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Hm, I never thought I would come to admire a Greek politician. He is really superb. What the article failed to notice is the EXTREMELY deep domain knowledge thi

by atmosx 11y ago

Hm, I never thought I would come to admire a Greek politician. He is really superb. What the article failed to notice is the EXTREMELY deep domain knowledge this guy has. He literally blows everyone out of the water! In his last interview (on Monday 18 May 2015, at tv show 'enikos') he made a quick reference to BTC stating that it's not going to work 'very well' as a currency but the underlying technology was amazing and sure as hell will heave many real-world applications in the future. He was accused of talking 'macro-economics' at the Eugogroup, as if the 'Eurogroup' is the 'kindergarten' where people are not supposed to have basic macro-economic knowledge. Really amazing guy. I'm proud he is my FinMin. UPDATE/OFF-TOPIC: I see many comments that are disheartening for me as a Greek on a national level. However, I also noticed a lack of basic economic concepts from large parts of the HN crowd. I'm talking about those who take the time to comment. I noticed the same thing in bitcoin-related post discussions. Ultimately I stopped commenting on the subject because there were many people who clearly understood the theory around the protocol bad had really a very narrow (if any) understanding of how macro-economics, currencies, surpluses and public finances (generally speaking) work. This is something that puzzles me and I can't find any reasonable explanation. In other domains, like biology, molecular biology, medicine - domains which I'm able to understand at some level because I'm a pharmacist - the HN commentators seem to be extremely prepared. I wonder if I'm the only one who noticed this (for the specific topic of economics at least) or there are others who think that when talking 'economics' or some other topic, the HN crowd is, on average, not well prepared and the comments are not up to the expected level? Sorry for the huge comment, have a nice day everyone :-)

graeme 11y ago
For your question about HN comments and Econ: If you are discussing molecular biology, it's easy to tell that you don't know anything. Not that no one makes mistakes about the subject, but at least there is a sizeable group of people prepared to say "I know nothing about that" Economics is something that everyone participates in. This increases the ease of having an opinion about it, and decreases the number of people willing to say "I know nothing about that" As for Bitcoin, that may be partly due to the halo effect. Bitcoin has an effective technical base. That can lead us to assume that all aspects of Bitcoin are effective. (Note that this is not an argument against Bitcoin. Instead it's an explanation for why people might overestimate it.)
- atmosx 11y ago
  Yes, that's it. It's so obvious I wonder, y I didn't figure it out! Thanks for adding subtitles for me :-)
throwaway12309 11y ago
Mostly because most folks that have no understanding of molecular biology won't really comment on it, so you will get the 'experts' doing so, unfortunately, everyone thinks they know economics enough to spout some of their ideas. (you can see this at bars as well, talk about physics, and you get a conversation with the only person that understands it, you talk about economics (or politics) and everyone is an expert, including the drunk hobo in the corner)

by atmosx 11y ago

graeme 11y ago

For your question about HN comments and Econ: If you are discussing molecular biology, it's easy to tell that you don't know anything. Not that no one makes mistakes about the subject, but at least there is a sizeable group of people prepared to say "I know nothing about that" Economics is something that everyone participates in. This increases the ease of having an opinion about it, and decreases the number of people willing to say "I know nothing about that" As for Bitcoin, that may be partly due to the halo effect. Bitcoin has an effective technical base. That can lead us to assume that all aspects of Bitcoin are effective. (Note that this is not an argument against Bitcoin. Instead it's an explanation for why people might overestimate it.)

atmosx 11y ago
Yes, that's it. It's so obvious I wonder, y I didn't figure it out! Thanks for adding subtitles for me :-)

throwaway12309 11y ago

Mostly because most folks that have no understanding of molecular biology won't really comment on it, so you will get the 'experts' doing so, unfortunately, everyone thinks they know economics enough to spout some of their ideas. (you can see this at bars as well, talk about physics, and you get a conversation with the only person that understands it, you talk about economics (or politics) and everyone is an expert, including the drunk hobo in the corner)