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> So here's the question: do you have a falsifiable, demonstrably better model than one of those used in mainstream economics? If so, you can simply show it to

by CPLX 5y ago

> So here's the question: do you have a falsifiable, demonstrably better model than one of those used in mainstream economics? If so, you can simply show it to us. Yes. My model is: Care about full employment more. Free trade can have benefits but without a plan it causes permanent generational harm. Purposefully exporting your industrial base to another country will risk societal collapse. Supply chains are fragile. And so on. This may seem facile but it would be loads better than the current mainstream economics models. Have you actually seen any of the current models? Do you think that working up some sort of IS/LM analysis is going to lead to better outcomes? Do you think that more partial differential equations are helping somehow? The entire fucking premise of the thing is fucked. I wrote my economics thesis on it. I don't feel like writing a long essay here but I'll tell a small story that maybe will illustrate the concept: Ask yourself how you'd apply the concept of rational expectations or the efficient market hypothesis to the simple game of chess. Would it be a useful analysis to put two players on opposite sides of the table and say "each agent will maximize their utility and engage in actions that are understandable as rational". I mean you could say that but what the fuck would you even mean? What is the rational next step for a participant in a game of chess? It's taken us generations of computing power to even sort of get a handle on this, and we're talking about a completely bounded game with 64 squares and 16 players on each side. Yet despite the fundamental simplicity of the system we still have a possibility space that resists analysis and is certainly not one where a normal person could optimize their strategy in any meaningful way. But then we shift to an unbounded competitive game with billions of participants and think there's such a thing as a rational utility optimizing strategy that agents can discern and follow? GTFO. It's a nonsensical argument. The fact is that economic systems are complex adaptive systems that display properties of chaotic behavior, non-linear responses to inputs, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, and lock-in effects. Someone might come along and point out that actually modern economics models do take that stuff into account and there's all sorts of people working in that context, that we've handed out Nobel prizes for research on asymmetric information decision making and all that. Cool. And yeah the people who get the premise I'm getting at, which is that neoclassical models are fucking useless at any kind of policy level, will probably be the ones that salvage economics, if in fact it's a thing that can be salvaged. But in the meantime, I disagree with your premise. Sometimes it's better to know you don't know anything than to use your beautiful and wrong model to override people that would otherwise be making common sense decisions, like maybe we shouldn't implement austerity measures because people will die if we do.

SantalBlush 5y ago
>Yes. My model is: That's why I specifically said a falsifiable model. The one you provide here is intentionally vague, so its shortcomings can't be critiqued. >Do you think that working up some sort of IS/LM analysis is going to lead to better outcomes? Do you think that more partial differential equations are helping somehow? That's a common misunderstanding of the purpose of mathematical and empirical models. The point of their precision isn't to feign perfection, it's so we can measure exactly how wrong they are for comparison; that's why they are superior to your vague model. The models used in mainstream economics are easily disproven, which is why it's so easy to complain about them. Your model can't really be disproven or even measured at all, which places it beyond reproach. That's why I reject it. In short, you don't have a better one.
- CPLX 5y ago
  Of course each of these models can be measured and are falsifiable. We can try things the neoclassical way and see them predict economic growth and stability and then watch the world fucking burn and inequality metastasize as a transnational global elite siphons off the resources of the masses. Oh look, we've falsified their theory. Now we can try mine. This is called science.
  - SantalBlush 5y ago
    Your models are neither measurable nor falsifiable. Free trade can have benefits? What benefits? How many benefits? You haven't even said. What generational harm? You don't detail it at all, so if the next generation experiences any generational harm, you can claim it's the fault of free trade even though you haven't delineated the causal relationship whatsoever. That's not science, that's just complaining.
    - CPLX 5y ago
      I mean I'm arguing on a message board, not writing a white paper. Of course there are alternate methods of analysis that are plenty rigorous and models that are alternative to neoclassical models. Whole books, schools of thought even. I'm paraphrasing badly while avoiding work. But I'm also pointing out that this line of criticism is fucking bullshit. It's like textbook for mainstream economists to say WE HAVE THE MODELS and LOOK AT MY MODELS like they're fucking something worth bragging about. Supply, demand, regressions, Edgeworth Boley boxes, you name it one thing they are never short of is models and the smug proclamations you're making here, as a kind of generic appeal to "science" and "rigor" and so on. Except they are wrong. Like really fucking wrong. Constantly, systematically wrong. So wrong that a lot of times the analysis is "not even wrong" levels of wrong. I'm being specific here. I'm talking about what used to be called the "Washington Consensus" and it's one of the dumbest fucking ideas ever promulgated by supposedly smart people. Google it if you're not familiar it's well documented. It never made sense and plenty of people pointed that out at the time and yet the 1990's were dominated by these policies and we set the stage for the world we're living in now with these catastrophically misguided ideas. So maybe every single person responsible for that should shut the fuck up and stop talking about their fucking models. Or commit some kind of ritualistic honor driven suicide even. Instead you have Larry Summers in the pages of the New York Times STILL somehow going on about how everyone should be listening to him. And Jason Furman. And plenty of others who should never again be allowed anywhere near a position of authority. This is why people fucking hate economics and economists and they have VERY good reason to. Maybe one day the discipline will be reborn and redeem itself but until then I plan on staying mad.

