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"Most of my non-technical friends have only vague ideas or know nothing about these topics." -- and yet, if they are like my friends, they probably have no feel

"Most of my non-technical friends have only vague ideas or know nothing about these topics." -- and yet, if they are like my friends, they probably have no feelings of regret, or sense of ignorance. They probably feel more qualified to speak about things like Obamacare and evil Profit-mongering Insurance Companies than someone who does know mathematics beyond the sixth grade.

yetanotherphd 13y ago
>They probably feel more qualified to speak about things like Obamacare and evil Profit-mongering Insurance Companies than someone who does know mathematics beyond the sixth grade. I think basic economics is just as important to understanding these topics than mathematics. I hear very naive statement about economics from people who know enough mathematics to easily understand the economics, if they had studied it.
- alandarev 13y ago
  Exactly that makes me sad too. There are so many newbie friendly tech-oriented sites. Particularly, because the authors of such sites are geeks themselves. Do not get me wrong, that is great that technology, programming, science is so easy to study now. What I wish is similar quality resources being available in other topics, I am bad with: economy, laws, business, psychology... I am placing my bets on these topics being in high demand. Yet it takes a geek interested in technology to be also interested in unrelated subjects. E: grammar.
- minikites 13y ago
  Be careful about learning basic economics that you think everything in real life can be understood through Econ 101. Basic econ is like basic physics, it's good to know the simplified model, but you can't go build an actual bridge with it.
- ska 13y ago
  But is it so similar? There aren't many (any?) real world problems that you can apply economic theory to and get incontrovertible answers to. Studying mathematics can get you there at least some of the time. I agree it is very important to understand something about (beyond introductory) various approaches to economics if you want to understand how key people involved were thinking about these problems. Here the use of the methods are more important that their accuracy or precision. For that matter, understanding politics (something neither maths or economic thinking does well) is probably much more important to your stated examples.

yetanotherphd 13y ago

>They probably feel more qualified to speak about things like Obamacare and evil Profit-mongering Insurance Companies than someone who does know mathematics beyond the sixth grade. I think basic economics is just as important to understanding these topics than mathematics. I hear very naive statement about economics from people who know enough mathematics to easily understand the economics, if they had studied it.

alandarev 13y ago
Exactly that makes me sad too. There are so many newbie friendly tech-oriented sites. Particularly, because the authors of such sites are geeks themselves. Do not get me wrong, that is great that technology, programming, science is so easy to study now. What I wish is similar quality resources being available in other topics, I am bad with: economy, laws, business, psychology... I am placing my bets on these topics being in high demand. Yet it takes a geek interested in technology to be also interested in unrelated subjects. E: grammar.
minikites 13y ago
Be careful about learning basic economics that you think everything in real life can be understood through Econ 101. Basic econ is like basic physics, it's good to know the simplified model, but you can't go build an actual bridge with it.
ska 13y ago
But is it so similar? There aren't many (any?) real world problems that you can apply economic theory to and get incontrovertible answers to. Studying mathematics can get you there at least some of the time. I agree it is very important to understand something about (beyond introductory) various approaches to economics if you want to understand how key people involved were thinking about these problems. Here the use of the methods are more important that their accuracy or precision. For that matter, understanding politics (something neither maths or economic thinking does well) is probably much more important to your stated examples.