Audience at Tea Party Debate Cheers Leaving Uninsured to Die

[K. A. Pital]

Well, the problem here is I have repeatedly stated that Economics is not science.

Statistics has failures? Yes. Is it science? Yes. Same applies to economics.

However, I don't want to get banned so I'll concede to whatever you want.

Who said anything about banning you? You can at most get this thread flushed to where all threads that are ruined by dogpiling and idiotic statements end up. Am I that scary?

However, the simple fact is that actions that manipulate an economy lead to all kinds of unintended consequences.

Yet private entities and governments manipulate the economy on a daily basis. Some fairly simplistic shit, like supply-demand, etc. is quite repeatable and the number of factors is not insane. Long-term is another thing alltogether; but economics evolved from primitive static analysis to more complex dynamic analysis exactly because static models are only moderately useful. And yes, of course it leads to "unintended consequences", but anybody who does anything is better than a do-nothing. Such is the problem.

People's lives are not toys to be moved around at someone's whim because they think they know best how to solve the problems of such a complex system. History is replete with fools that did such things.

People's lives are routinely fucked around by everyone and his dog. Your boss fired you? When he did that, I bet he didn't think about all the hardship you'll endure looking for another job, which you may not find. So how is he different from an economist who likewise issues a directive without thinking about your little life, BrooklynRedLeg? He's not. In fact, he's worse, because he simply does not consider any other factors at all, only his own desire at the current minute. An economist may at least try to compose a multi-factor analysis and stuff like that. An economic agent who commands dozens of other people does not, and yet I don't see you advocating complete anarchy and destruction of all hierarchy because people on top may take the wrong decisions.

So unless you logically follow this to a "forbid all science because they may make an error that would cost people!" and "forbid all authority because authority makes errors in decisions which can cost people!", your hollow defence of unscientific lavit manus coram populo, a description of your own lack of understanding, do not project this on all science.

Economics is the study of the material world. The material world is knowable and measurable. It may be complex, but even the most complex thing may be deconstructed and analyzed by science; there are no depths too deep and no skies too high for scientific analysis to pierce. Your "well that's unknowable!" is an absolutely pathetic quasireligious excuse to do nothing while other people keep working on the human mind - both in psychology and economics. It is no wonder that while behaviourists keep analyzing the human mind, biologists and psychologists investigate individual and collective phenomena deeper and further, only Austrians wash their hands and keep singing their old tune about "blissful ignorance".

This whole position is simply an ugly defence of your own lack of desire to do anything. Austrian "science" is the perfect do-nothing school.

[UnderAGreySky]

the Keynesians had the world economy detonate in their faces because of their policies. Right.

Say what? Here I was thinking that the crisis was brought upon by the housing bubble which was caused by speculation and wanton disregard for practicality, multiplied by packaging toxic loans along with non-toxic ones and sold as AAA-rated loans.

Silly me, it was all *caused* by "excessive" debt.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the problem here is I have repeatedly stated that Economics is not science.

Statistics has failures? Yes. Is it science? Yes. Same applies to economics.

However, I don't want to get banned so I'll concede to whatever you want.

Who said anything about banning you? You can at most get this thread flushed to where all threads that are ruined by dogpiling and idiotic statements end up. Am I that scary?

That was me- I was starting to worry that we were going to see another case of someone getting their back put up so much by a dogpile that they got booted out, so I PMed him about it.

It's probably not as big a problem as I thought, and it may have unduly alarmed him.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't remember people getting banned for dogpiles. And I explicitly said I want to avoid this getting flushed due to a dogpile.

Rejection of empiricism basically makes economics "not a science" and therefore useless; the Austrian contribution to science becomes a non-contribution, since they simply reject empirical analysis and say that we should remain blissfully ignorant and not try to understand or god forbid change anything in "economics" which is "that complex unknowable hyper-mega-unmeasurable thing over there with lots of people".

This is why I insisted that Austrian approach should not be called "scientific". But since BRL actually himself rejected "economics as science", this means Austrian "economics" is likewise not science and any talk about "contributions to science" is misguided. Austrianism is not a contribution to science but rejection of economics as science and BRL admits it himself.

[Bakustra]

the Keynesians had the world economy detonate in their faces because of their policies. Right.

Say what? Here I was thinking that the crisis was brought upon by the housing bubble which was caused by speculation and wanton disregard for practicality, multiplied by packaging toxic loans along with non-toxic ones and sold as AAA-rated loans.

Silly me, it was all *caused* by "excessive" debt.

He is talking about stagflation back in the 1970s, which is genuinely something that Keynesianism failed to predict, and indeed said could not happen. Of course, what has generally been credited with ending stagflation has been the rise of monetarism, though that itself may well have produced more problems than it solved, as, for example, Thatcher's solution doubled unemployment in order to curb inflation. The Austrians had precisely fuck-all to do with it.

[UnderAGreySky]

All right, thanks for the context. It was missing from his post. And I agree with you, the Austrian School had shit to do with it.

I also find his dismissals of economics "not being a physical science" as bizarre. Astrophysics isn't, either - not all variables are truly known yet. Neither is nuclear physics. Or neural sciences. Does that mean we *don't* have an understanding of many of the events and possible outcomes?

And my favourite:

"Except statistics are not infallible"

That is such an empty and daft statement without context that I would have thought he was trolling if he hadn't been so earnest about the rest of his views.

[Lord Zentei]

WTF are you talking about? Since when is nuclear physics not a physical science? Or astrophysics for that matter?

[Simon_Jester]

WTF are you talking about? Since when is nuclear physics not a physical science? Or astrophysics for that matter?

Er, I think I get GreySky's point, even if the phrasing makes it seem contradictory. There are plenty of sciences where not everything is known and not everything can be computed, but that doesn't mean nothing is known and nothing can be computed.

Some economic phenomena are so well documented that it's silly to pretend there's no certainty involved in them. I don't think a wise Austrian-school economist would try to do so, either.

I don't remember people getting banned for dogpiles. And I explicitly said I want to avoid this getting flushed due to a dogpile.

Occasionally things escalate and someone gets painted into a corner, but yes, you're right, I overestimated the scope of the problem.

[Lord Zentei]

Er, I think I get GreySky's point, even if the phrasing makes it seem contradictory. There are plenty of sciences where not everything is known and not everything can be computed, but that doesn't mean nothing is known and nothing can be computed.

Then he meant to say "not a precise science" or possibly "not an experimental science" both of which are wrong for nuclear physics too.

But yes, I understood what he meant. It was just the example which was horrible.

Some economic phenomena are so well documented that it's silly to pretend there's no certainty involved in them. I don't think a wise Austrian-school economist would try to do so, either.

Indeed.

[UnderAGreySky]

Sigh, I fucked up the phrasing in my post. I meant "I also find his dismissals of economics "not being a physical science" because all variables are not known as bizarre" to have been followed by statements that say not everything is known in astro/nuclear/neural science.

I'd had a rough evening, I should really preview my posts or have them read aloud aka xkcd.