Interesting Reddit thread about economics

[Pointedstick]

My wife forwarded this to me; it's a Reddit thread in the "change my view" section in which someone postulates that the entire field of economics is basically politically-driven bunk and asks for economists to try to change his view. Pretty cool discussion.

CMV: I think Economics is largely a backwards field rooted in pseudoscience, unscrutinized cultural biases, and political manipulation.

Here's a snippet from the top response that's fun:

We refer to Austrian's as wizards. They believe the field effectively stopped in 1928 and they cast these magical rationalist nonsense ideas about to justify their ideological nonsense. They are also heterodox, they are also a tiny tiny number buut just shout very loudly on the internet so people think they are more important then they really are.

There are actually not vast numbers of heterodox economists as it may otherwise appear, we just have a problem with the fringe lunatics making lots of noise which makes them appear important while mainstream simply gets on with its work. I should note this is not true of all heterodox positions, while they are likely wrong there are some relatively well behaved people like Post-Keynesian's and Money-Market people who still make strong contributions to the field while considering a part of orthodoxy to be incorrect. For example the Money-Market people disagree on how monetary, debt and credit systems interact but still contribute strongly outside of this.

Because everything involving economics and smart people these days seems to turn toward the subject eventually, there's also a link to a discussion about humans being obsoleted by automation which I have not yet read but will probably spend too much time tonight doing.

[doodle]

I remember Gumby vociferously disagreed with me regarding technological obsolescence of humans in the workplace. His argument seemed to be that humans machines might make some jobs obsolete, but we would always invent new services and goods that people could provide. My argument was that a large number of people will be economic deadweight in the future and possess no real marketable skill. One solution is to begin to compensate people for traditionally unpaid labor like taking care of elderly parents or young children for example. We could pay mothers to cook dinner for their children....stuff like that

[Pointedstick]

I remember Gumby vociferously disagreed with me regarding technological obsolescence of humans in the workplace. His argument seemed to be that humans machines might make some jobs obsolete, but we would always invent new services and goods that people could provide. My argument was that a large number of people will be economic deadweight in the future and possess no real marketable skill.

That has been my argument too, but I'm coming to wonder if maybe it doesn't take into account that the people who are economic deadweight eventually retire or die, and are replaced with those who were raised in a totally different environment and are far more suited to it. More fields than one are coming around to admitting that people basically can't be changed and real reform only comes around when old people who are clutching things that are long obsolete go away and die. To put it bluntly.

[Mountaineer]

My wife forwarded this to me; it's a Reddit thread in the "change my view" section in which someone postulates that the entire field of economics is basically politically-driven bunk and asks for economists to try to change his view. Pretty cool discussion.

Here's a snippet from the top response that's fun:

We refer to Austrian's as wizards. They believe the field effectively stopped in 1928 and they cast these magical rationalist nonsense ideas about to justify their ideological nonsense. They are also heterodox, they are also a tiny tiny number buut just shout very loudly on the internet so people think they are more important then they really are.

There are actually not vast numbers of heterodox economists as it may otherwise appear, we just have a problem with the fringe lunatics making lots of noise which makes them appear important while mainstream simply gets on with its work. I should note this is not true of all heterodox positions, while they are likely wrong there are some relatively well behaved people like Post-Keynesian's and Money-Market people who still make strong contributions to the field while considering a part of orthodoxy to be incorrect. For example the Money-Market people disagree on how monetary, debt and credit systems interact but still contribute strongly outside of this.

Because everything involving economics and smart people these days seems to turn toward the subject eventually, there's also a link to a discussion about humans being obsoleted by automation which I have not yet read but will probably spend too much time tonight doing.

Interesting the article writer used the terms "orthodox" and "heterodox" and "fringe lunatics" to describe the various views.  Reminded me of a political or religious discussion but I guess that is not really all that weird because for many of those guys, economics and/or money is their god.

