• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        0·
        25 days ago

        I’d be happy with calling them economic anthropologists, haha. As far as I’m concerned (and I’m sure it’s more complex than this) the ones interested in people are anthropologists and spreadsheet humpers are economists. But I respect them swimming upstream in their field, being surrounded by economy bros has to suck so hard.

        • rbb36@lemmy.world
          0·
          25 days ago

          The loudest economists use economic theory as a cudgel. You are right to find them infuriating. They assert certainty where economics does not, and cherry pick exceptions to hold up as rules. They are to economics as RFK Jr is to medicine.

          The math of economics is more like the math of epidemiology or fluid dynamics than the math of mechanical linkages. It describes how things tend to interact within a system, but a given element or interaction is unpredictable. Even concrete sections, like price theory, have contradictions like the velvet rope effect. It describes probable outcomes in a chaotic system running on irrational humans.

          Meteorology is still a math-based science that makes useful predictions, even though it cannot say with certainty whether a particular tropical depression will become a hurricane.

      • Übercomplicated@lemmy.ml
        0·
        25 days ago

        I can confirm. It’s gotten better in the last few decades, but it’s still pretty horrific. Much worse than economics. (Obviously it is still a fascinating field and there is a lot of good, interesting, scientific psychology. It just also very much has its problems)