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This is one of the most ideological interviews I have ever read with an economist. Economists are unusually unaware of ideology, this is extraordinary: conducts

This is one of the most ideological interviews I have ever read with an economist. Economists are unusually unaware of ideology, this is extraordinary: conducts limited research with limited applications (i.e. how people behave in lab conditions under unequal endowments), makes sweeping conclusions about tangentially related areas, makes sweeping conclusions about unrelated areas (most of the questions are unrelated to his research), and most of what he says just appears to totally random ideological musings about who adds value in society (this isn't even a question that economics can answer). You see this from economists who fail out of physics close to 100% of the time. They don't really understand anything about the private sector, they understand even less about the economy (they just want to do things that they enjoy rather than produce things for others), and they often have these very strong feelings about capitalism...without really having any evidence for these views (or any awareness of the trade-offs...again, this is the kind of thing you don't learn in physics/math class).

mrow84 7y ago
You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but unfortunately this process is how our understanding of the world has increased so rapidly over the past several hundred years - laboriously proposing new models, often from intuitions we have derived from observations, and then trying to test those models by obtaining experimental evidence. If things bear out then we put more effort in, and conduct more thorough research. There are many instances of poor practice within that framework, but the process _as a whole_ has worked pretty well so far, and what is discussed here is pretty standard. As for the Nautilus post itself, it is just an interview with someone who works in the field, not a rigorous scientific document, and they are free (surely?) to express their views about whatever they and the interviewer wish to discuss. To your later points - I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you, but I would suggest that the person in question does have _some_ understanding of the economy (at least), inasmuch as they have contributed to a formalised understanding of the dynamics of the economy as we (humanity) currently understand them. I'm not entirely sure what else you want - perfect predictions or go home? Frankly it just sounds like you disagreed with what they said, but, as I already mentioned, you are as entitled to your opinion (as they are to theirs).
- _jal 7y ago
  > I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you It means the object of scorn does not share certain assumptions about the underlying purpose of economics. To be roughly as unfairly sweeping as the gp, you get that a lot from Chicago school types.
youdontknowtho 7y ago
I personally think that economics is propaganda. Economists may think they are above ideology, but...
- mrow84 7y ago
  The study of economics is conducted by a large number of people (many thousands), with (apparently, at least) diverse views. I am interested in your answers to these questions: 1. Do you believe that all economists are engaged in distributing propaganda, or just some? 2. To what end is the propaganda distributed (or maybe on whose behalf)? 3. Are other academic fields similarly concerned with distributing propaganda?
  - youdontknowtho 7y ago
    So, I'm not saying that all academia is a front for aliens. I'm saying that the narrative produced from the status quo in economics has been, for almost all of my life, very conducive to the interests of the powerful. Do other fields have people doing that? Of course. The petroleum industry has been able to pay for people to push their agenda. That's a thing that happens. There are some historical, political, and material reasons for the state of economics and academia in general. Lots of academia is literally just job training for corporations, so don't front like it's above the fray. Even genuine, and valuable, research gets prioritized over less research that isn't as valuable in the private sector. So, again, I'm not the one saying that academia has a problem. Lot's of academics have said these things. Also, from an argumentative perspective it always seems like economics starts from something like a thought experiment and then go on to use the results of that "experiment" as a evidence in its own right. Yes, Einstein used thought experiments, but he used known physics as the starting point. I hear economic arguments that start with a premise that isn't a settled thing like "lets assume that we are hunter gatherers on the savanna and you have some beads and I have an arrowhead." It's not based on a measurement that other people have made and agree on. It's not even based on an archaeological dig where the bones of two people were found. I realize that isn't what actually goes into a phd thesis. Its economics used as a force of nature that bothers me. It's inevitable. Maybe I'm just calling economics the pseudo-ish stuff that I get presented as a layman. Maybe every economics school in every university has a healthy group of people who are critical of basic assumptions. I hope so. If you are an economist and I offended you, then please accept my apology. That wasn't my intention, really.

mrow84 7y ago

You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but unfortunately this process is how our understanding of the world has increased so rapidly over the past several hundred years - laboriously proposing new models, often from intuitions we have derived from observations, and then trying to test those models by obtaining experimental evidence. If things bear out then we put more effort in, and conduct more thorough research. There are many instances of poor practice within that framework, but the process _as a whole_ has worked pretty well so far, and what is discussed here is pretty standard. As for the Nautilus post itself, it is just an interview with someone who works in the field, not a rigorous scientific document, and they are free (surely?) to express their views about whatever they and the interviewer wish to discuss. To your later points - I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you, but I would suggest that the person in question does have _some_ understanding of the economy (at least), inasmuch as they have contributed to a formalised understanding of the dynamics of the economy as we (humanity) currently understand them. I'm not entirely sure what else you want - perfect predictions or go home? Frankly it just sounds like you disagreed with what they said, but, as I already mentioned, you are as entitled to your opinion (as they are to theirs).

_jal 7y ago
> I don't know what "understanding the private sector" or "understanding the economy" mean to you It means the object of scorn does not share certain assumptions about the underlying purpose of economics. To be roughly as unfairly sweeping as the gp, you get that a lot from Chicago school types.

youdontknowtho 7y ago

I personally think that economics is propaganda. Economists may think they are above ideology, but...

mrow84 7y ago
The study of economics is conducted by a large number of people (many thousands), with (apparently, at least) diverse views. I am interested in your answers to these questions: 1. Do you believe that all economists are engaged in distributing propaganda, or just some? 2. To what end is the propaganda distributed (or maybe on whose behalf)? 3. Are other academic fields similarly concerned with distributing propaganda?
- youdontknowtho 7y ago
  So, I'm not saying that all academia is a front for aliens. I'm saying that the narrative produced from the status quo in economics has been, for almost all of my life, very conducive to the interests of the powerful. Do other fields have people doing that? Of course. The petroleum industry has been able to pay for people to push their agenda. That's a thing that happens. There are some historical, political, and material reasons for the state of economics and academia in general. Lots of academia is literally just job training for corporations, so don't front like it's above the fray. Even genuine, and valuable, research gets prioritized over less research that isn't as valuable in the private sector. So, again, I'm not the one saying that academia has a problem. Lot's of academics have said these things. Also, from an argumentative perspective it always seems like economics starts from something like a thought experiment and then go on to use the results of that "experiment" as a evidence in its own right. Yes, Einstein used thought experiments, but he used known physics as the starting point. I hear economic arguments that start with a premise that isn't a settled thing like "lets assume that we are hunter gatherers on the savanna and you have some beads and I have an arrowhead." It's not based on a measurement that other people have made and agree on. It's not even based on an archaeological dig where the bones of two people were found. I realize that isn't what actually goes into a phd thesis. Its economics used as a force of nature that bothers me. It's inevitable. Maybe I'm just calling economics the pseudo-ish stuff that I get presented as a layman. Maybe every economics school in every university has a healthy group of people who are critical of basic assumptions. I hope so. If you are an economist and I offended you, then please accept my apology. That wasn't my intention, really.