... Mountaineer

[Libertarian666]

My wife forwarded this to me; it's a Reddit thread in the "change my view" section in which someone postulates that the entire field of economics is basically politically-driven bunk and asks for economists to try to change his view. Pretty cool discussion.

Here's a snippet from the top response that's fun:

We refer to Austrian's as wizards. They believe the field effectively stopped in 1928 and they cast these magical rationalist nonsense ideas about to justify their ideological nonsense. They are also heterodox, they are also a tiny tiny number buut just shout very loudly on the internet so people think they are more important then they really are.

There are actually not vast numbers of heterodox economists as it may otherwise appear, we just have a problem with the fringe lunatics making lots of noise which makes them appear important while mainstream simply gets on with its work. I should note this is not true of all heterodox positions, while they are likely wrong there are some relatively well behaved people like Post-Keynesian's and Money-Market people who still make strong contributions to the field while considering a part of orthodoxy to be incorrect. For example the Money-Market people disagree on how monetary, debt and credit systems interact but still contribute strongly outside of this.

Because everything involving economics and smart people these days seems to turn toward the subject eventually, there's also a link to a discussion about humans being obsoleted by automation which I have not yet read but will probably spend too much time tonight doing.

Interesting the article writer used the terms "orthodox" and "heterodox" and "fringe lunatics" to describe the various views.  Reminded me of a political or religious discussion but I guess that is not really all that weird because for many of those guys, economics and/or money is their god.

... Mountaineer

Anyone who doesn't know that plurals don't have apostrophes loses a lot of credibility as far as I'm concerned. 

[Pointedstick]

Hey PS -- Could you post the link to the Economics discussion you mentioned in your opening post?

Never mind, I found it.

CMV: I think Economics is largely a backwards field rooted in pseudoscience, unscrutinized cultural biases, and political manipulation.

Heh, oops. Thanks Tenn!

[clacy]

I remember Gumby vociferously disagreed with me regarding technological obsolescence of humans in the workplace. His argument seemed to be that humans machines might make some jobs obsolete, but we would always invent new services and goods that people could provide. My argument was that a large number of people will be economic deadweight in the future and possess no real marketable skill. One solution is to begin to compensate people for traditionally unpaid labor like taking care of elderly parents or young children for example. We could pay mothers to cook dinner for their children....stuff like that

This isn't exactly a new concept.  It's basically what our entire welfare/transfer payment system is based on.  Social Security, disability, medicare, medicaid, et al are all based on supporting people for bringing little or no productivity. 

One problem that I'm not sure is even correctable, regardless of how much social engineering (money and bureaucratic red tape) is thrown at them......  most of the people that would be in a situation where they needed to "be paid for cooking for their children", will not actually do a good job of "cooking for their children" among many other responsibilities that are normally included with being a parent. 

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Libertarian666]Anyone who doesn't know that plurals don't have apostrophes loses a lot of credibility as far as I'm concerned. [/quote]

Thats your opinion, and your entitled to it.  But their are many other speling and punctuation error's that are more egregeous. 

[Pointedstick]

I don't know what your talking about.

[dragoncar]

I remember Gumby vociferously disagreed with me regarding technological obsolescence of humans in the workplace. His argument seemed to be that humans machines might make some jobs obsolete, but we would always invent new services and goods that people could provide. My argument was that a large number of people will be economic deadweight in the future and possess no real marketable skill. One solution is to begin to compensate people for traditionally unpaid labor like taking care of elderly parents or young children for example. We could pay mothers to cook dinner for their children....stuff like that

We will program the machines to derive pleasure from serving us.  This, our leisure will be utility to robots.  The machines will compete to make us happy, and the service we provide in exchange will be our happiness.

At least that's how it will be in the dystopian young adult novel I'm writing.  The machines will be trying to get young lovers together in order to earn happiness credits.

[Pointedstick]

I don't know what your talking about.

The first line of your excerpt quote form the article:  Austrian's.

That uh, was supposed to be a joke.

[hljockey]

Anyone who doesn't know that plurals don't have apostrophes loses a lot of credibility as far as I'm concerned. 

