An interesting quote on an exciting subject today:
An understanding of the mechanics of the brain will allow us to reduce human behaviour down to something ‘deterministic’, thereby increasing our understanding of the allocation of scarce resources more fully (neuroeconomics)
Once again, remember that these are points for discussion – I am not saying I agree or disagree with them.
Following on from last week …
The fact we can’t fully understand the complexity of the individual implies that we cannot reduce social outcomes to the actions of individuals.
Once again, remember that these are points for discussion – I am not saying I agree or disagree with them.
A double-barrelled one today. Once again, remember that these are points for discussion – I am not saying I agree or disagree with them.
Other people both have more differences, and are more similar, to us than we assume they are when making day to day choices, judgements, and decisions. Ultimately people are more complex than the rules we use to understand them.
To understand the individual we have to make assumptions. Acknowledging these assumptions, their usefulness, and their limitations, is important.
This one came from beer, and the housing market. Once again, remember that these are points for discussion – I am not saying I agree or disagree with them.
Wisdom and luck are different. Wisdom is the result of investment in order to improve the expected value of choices. Luck is simple chance. Confusing the two leads to malinvestment in human capital.
Criticising broad economics for measuring and discussing issues on the basis that macro forecasts predictions are inaccurate is equivalent to criticising climate science because weather forecasting is inaccurate.
Note:
https://twitter.com/neurobonkers/status/422097747563409408/photo/1
I’m currently working part time and studying full time, which has significantly reduced the time I have to blog – even my normal plan of “writing the week ahead on Saturday morning” is starting to get stretched. So to ensure that something will be up, I’m throwing up aimless metaphors and quotes and leaving them open for discussion.
Note that I do not necessarily agree with the points I’m putting up – in fact, some of them are points I disagree with. The things I’ll raise will just be questions and statements I find interesting to consider!
This will be fun, I promise. If the discussions are wicked enough I can do posts on them as well – win-win. So let’s kick this off.
Economists provide the menu, it is up to society to choose from it, and accept the consequences of their choice.