The Problem with Economics is a Lack of Etymological Scholasticism

[Shadowferal]

Pfft..if he had an education he might actually be dangerous.

[PC2]

Because you routinely espouse economic opinions on this forum that are perfectly in line with 'heterodoxy' (re: debunked bullshit). Rofl.

Everything has been debunked except for socialist economics, am I right?

Pfft..if he had an education he might actually be dangerous.

Except I'm a peace-loving hippy. I've never been in trouble with the law a single time.

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Dunno why you guys have to make everything personal and why you won't actually talk about the topic.

[Endus]

Everything has been debunked except for socialist economics, am I right?

It's a reality that capitalist theory has, in all instances, led to cycles of boom and bust which render it non-functional, if unchecked. Modern economies are largely mixed economies, borrowing ideas from socialist theory precisely because capitalist systems drive themselves into the ground, because that capitalist model doesn't actually function in the long term, if by "function" we mean "create an effective and productive society that can support those who participate within it", rather than "extract as much wealth as possible from the system before it collapses in on itself", which is how capitalist theory tends to define the "function" of the economy. Hence the problems.

There's certainly functional alternatives to socialism that don't share the same inherent drive to failure as capitalist theory; we got on for literally centuries under prior systems. They're usually based on much stricter class systems, however, which aren't as tenable or equitable, which is why you mostly see people talking about socialist alternatives, today; it's the system that maximizes individual freedoms.

[Shadowferal]

Dunno why you guys have to make everything personal and why you won't actually talk about the topic.

Because you always run away when people do exactly that.

[LilSaihah]

Economics is full of confusion between those who study it, based primarily on an absence of the etymological scholasticism of the pre-modern era. This leads to great unnecessary disagreements and detractors of the field primarily based on a series of misunderstandings.

Nice argument, Senator, how about you back it up with a source?

[Gestopft]

[MENTION=1494356]My friend keeps telling me to learn about the Austrian School of Economics so I'm going to look into it eventually.

Friends don't let friends learn Austrian School

[Elegiac]

Friends don't let friends learn Austrian School

Just say no. Austrian economics cannot enter your body without your consent.

[Forogil]

@Kent088, you're specializing in economics? That's cool. My friend keeps telling me to learn about the Austrian School of Economics so I'm going to look into it eventually.

Try to look at some normal text-books first or as complement, both to understand the common view - and to understand what they are in fact arguing against.

You will also understand that in addition to influencing debate and politics, it has added basic insights that are standard part of text-books (marginal theory of value), and scientifically interesting ideas that turned out to be wrong (their business cycle theory).

[Veggie50]

Since this thread has gone off the rails anyway…

My opinion about pure capitalism is that it’s a wonderful system that makes societies thrive… under the one condition that there’s a “server reset” every 50 years or so, where everyone gets set back to zero.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I don't know what OP expected, by creating a brand new account on a website primarily used for discussing World of Warcraft and video games, wanting to engage in such a intricate topic of economics... and be confused by nature of replies.


I mean, there is a plausible explanation for his reasoning, though. But that's against the website's rules to discuss of course.

[Endus]

We've had light resets in the 20s, 00's, 10's and looking like another one cresting the hill. Hard resets won't ever happen, the best "hard reset" is to move to a more socialistic method with the power in the worker's hands, but unionbusting just keeps getting stronger, and idiots keep sucking up the ass of corporations. Exciting times!

Frankly, if you need "light resets" on a decadal basis, your economic system isn't actually functioning properly. Like, there's gonna have to come a time when we recognize that globally spiraling wealth inequality and a boom/bust cycle that increasingly benefits the owner class and harms the working class is not a healthy pattern for an economy.

You want stability in line with growth. Possibly more if you feel the economy could be expanded further within your scope. Then you can actually plan long-term, which you really can't with modern capitalism. Bring back an economy in which you can lay out a 50-year business plan and expect to actually more-or-less follow it.

[Veggie50]

We've had light resets in the 20s, 00's, 10's and looking like another one cresting the hill. Hard resets won't ever happen, the best "hard reset" is to move to a more socialistic method with the power in the worker's hands, but unionbusting just keeps getting stronger, and idiots keep sucking up the ass of corporations. Exciting times!

The problem is that those “soft resets” didn’t really affect the group that most needs a reset, the billionairs. Once you become a billionair, you basically “won capitalism”. You live by different rules than the rest. You shape tax policies, can count on government bailouts (because what about the poor poor people depending on you for a job).

At that point you start “metagaming” in a way that makes you immune to the risk parts of capitalism.

[NotBigzo]

i thought the post was perfectly cromulent

I find the OP rather shallow and pedantic.

[Kokolums]

You don't see anyone trying to fret over what things mean in computer science.

what?

The field of computer science is so screwed up right now that, in an emergency, companies are forced to go back to old AS400 mainframe crap built and written 40-50 years ago, because all of the "modern" programming languages are a sewage pit of confusing spaghetti code that doesnt know what it wants to be.

[Cinnamilk]

what?

The field of computer science is so screwed up right now that, in an emergency, companies are forced to go back to old AS400 mainframe crap built and written 40-50 years ago, because all of the "modern" programming languages are a sewage pit of confusing spaghetti code that doesnt know what it wants to be.

What the actual fuck are you talking about?

I was referencing academic computer science terminology, not practices and standards in programming which are bound to change.

Big O notation is well-defined, entropy is well-defined, complexity classes are well-defined.
Nobody's arguing over the basic definitions of concepts.

[Forogil]

what?

The field of computer science is so screwed up right now that, in an emergency, companies are forced to go back to old AS400 mainframe crap built and written 40-50 years ago, because all of the "modern" programming languages are a sewage pit of confusing spaghetti code that doesnt know what it wants to be.

As already stated that isn't computer science, but additionally most companies don't do that at all; and most of the things people program today wouldn't have existed back then.

And for the record the AS/400 (currently IBM i) was introduced 34 years ago, and as I understand the same binary program can run unchanged on modern Power-systems that you can buy today. And a lot of COBOL-programs written 40-50 years ago were also a sewage pit of spaghetti code - even the tools for drawing flow-charts used back then reflected that.

[GreenJesus]

Why should economists use a dead language that will just make everything more confusing rather than just use terms people are familiar with? Classic academics wanting everything to be more complicated than it needs to be so they can feel superior to everyone else with their special jargon.

[Mihalik]

Why should economists use a dead language that will just make everything more confusing rather than just use terms people are familiar with? Classic academics wanting everything to be more complicated than it needs to be so they can feel superior to everyone else with their special jargon.

Tone down your anti-academic outrage.

Literally not a single academic is demanding for economics to switch to new esoteric terminology. It's already esoteric enough and the terminology is already sufficiently academic. OP is just a weirdo who is annoyed by not understanding the existing academic terminology so he's ranting.

[Primohastat]

Economy is like politics. Each group of interest has its own. And obviously each group sets their own definitions of political, economical or business vocabulary. It's not like thousands of economists could not create universal terms and axioms for hundreds of years because they didn't recognize the problem. It's just there are conflicting goals among all the groups of interests.

If you are lets say white christian american (simplification), you will not have any trouble to discuss any issues related to economy with same type of expert in the US. But if you will start talking with chineese non-religious economist, there will be a major problem with discussing anything as for him/her China is proper capitalist country and USA is a socialist hybrid mess that eludes understanding therefore cannot be a subject of any discussion.

As an example for anyone here to analyze, search for info about how christians, jews and muslims define "land". It's not about insufficient etymological knowledge that would aid finding mutually acceptable definitions. It is about lack of any will for estabilishing common ground for philosophical debate.