Is accounting underrated in most nerd circles? What would a transhumanist or rationalist take on accounting look like? Are there any good blog posts introducing accounting to make it look like an awesome and exciting topic?
The reason I ask is that as I've gotten some actual experience working at a software business, I notice a lot of time and effort seems to go into making sure the numbers add up. At first I thought this was largely wasted, but lately I've been thinking it helps combat many of the kinds of things we talk about here such as scale blindness... It's sort of like an intelligence augmentation that lets us tackle resource allocation issues we did not evolve natural intuitions to solve.
I suspect that accounting is sufficiently well-optimized that a rationalist take on it would be a waste of time. Most of the questionable decisions made in the field are due to overlaps with the madness-inducing world of tax law or the simple fact that the future is uncertain and assessing an object's value other than through a cash sale is expensive. But double-entry bookkeeping and assets-liabilities=equity aren't ever going to change.
This is a thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. The previous "stupid" questions thread is at almost 500 questions in about a month, so I think it's time for a new one.
Also, I have a new "stupid" question.