2 ms·
Most people assume that economics is like a washing machine where you have a few dials and knobs. Sometimes you need to tighten a screw here, apply some grease
by bko 5y ago
Most people assume that economics is like a washing machine where you have a few dials and knobs. Sometimes you need to tighten a screw here, apply some grease there, etc.
But in reality, economics is more akin a complex biological system. We have a very rudimentary understanding of how it actually works. Sure, we can create drugs that calm us down or excite us, but we have very limited understanding of the underlying biological system. For instance, we still can't agree what the optimal diet for humans is with wildly contradictory regiments.
- ethbr0 5y agoIt's a great analogy, especially since at the end of the day economic shifts are rooted in... illogical meatbags (us). Economists like to pretend it's a science, and there are certainly scientific and experimentally-valid findings, but the innermost terms and interactions will always be obsfuscated. Like psychology, except with higher stacks of layered complexity. It's not as bad as steel deciding to change its tensile strength on a whim (because it heard other steel say so!), but it's not far off.