by CPLX 5y ago

SantalBlush 5y ago

>Yes. My model is: That's why I specifically said a falsifiable model. The one you provide here is intentionally vague, so its shortcomings can't be critiqued. >Do you think that working up some sort of IS/LM analysis is going to lead to better outcomes? Do you think that more partial differential equations are helping somehow? That's a common misunderstanding of the purpose of mathematical and empirical models. The point of their precision isn't to feign perfection, it's so we can measure exactly how wrong they are for comparison; that's why they are superior to your vague model. The models used in mainstream economics are easily disproven, which is why it's so easy to complain about them. Your model can't really be disproven or even measured at all, which places it beyond reproach. That's why I reject it. In short, you don't have a better one.

CPLX 5y ago
Of course each of these models can be measured and are falsifiable. We can try things the neoclassical way and see them predict economic growth and stability and then watch the world fucking burn and inequality metastasize as a transnational global elite siphons off the resources of the masses. Oh look, we've falsified their theory. Now we can try mine. This is called science.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  Your models are neither measurable nor falsifiable. Free trade can have benefits? What benefits? How many benefits? You haven't even said. What generational harm? You don't detail it at all, so if the next generation experiences any generational harm, you can claim it's the fault of free trade even though you haven't delineated the causal relationship whatsoever. That's not science, that's just complaining.
  - CPLX 5y ago
    I mean I'm arguing on a message board, not writing a white paper. Of course there are alternate methods of analysis that are plenty rigorous and models that are alternative to neoclassical models. Whole books, schools of thought even. I'm paraphrasing badly while avoiding work. But I'm also pointing out that this line of criticism is fucking bullshit. It's like textbook for mainstream economists to say WE HAVE THE MODELS and LOOK AT MY MODELS like they're fucking something worth bragging about. Supply, demand, regressions, Edgeworth Boley boxes, you name it one thing they are never short of is models and the smug proclamations you're making here, as a kind of generic appeal to "science" and "rigor" and so on. Except they are wrong. Like really fucking wrong. Constantly, systematically wrong. So wrong that a lot of times the analysis is "not even wrong" levels of wrong. I'm being specific here. I'm talking about what used to be called the "Washington Consensus" and it's one of the dumbest fucking ideas ever promulgated by supposedly smart people. Google it if you're not familiar it's well documented. It never made sense and plenty of people pointed that out at the time and yet the 1990's were dominated by these policies and we set the stage for the world we're living in now with these catastrophically misguided ideas. So maybe every single person responsible for that should shut the fuck up and stop talking about their fucking models. Or commit some kind of ritualistic honor driven suicide even. Instead you have Larry Summers in the pages of the New York Times STILL somehow going on about how everyone should be listening to him. And Jason Furman. And plenty of others who should never again be allowed anywhere near a position of authority. This is why people fucking hate economics and economists and they have VERY good reason to. Maybe one day the discipline will be reborn and redeem itself but until then I plan on staying mad.