Its very annoying to me also.

[hljockey]

Austrian's.

Hes talking about Austrian's.  And there theorys about economic's.

I know, 4 posts late.

The only thing I hate worse than the misuse of apostrophe's is pedantry.

[Mountaineer]

Austrian's.

Hes talking about Austrian's.  And there theorys about economic's.

I know, 4 posts late.

The only thing I hate worse than the misuse of apostrophe's is pedantry.

Kind of like asking "leaves" questions (vs. trees or forrest questions) about Genesis just for the sake of snarkiness or feeling smug. 

... Mountaineer

[Pointedstick]

So the resolution to deadweight is to wait 'til they're dead?

Pretty much, yeah.

But some of them will undoubtedly retrain and adapt. For instance, the blue-collar folks who grew up working with their hands in the mill or the factory: they can use their hands for make custom goods for premium prices… they can go to night school and become skilled tradesmen (welding, concrete work, etc)… or they can fake a disability until they get social security until they die. But I bet their children and grandchildren aren't going to have much fondness for working in a mill or a factory. They'll want to program video games and build websites--tasks that didn't exist 50 years ago.

I don't think this will ever not be an issue.  That is, won't there always be people who are unable and/or unwilling contribute at an appropriate level?  Not to mention that "contribute", "appropriate" and "level" are subjectively and arbitrarily defined.

I think the acceleration of skill obsolescence is a problem, not skill obsolescence itself. If everything you know is obsolete in a year, that's a vastly different kettle of fish from having to retrain once when you're 45.

Unless there is a cultural shift, I expect that the U.S. will have a very large underclass at some point in the future.

Wouldn't say that we already do? And personally, I don't think it's very related to automation.

[Pointedstick]

My other point is that we will always have a distribution of abilities and skills.  So, sure, people who gravitated to the mill or the factory in the past might end up programming.  But how long will that job exist?  In any case, there will be jobs that will be considered good/stable/well-paying in year x that will be gone by year x+10.  A huge expense for almost any business these days is labor.  So there is a drive use automation or other means to reduce headcount.  And the heads that roll are going to be, by definition, on the left side of the bell curve. A generation ago (and certainly two and more certainly three), there was enough slack in the economy, and the culture was different enough, that heads rolled slower, and there was more likely a place to land.

These are all points I have made myself, and I am highly sympathetic to them.

However, what has at least partly changed my thinking recently has been accounting for generational change. It may be that one of the reasons why things seem so grim for so many is that they have been foist into a--for lack of a better term--faster world. When they grew up, things were slower, clearer, more predictable. Nowadays it seems like as soon as you learn, or master, or come to rely upon something, it's obsolete. Probably because that's the way it actually is for a good many things.

However, all the generations after the baby boomers have grown up in a proportionally faster and more nimble world, and I think they're more psychologically prepared for it. Even though the pace itself may be grueling, if you're raised in a world where a grueling pace of change is considered normal, you have a way better chance of being able to navigate it than the poor fellow who was born into a world where you were expected to work your way up a single organization for 30 years and do things "by the book." Nowadays, what book!?

As a millennial myself, I notice just how much better people born only a few years after me are at navigating the ever-changing waters of the internet, in particular. It is striking. I don't worry about them. They will adapt. Their entire upbringing has revolved around adapting to constant change. It is probably affecting them in negative ways (and me and my generational cohort as well, to a probably slightly more limited-but-still-present degree), but I don't foresee them having great difficulty transitioning as the world around them changes.

[Mountaineer]

However, all the generations after the baby boomers have grown up in a proportionally faster and more nimble world, and I think they're more psychologically prepared for it. Even though the pace itself may be grueling, if you're raised in a world where a grueling pace of change is considered normal, you have a way better chance of being able to navigate it than the poor fellow who was born into a world where you were expected to work your way up a single organization for 30 years and do things "by the book." Nowadays, what book!?

