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It's barely a science. (mander.xyz)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 33 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Economics, as an intellectual discipline, is closer to theology than physics. Its power is proportional to the belief it commands.

Finance is an arbitrary subset of mathematics, cherry picked to retroactively support a given economic model, and applied as its supporting mythology.

It’s entirely imaginary, which means alternatives are only ever a conjuring away.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    it is closer to lobbying and propaganda than theology.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    economics is definitely closer to law studies than to theology. i mean, look at all the ownership relations and having to know what is proportional, how to run a business, rules and regulations, and such.

    fun fact: theology was a respectable thing in the medieval ages. it was closer to maths/logic and spoke about how to organize a society and run a state. There were lots of influential people who studied maths but were also theologists, and lots of people studied theology and became mathematicians. I mean check out Isaac Newton who revolutionized physics with his maths-approach but also studied theology heavily. Check out Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who revolutionized mathematics but studied philosophy/theology. There's a lot of overlap.

    Theology, back then, was basically a mixture of logic/mathematics/how to organize a society/politics/and some metaphysics and philosophy. It was not a "make up random stuff" thing at all.

    All of that changed in the modern age when theology became a cringe-worthy niche with basically no real content. Idk how exactly that happened. In the medieval days, however, it was one of the big three studies: theology (math), law (and economics), medicine.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Another way I often frame my perspective on this is:

    Economics is the social control mechanism that filled the void vacated by religion after the Enlightenment.

    Mythology was replaced with finance.
    … Churches with banks.
    … Clergy with economists.
    … God with GDP.

    I don’t see either as inherently problematic systems, but their lack of rigorous foundational attachment to reality informs my argument that they should be applied as subservient tools, as opposed to their current role as dominant, dictatorial weapons.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Yeah theology is "given these base assumptions and this text, interpret the will and nature of the divine." I can respect a person who studied theology at a respected university in all the ways I can't respect someone who studied preaching at a Bible college. That said I hold a weird amount of opinions on Christian theology for a pagan

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Finance is an arbitrary subset of mathematics applied to money

    Kinda nitpicky but finance is applied math or engineering. Finance people haven't done much in terms of actual math. There's no money in math (literally and figuratively).

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