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comment by Dentin · 2021-07-17T17:24:05.207Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I find his post incredibly uncompelling.  I believe he's arguing against a straw man; economists in the real world doing real work involving real dollars are painfully aware of the issues he brings up.

My guess is that his experience in economics is heavily influenced by his PhD work and that he's arguing against "economics as he experienced it at universities" as opposed to "economics as practiced by professionals in a real economy".

Replies from: Slider
comment by Slider · 2021-07-17T19:18:10.003Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

If practioners need to go way beyond and above the theory that does underline how hollow the theory is

comment by Slider · 2021-07-20T12:17:22.444Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I can't manage to locate any theory with these hints.

Somebody that makes for good ethos conviction but has not mathematised their option in a way has not provided an alternative hypothesis. At the level where it is all gears we can be rigth or wrong but where we can't nail down the details it is more about what feels good or promising and what feels like a dead end or unpleasant.

comment by Dagon · 2021-07-19T19:32:54.334Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I was somewhat unimpressed.  It's hard to take discussion of "mainstream economics" very seriously - there are a LOT of different parts of economics study, and this author doesn't explain what theory or policy he's concerned about.

To the extent that economics overlaps with politics, it certainly is subject to many of the same failings - oversimplification, pandering, and selective choice of theory as truth.  I blame politics more than economics for those things.

comment by Slider · 2021-07-17T13:47:00.215Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

There is a problem of choosing between being empty handed vs doing non-sense. Having axioms that reflect the real world better make sit harder to have any results. Thus the simplifiers might feel warranted with their spherical cows to get atleast something, even if they recommend rolling cows around.

I would be more concerned that the alternatives can't even be concieved of rather than them being known but supressed.