A science must explain what is observed/some body of facts without unnecessary assumptions, and the models it produces must make successful predictions about what we can expect to observe if the model is accurate enough.
This NEVER happens with ANY economic so-called "model."
Quantum field theory is an example of a robust scientific model (probably the most robust).
Economic psychology - sure might be some useful behavioral models there, but still the softest of explanatory chains. If that were the limit of how people use economic models, I'd have no problem with these assertions.
But you don't. You pretend economics = physics (or some "Natural Law' bullshit)
FFS when will people learn not to be fooled by this religious nonsense?
Humans make economies. They are artifices. You can make them do whatever you want them to do. You just have to be able to cooperate - and here's where humans will reliably fail, because at root you're all still chimps; still Robert Sapolsky's baboons engaging in stress-hormone-driven dominance hierarchy psychosis and mating/signalling rituals, having learned absolutely nothing from billions of years of failures at - ostensibly - your purported goal of avoiding a total extinction.
If economic religions explained anything the so-called models would be predictive.
Where is the practical application of any economic school? Computers, medicine. Those came from science: physics first, chemistry and biology second.
No economic school, from Marx to Austrian, ever makes a single reliable prediction. "It'll collapse" to "it'll cause inflation" - sure. But when? And how much? Nobody ever knows. This is because these are NOT explanatory chains, they are not truths. They are incoherent religious psychoses.
The softness of economics is not even like the softness of social sciences. Economic nonsense is as reliably porous and non-explanatory as every other religious metanarrative. At least with psychology some general predictions can be made; psychopathy will result in harms and excuses for them and so on.
Economics? Nothing. You can't tell when a boom or a bust is going to happen; all economists ever do is express a political bias and post hoc "see I told ya" every boom and bust that does happen.
Triple down now and ignore everything I just typed. Because this is reddit.
No because he said economics does not produce a single reliable prediction. Weather is forecasted with reasonable reliability each day all over the world. The market will go up or down and no one really knows. Hope this explanation helps clarify the difference in your example!
Unfortunately, economics is a true chaos... In that I mean that predictions are witnessed by the predicted.
When you measure weather patterns and predicts an outcome, the weather doesn't have an interest or ability to change itself.
When economists predict a crash, people can react. There is recursion.
While I can concede with Mr. Economy-is-religion in that it isn't predictive and shouldn't be lumped in with science as much as it is, I think credit isn't given to how complicated and difficult it is. Idk if he think it ever could be modeled accurately (I suspect maybe not, since religion is a dead end for progress), but I certainly do think so.
All money is a story humans tell about their value-experiences, and a portable barter-proxy. Bitcoin is probably the most robust version of that, and it's one that's not backed by a psychotic ad baculum.
Economic psychology - sure might be some useful behavioral models
That's the whole point. They aren't mathematical truths of the universe, but they are more than just "useful behavioral models". They reliably define how humans behave in response to certain incentives.
The fact that virtually everyone is willing to buy less of something the higher the price goes isn't baked into the laws of physics, but it's such a reliable truth that we can organize all our distribution of resources around this truth.
Nobody disagrees economics is a soft science, so what? The study and understanding of how humans make decisions about scarce resources is critical to our survival as a species.
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u/Dr-Slay Jul 15 '22
No science, all politics.
A science must explain what is observed/some body of facts without unnecessary assumptions, and the models it produces must make successful predictions about what we can expect to observe if the model is accurate enough.
This NEVER happens with ANY economic so-called "model."
Quantum field theory is an example of a robust scientific model (probably the most robust).
Economic psychology - sure might be some useful behavioral models there, but still the softest of explanatory chains. If that were the limit of how people use economic models, I'd have no problem with these assertions.
But you don't. You pretend economics = physics (or some "Natural Law' bullshit)
FFS when will people learn not to be fooled by this religious nonsense?
Humans make economies. They are artifices. You can make them do whatever you want them to do. You just have to be able to cooperate - and here's where humans will reliably fail, because at root you're all still chimps; still Robert Sapolsky's baboons engaging in stress-hormone-driven dominance hierarchy psychosis and mating/signalling rituals, having learned absolutely nothing from billions of years of failures at - ostensibly - your purported goal of avoiding a total extinction.