SarahC comments on Less Wrong Should Confront Wrongness Wherever it Appears - Less Wrong
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I, for one, would love to have a place where a rational and open-minded discussion of economics would be possible with people who have some knowledge of the subject. In my experience, and with very few honorable exceptions, economists are extremely difficult to reason with as soon as one starts questioning the logical and empirical soundness of some basic concepts in modern economics, or pointing out seemingly bizarre and illogical things found in the mainstream economic literature. You quickly run into an authoritative and stonewalling attitude of the sort that you never get by posing similar questions to, say, physicists.
I would venture to say that a radical re-examination of several basic economic concepts is probably the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to valuable insight that could potentially be gained by a group of smart amateur contrarians. The whole field is certainly long overripe for the sort of treatment that Robin Hanson metes out to medicine.
I've been confused by economics in this way too.
I'm not confident enough to say that it means something's wrong with economists, but I can never tell where the assumptions come from. The way I was taught in school, if the professor was a Rational Expectations guy, he would teach the course as though Keynes had never been born; and vice versa. It was like the blind men and the elephant. Very disappointing. I could have used an aerial view.
Paul Krugman has made similar criticisms.