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Economics is a strange field. True statements are “fallacies” and fallacies like the rational actor model are axioms.
by goodSteveramos 4y ago
Economics is a strange field. True statements are “fallacies” and fallacies like the rational actor model are axioms.
- notahacker 4y agoAre you seriously arguing the lump of labour fallacy is actually a true statement, and the amount of work to be done in the economy is fixed?
- marcosdumay 4y agoHum... There is a couple thousands of words article at the top explaining why what you say is meaningless propaganda. But TLDR, only you care about the lump of labor fallacy, the people you are talking with never used it.
- notahacker 4y agoThe article contained a couple of thousand words, but neither it, nor Sydney Chapman, nor the person I replied to provided a single actual argument for why the lump of labour fallacy is not a fallacy. The article contains no statements about why the lump of labour fallacy is incorrect, not even any about why it might not be applicable to his proposals, but two statements that readers don't need to know what it is, they should take his word for it that it's bad (hmm... what was that about meaningless propaganda?!) Do you believe the quantity of work that there is to be done in an economy is fixed and the work readily substitutable, so if HN dropped down to 10 hour weeks the result would be unemployed factory workers all finding jobs writing backend code, not less software development work being done (and probably 10 hour work week devs buying less stuff from factories)? Unless you do, the lump of labour fallacy is a fallacy.
- marcosdumay 4y agoOk, keep beating that strawmen. Just a few more hits and it will be dead for sure.
- notahacker 4y agoHow sad you also can't explain why the lump of labour fallacy isn't a fallacy. Maybe save the snark until you have at least a high school level understanding of the subject matter?
- marcosdumay 4y agoAre you really insisting on somebody explaining how your strawmen isn't alive? Of course it's dead.
- notahacker 4y agoI'm quite insistent that the best way to explain why something that economists believe is a fallacy isn't a fallacy is to explain why it isn't fallacy, yes. Sorry kid, you haven't killed a field of economic study by saying "straw man" and "propaganda". The only thing that's dead was my hope that you had enough understanding of the topic to at least attempt adult discussion. I'll leave you to have the last word. It's obvious this matters to you more than understanding.
- marcosdumay 4y ago> a field of economic study Oh, sorry. You believe the lump of labor fallacy created a field of economic study?! Really?
- notahacker 4y agoNope. I do recommend reading how the thread started before replying next time. (hint: somebody mentioned the lump of labour fallacy, and somebody else replied by insisting that economics was a strange field full of fallacies that were actually true statements. He didn't offer any arguments for why economists were wrong to think the lump of labour fallacy was a fallacy, but to be fair to him, this might be because he was too bored to participate in debate rather than because he was desperate to continue the argument despite having no clue what he was arguing about...)
- dragonwriter 4y agoThe rational actor model is not a fallacy, nor is it axiomatic in economics.
- pjscott 4y agoThe lump-of-labor thing was called a fallacy by someone arguing that the amount of labor to be done in society is not fixed: if you happen to have people with a bunch of time on their hands, they can usually find something useful to do that would not otherwise get done. And as for the rational actor model, everyone knows that it's not true; the reason people use it is that its predictions are often surprisingly close to the truth. ("All models are wrong, but some are useful.")
- SantalBlush 4y agoPeople on HN like to make things up about the field of economics, and then complain as a group about those things they just made up.