eli_sennesh comments on Only You Can Prevent Your Mind From Getting Killed By Politics - Less Wrong
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The survey results are out? Neat!
I'm not saying we should base theories on counterfactuals. I'm saying that we should account for anthropic bias when giving out complexity penalties. The real path reality took to produce us is often more complicated than the idealized or imagined path.
The question is: are they non-mainstream in economics, anthropology, or both? I wouldn't trust him to make any economic predictions, but if he tells me that the story of barter is false, I'm going to note that his training, employment, and social proof are as an academic anthropologist working with pre-industrial tribal cultures.
Previous years' survey results: 2012, 2011, 2009. The 2013 survey is currently ongoing.
How would that work?
I am not sure what the mainstream consensus in anthropology looks like, but I have the impression that Graeber's research is quite controversial.
At minimum, it does seem like many anthropologists see Graeber's work as much more tied into his politics than things even often are in that field, and that's a field that has serious issues with that as a whole.