

Bitcoin and the Goldbugs - kiba
http://bitcoinweekly.com/articles/bitcoin-and-the-goldbugs

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nl
Why does anyone take Austrian-School economics seriously? To quote Wikipedia:

 _Austrian economists also argue that mathematical models and statistics are
an unreliable means of analyzing and testing economic theory, and advocate
deriving economic theory logically from basic principles of human action, a
method they term 'praxeology'. Additionally, whereas experimental research and
natural experiments are often used in mainstream economics, Austrian
economists contend that testability in economics is virtually impossible since
it relies on human actors who cannot be placed in a lab setting without
altering their would-be actions. Mainstream economists are generally critical
of methodologies used by modern Austrian economists;[10] in particular, a
primary Austrian School method of deriving theories has been criticized by
mainstream economists as a priori "non-empirical" analysis[5] and differing
from the practices of scientific theorizing, as widely conducted in
economics._

I fully understand that economics is not a hard science, but at the same time
it has been proven to be possible to derive economic models based on data that
give reasonable predictions in most circumstances. Yes, some models break down
under "black swan" conditions - and yet Nassim Taleb's whole business was
built around the mathematical modeling of those exact conditions.

The Austrian School rejects the whole _idea_ of a mathematical approach to
economics, and yet I continually see it defended on HN by the very same people
who in the next article are praising Google's ability to predict flu trends
based on data, or slamming anti-vaccination campaigners.

I don't get it! Is it just a anti-orthodoxy bent that some people have? Or is
it that economics bores people so they just assume that conventional economics
must be wrong?

~~~
gasull
My understanding is that Austrian economists do watch numerical data, but
reject the idea that the Government should try to mess with any of these
numbers, like trying to rise or lower inflation, or unemployment, or GDP, etc.
They want the market to be left alone.

