That the economy is amenable to quantification is unquestionably true. That it has so far completely resisted our advances is false. Edit: Having said that I see where you're coming from.

tnone 9y ago
If economics is the study of macro-psychology, then it would have the same problems as regular psychology: the inability to do truly controlled experiments, only with an even smaller set of entities to build your N out of. I think the closest we can get is to compare the predictions from their theories to reality X years later. It anyone has done that, I'd be very curious to see it.
- igravious 9y ago
  What's macro-psychology? Do you mean group-psychology? Economics is the study of a particular value system within society, that value system being the monetary/capital one. Human psychology comes into play (both at the individual and group level) because human evaluation and action is involved.
  - tnone 9y ago
    Group psychology vs egregore psychology. The difference is whether you are paying attention to individual desires in aggregate, or whether you are attributing desires to the collective entity that no single individual has.

Retric 9y ago

Economics has many successes, but the problem is it's trying to approach psychology with math. They know that people are not actually rational, but there is some value in treating them as such.

nabla9 9y ago
Rational choice theory is usually the right model. There are others.
- culturalzero 9y ago
  The biggest problem I run into with this is that I believe the bounds of rationality for different individuals had far more variability than is accounted for. I suppose it's still useful to look at for a perspective on some things though
  - NhanH 9y ago
    I know nothing of modern economics, but couldn't you just model the rationality of individual as a random variable like everything else?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - nabla9 9y ago
    Economic models usually look at average behaviour for large groups. There are cases where the model breaks, but jumping into "oh, it was all bs then" is just populism.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  I hope that 'right', in this context, means that it leads to observationally verifiable predictions of significant real-world events, and not, say, 'makes the math tractable', or 'produces results that conform to the existing tenets of economic theory'. I would be less skeptical if there were not apparently at least two schools of economists, producing diametrically opposed analyses and recommendations for any situation.

blibble 9y ago

I think Futurama got it right with their "voodoo economists"

Tomminn 9y ago
Which was originally a quip Bush Sr used to describe Reaganomics.

raverbashing 9y ago

A lot of economics is just concepts built on pure math (interest rates, etc). There's nothing astrological about this Statistical models also are interesting but there are limitations, both at micro and macro levels But I think people take its prediction power too seriously and ignore linked events that seem independent at first (like low graded loans failing affecting payment of other loans)

mcguire 9y ago
See Milton Friedman's "The Methodology of Positive Economics" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in_Positive_Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in_Positive_Economics): "Truly important and significant hypotheses will be found to have "assumptions" that are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality, and, in general, the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the assumptions (in this sense) (p. 14)."
thinkfurther 9y ago
> A lot of economics is just concepts built on pure math A lot of numerology is also pure math, addition for example.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  If you can't see the difference between an interest rate and "finding your lucky number" this discussion can't be furthered
  - thinkfurther 9y ago
    Interest rate is "pure math", and used within a framework, parts of it rather arbitrary. "finding your lucky number" is framework and adding up numbers in a name or stuff like that is "pure addition", so that framework uses pure math. That's my point, you're just not getting it.

tempodox 9y ago

> ... it's astrology. And it has alchemists, too. Like the alchemists of old were searching for a formula to make gold (assuming they legitimately tried and were not just scamming their employers), their modern-day peers try to find a formula for producing unicorns.