All of Jank's Comments + Replies

Yes it does. They're just so implicit in our intuition about how the world works that we don't notice them. For example, consider all the implicit assumptions necessary for statements like "these two sticks have the same length" to be meaningful.

So, why does physics have no such first principles but economics does?

So, can you explain how arguing over the definition of a word can ever pay rent?

Sounds like Iani M Banks's Minds.

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Singleton You're welcome.

Economies that have multiple currencies are unsophisticated...?

This doesn't answer the question. Note that no one is arguing that economics doesn't pay rent. The question was whether arguing over '"what is an economy" pays rent or not.

I will read the Moldbug article, although I have to say I'm not optimistic, given my past experience with his writing. But I do want to disagree on this: I think you are either underestimating the tools at our disposal for causal discovery, or you have an evidential standard for causality that is way too high. Are you familiar with Judea Pearl's work on inferring causation from probabilities? Check out this sweet post by Eliezer if you're not. ETA: I'm only a few paragraphs into the Moldbug piece and my hackles are already rising. He has already declared that a conscious being must be rational "by definition" and that other peoples' desires are unknowable, also "by definition". I don't think either of these claims are true (assuming the words have their usual meanings), let alone true by definition. This doesn't bode well, but I'll keep reading.

If I replace "economic variables" with "astronomy" what part of this sentence changes in implication? Why is this incoherent for some fields? The level of rigor cannot be the only difference: Physics and astronomy have become more rigorous over time, not by discussing first principles, even when moving from Aristotle to Medieval physics to Newtonian physics, but rather by adopting principles based on the empirical data. The same goes for the switch from Ptolemaic systems to Copernicus and then Kepler. It is the empirical data that matters, the apparent time-series of planetary and stellar motion. Does arguing over this definition pay any rent?

"Marketplace clears" doesn't imply that everyone agrees that the price = the value. McDonald's has cheeseburgers on sale for ~$1. That's probably the market clearing price. I still don't think a cheeseburger creates $1 of value for me. If Moldbug makes a basic econ error (by conflating value and price), then there's no reason to trust any other part of his "return to first principles of economics." "exchanges for other goods" is a bizarre definition of good. The hoarding-of-physical-objects metaphor is misleading.

From the article: This statement is misleading economics - markets work because individuals preferences do not match the general consensus. Because of comparative advantage, there's no particular reason to expect individual valuations to ever exactly match the market rates. Later, Moldbug notes people want accumulate money, but rejects the explanation that it is valued because it is the medium of exchange. It is confusing when the monetary object is actually of some value (i.e. gold or silver), but no one uses the gold standard any more. There's really no reason to treat fiat money as a good. And all of the discussion assumes that treating money as a good makes sense. Finally, Moldbug's discussion of the transition from gold-standard to fiat money without discussing private currency at all seems like more selective history. All selective history is worthless - it's like throwing out all the data from an experiment that does not agree with your hypothesis.

If you didn't accept the wisdom of the Federal Reserve before in its policies and theoretical choices, why would you accept the wisdom of the Federal Reserve after they have supposedly begun listening to Sumner? Why, indeed, does their choice matter at all to someone considering whether to believe Krugman, Sumner, or neither?

I cannot imagine why this: "Here at UR, "economics" is not the study of how real economies work. It is the study of how economies should work " should not bring to mind this: "Here at Fantasy University, "physics" is not the study of how real physical principles work. It is the study of how physics should work." or should not raise giant red flags that you are about to be fed a steaming pile of horse shit. I don't know about everyone else but for me the moment anyone purports to dictate how the world ought to be over and above how it actually is they are engaged in creative fiction not science. When someone begins from such massive thought errors what follows, if they are at all rigorous, cannot but help be equally flawed and is therefore not worth my time.

I am also a long-time LW lurker, and this thread finally made me open an account. I've read most of the main Moldbug sequences (Cathedral/neocameralism/economics) over the past few months. I was very pleased to find that this thread existed, particularly in the context of the phenomenon identified in that essay which coined the term 'insight porn'. I had previously expended many brain-hours pondering the nature of this set of closely affiliated ideas, and I still don't think I have entirely satisfactory answers. http://theviewfromhell.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/trying-to-see-through-unified-theory-of.html

Upvoted for practicing what you preach. (None of the linked articles are among what I'd recommend, however. I can't say if that's because I can't understand them and am biased, or because they are mostly hot air and rhetoric. I cannot comment on Austrian economics as I don't know what to believe about any economic theory at all, but here, in 1998, Krugman criticises it as a morality fable that doesn't, in Bayesian terms, pay rent in anticipated experience - and in modern times, he sustains his criticism of its descriptive and predictive worth. Here is some other economist's brief slam of Austrian epistemology. Generally the Less Wrong 'mainstream' seems to dismiss it out of hand for its non-empiricism and incompartibility with Traditional Rationality.)