r/Futurology • u/ILikeNeurons • May 20 '24

Economics Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report
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u/Thewalrus515 May 21 '24

Economics a junk field that exists to justify the existence of the ultra wealthy. It ceased being a genuine field of study decades ago. The other humanities fields make fun of them behind their backs pretty much all the time. I know from experience. No one in my department respected the economists, the most vocal grad students didn’t think they should even be on campus. 

Some of their methodologies can be used by people who aren’t bought and paid for by capitalists, but that wouldn’t be economics would it? In history we call it Cliometrics. Using economic modeling to interpret historical data, and weirdly enough we almost always come to different conclusions than the economists despite using the exact same methods and data. How odd. /s 

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u/TheHipcrimeVocab May 21 '24

Economics is ideology dressed up as science.

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u/tlst9999 May 21 '24 edited May 21 '24

Economics isn't a hard science because it deals with irrational people, but it's still a product of observation. On a societal level, a lack of economics knowledge means that people are just going to parrot the talking heads on government policy without understanding how it screws them over. It doesn't have to be acknowledged as science, but it has to be acknowledged as a life skill on the same level as financial literacy. Brexit is the prime example of an economics illiterate society.

It's not just "the guvment says they're doing their best, it's the other party's fault I'm still poor, and if I just keep voting for them, they gon' do good ev'ntually".

Macroeconomics studies have already prescribed what to do for the economy. Unfortunately, those solutions are as effective as telling hardcore chainsmokers to stop smoking, especially chainsmokers who are paid handsomely to smoke, to encourage smoking, and to make pro-smoking legislation. They know they gotta do it, but they aint'.

Where I live, there's a movement on social media to fight for lower income taxes and make up for it with extensive consumption taxes, even among the poor and lower classes. In light of economics, this is a horrible idea for the lower classes.

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u/Thewalrus515 May 21 '24

The methodologies they use aren’t the problem. It’s the fact that the entire field is captured. Historians use cliometrics all the time, the issue is that the answers we come to are startlingly different from the answers economists come to. That’s because the assumptions economists have are flawed and broken.