[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
shookers wrote:
If people act rationally for their own benefit, you can identify a strict pattern.
No you can’t.
How do you account for people who change their mind or learn a new means of acting?[/quote]
Economics isn’t concerned with individuals, only the sum total. Massive groups of people don’t suddenly change their preferences in such a way that creates a massive shift in the economy. This happens slowly over time. Economists take this into account through structural & frictional unemployment. Economists take into account new means of acting through economic growth.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I’m more than familiar with the prisoners dilemma, it’s flawed for economic analysis. It starts out with a flawed assumption that competitors act with the same correct information and it further assumes that people are incapable of changing their minds or learning.[/quote]
No it doesn’t.
It is a strategic assessment of a given situation with given information.
In the Prisoner’s Dilemma occurring one time, given the classic payoff matrix, the strategic assessment of the situation is that it is always the most successful strategy to defect. This is indisputable.
It assumes nothing about correct information. In fact it assumes no information at all.
And John Nash famously articulated the Nash equilibrium which takes into account changing minds and opinions.
LOL…do you live in a cave? You mean to tell me that you have never seen someone act irrationally, contrary to evidence, and probably based on emotion?
Didn’t you just get done saying no one acts without reason? You are digging yourself into a hole.
[quote]Besides, there are no game theorists that are even employed in business because business owners don’t find it useful. That in itself shows how great it is for economic analysis.
[/quote]
LOL. I give you Game Theory and Business ApplicationsAmazon.com
Anyway, Game Theory is descriptive, like most economics is. You don’t see many economists employed by businesses, you see businessmen who has studied contemporary economics.
[quote]shookers wrote:
Economics isn’t concerned with individuals, only the sum total. [/quote]
The sum total of what? The only data economics is concerned with is prices and interests rates and how they arise. There are no universal units of measurement in economics.
You need methodological individualism to figure that out.
[quote]Fiction wrote:
In the Prisoner’s Dilemma occurring one time, given the classic payoff matrix, the strategic assessment of the situation is that it is always the most successful strategy to defect. This is indisputable.[/quote]
I do not deny this. I deny that it has any relevance to economics.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
shookers wrote:
Economics isn’t concerned with individuals, only the sum total.
The sum total of what? The only data economics is concerned with is prices and interests rates and how they arise. There are no universal units of measurement in economics.
You need methodological individualism to figure that out.[/quote]
You really need to take economics 101. Economics is concerned with far far far far far far more than that. Hell, I’ve seen economic models that take the weather into account.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Fiction wrote:
In the Prisoner’s Dilemma occurring one time, given the classic payoff matrix, the strategic assessment of the situation is that it is always the most successful strategy to defect. This is indisputable.
I do not deny this. I deny that it has any relevance to economics.
Catallactic competition is not a game.
[/quote]
You are ignorant of what both economics and game theory IS. This much is clear. As this discussion is clearly unproductive, and the degree to which it is amusing will wane quickly, I am comfortable resting with you simply admitting that your opinions regarding economics is not what mainstream, professional economists believe.
[quote]Fiction wrote:
I am comfortable resting with you simply admitting that your opinions regarding economics is not what mainstream, professional economists believe.
If you do that, everything will be just dandy.[/quote]
Where have you been for every economic discussion that has arisen in the PWI forums?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Fiction wrote:
I am comfortable resting with you simply admitting that your opinions regarding economics is not what mainstream, professional economists believe.
If you do that, everything will be just dandy.
Where have you been for every economic discussion that has arisen in the PWI forums?[/quote]
Not around for your response to that question it appears.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
shookers wrote:
Hell, I’ve seen economic models that take the weather into account.
Which is not economics.
You fail at distinguishing economic analysis with business planning.
Economics is concerned with how people make choices based on their values. There are no models that can predict human value scales.[/quote]
K, I promise this is my last post.
You might be interested in reading hte first chapter in an “intro to economics” textbook. From wikipedia
Economics aims to explain how economies work and how economic agents interact. Economic analysis is applied throughout society, in business and finance but also in crime,[5] education,[6] the family, health, law, politics, religion,[7] social institutions, war,[8] science and research.[9] The expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism.[10][11]
[quote]shookers wrote:
You might enjoy Freakanomics too[/quote]
I’ve read it. Statistics is great for presenting data to people who do not understand mathematics.
By training I am a physicist. I am not a stranger to higher level mathematics. I also understand the constraints that make systems compatible with mathematical modeling. One of those constraints is the absence of a free will.
I even understand the usefulness of game theory under very limited circumstances where every choice can be defined. For economics it is useless because choices cannot be aggregated because value scales are individual and subjective.
It is an epistemological problem that has more to do with the nature of value than it does with the nature of the mathematics employed.