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The models are as good as their underlying assumptions. Economics is definitely guilty of pretending fancy (for a layman) mathematical models "prove" things a

The models are as good as their underlying assumptions. Economics is definitely guilty of pretending fancy (for a layman) mathematical models "prove" things and disregarding the messiness of the real life. You've shown it yourself by saying "the Markov Decision Process which is you". I've done both financial econ and biology/genomics and I by far prefer the latter as a field. It is not to say that biology research doesn't have flaws but at least everyone understands the mathematical models are only models.

AndrewKemendo 4y ago
The thing is, the models are actually pretty predictive at this point and are only improving. Like scary predictive There is no "getting worse" for the mathematics of prediction. In fact we have people in this thread saying to actually behave randomly in order to fool the systems. So, you know, we actually figured out how to improve iteratively and it's increasing in speed of improvement of prediction
- 331c8c71 4y ago
  I don't dispute that. However the fact that predictive models work does not prove that people have choice and conciously choose to forego privacy. Look at apple/android there are huge scale effects/entry barriers at play so it's very hard for a more privacy-oriented competitor to emerge. Another thing is that people certainly don't understand how much data they provide and to what extent they are profiled.
  - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
    I don't think I'm being clear with my point It is possible to not be involved in the ad-economy, millions of people do it everyday. I would guess that most of these millions are old, illiterate, or are very poor, but you can do it without being any of those things. This population of people are not on the internet, they don't use credit cards, they don't have a cell phone. They work for cash, live in the same city they were born in etc.. You and I are actively choosing not to live like that, when in fact it is a completely possible, reasonable way to live and by the way we have been living like that for basically all but the last few decades. Everyone has a choice.

AndrewKemendo 4y ago

The thing is, the models are actually pretty predictive at this point and are only improving. Like scary predictive There is no "getting worse" for the mathematics of prediction. In fact we have people in this thread saying to actually behave randomly in order to fool the systems. So, you know, we actually figured out how to improve iteratively and it's increasing in speed of improvement of prediction

331c8c71 4y ago
I don't dispute that. However the fact that predictive models work does not prove that people have choice and conciously choose to forego privacy. Look at apple/android there are huge scale effects/entry barriers at play so it's very hard for a more privacy-oriented competitor to emerge. Another thing is that people certainly don't understand how much data they provide and to what extent they are profiled.
- AndrewKemendo 4y ago
  I don't think I'm being clear with my point It is possible to not be involved in the ad-economy, millions of people do it everyday. I would guess that most of these millions are old, illiterate, or are very poor, but you can do it without being any of those things. This population of people are not on the internet, they don't use credit cards, they don't have a cell phone. They work for cash, live in the same city they were born in etc.. You and I are actively choosing not to live like that, when in fact it is a completely possible, reasonable way to live and by the way we have been living like that for basically all but the last few decades. Everyone has a choice.