Perhaps, perhaps.  I am a very early baby boomer that after graduating from the university worked for only one very large company for 33 years (I did work for 4 different companies while in school so was somewhat used to adapting to new requirements).  However during that 33 years, I had 11 somewhat different "jobs" within that company, all of which required doing things "by the book" at least for expectations related to ethics, safety, and work standards.  Some of those jobs even used the skills for which I was trained in school    Most did not; they used skills that I learned either from company courses or outside courses that I pursued.  The primary skill that I learned in school that had ongoing applicability was how to "think critically and completely before launching action - i.e. ready, aim, fire - or measure twice, saw once".  Many people I knew tended toward a "fire first" mentality thinking that speed was everything and did not do well in the company when their rapid method resulted in poor results.  I guess my point is, at least for me, I'm not so sure the grueling mental and/or physical pace is all that much different now than it was earlier in the past half century.  Those that could not adapt to the changing needs of the company (really the changing desires of the marketplace, community, and stockholders) stagnated and died in place or left for greener and calmer pastures.

... Mountaineer

[Pointedstick]

FWIW, my wife and I are raising our 4 y/o in an anti-electronic nimbleness environment (i.e. minimal screen exposure).

Heh, So am I! We don't even own a television and my son has more books than I do at this point.

[Mountaineer]

This is an interesting device that replaces much manual labor.  These excavator mulchers are ideal for intensive vegetation control, land clearing, transmission lines, and forest fire prevention.

http://www.chonday.com/Videos/excamuoich2

... Mountaineer

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Mountaineer]This is an interesting device that replaces much manual labor.  These excavator mulchers are ideal for intensive vegetation control, land clearing, transmission lines, and forest fire prevention.[/quote]

My goodness!  It is like a giant inside-out paper shredder on a boom arm!

I don't know why, but this makes me sad.  I think it was the image of the large but helpless tree being atomized in mere seconds.  Compared to this device, there is something noble about felling a tree, sawing it for firewood or lumber, etc.

[Mountaineer]

This is an interesting device that replaces much manual labor.  These excavator mulchers are ideal for intensive vegetation control, land clearing, transmission lines, and forest fire prevention.

My goodness!  It is like a giant inside-out paper shredder on a boom arm!

I don't know why, but this makes me sad.  I think it was the image of the large but helpless tree being atomized in mere seconds.  Compared to this device, there is something noble about felling a tree, sawing it for firewood or lumber, etc.

I agree.  When I watched the video I was "troubled" but could not put my finger on why.  You expressed it perfectly.  I'm old, but it is like the feeling I get when using my slide rule instead of a calculator - much more elegant to use the old K&E.

... Mountaineer

[moda0306]

This is an interesting device that replaces much manual labor.  These excavator mulchers are ideal for intensive vegetation control, land clearing, transmission lines, and forest fire prevention.

http://www.chonday.com/Videos/excamuoich2

... Mountaineer

They took our jeeeeeerbs!!!!

(South Park reference)

[l82start]

This is an interesting device that replaces much manual labor.  These excavator mulchers are ideal for intensive vegetation control, land clearing, transmission lines, and forest fire prevention.

http://www.chonday.com/Videos/excamuoich2

... Mountaineer

They took our jeeeeeerbs!!!!

(South Park reference)

i actually got a job for a few months working along side one of those machines that was contracted to do clearing for the BLM, my job was to walk around the cleared area behind the machine and use a hand saw to cut small bushes and saplings that the machine couldn't shred ...

it was hard physical labor and temp work, once the area is treeless the job moves on..

[flyingpylon]

The true test of any generational "nimbleness" will come when that generation approaches middle age. After their formal education is done, after they've had career ups and downs, after they've raised kids, after they've become seasoned and weathered by life in general.

Millennials may have an edge right now, perhaps it's "their time".  But other generations have had their time as well.  It will be interesting to see how the Millennials hold up over the next several decades when all of the next new things come along, pushed by ever-newer generations.

FWIW, I am very early Generation X.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Mountaineer]much more elegant to use the old K&E.[/quote]

I'm a Post man myself