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   Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 19:50:40 JST Jack of all trades

   https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=lrMWSkzrMYg

   Great interview. I especially liked the part where he connected energy-blindness of mainstream economics with its ideological role in maintaining contemporary power structures.

   #SteveKeen #economics #capitalism #energy #ideology

   • Embed this notice
     phiofx (phiofx@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 19:50:38 JST phiofx

     in reply to

     • RD
     • Kyle Montanio

     @jackofalltrades @FantasticalEconomics @RD4Anarchy

     Ayres, Keen etc are cited in the the current IPCC reports and that is what matters, not settling academic or political scores. Bullard Herendeen developed energy input-output models as far back as 1974 and Leontief himself had such ideas. These ideas are now heavily in practical use.

     There is never going to be some declaration of "mainstream defeat" or a Nobel prize recall. And power structures wont collapse due to improved models

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 19:50:39 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     • RD
     • Kyle Montanio

     @FantasticalEconomics @RD4Anarchy

     Check this out. ☝️ This neatly connects the ideological basis of mainstream economics with its energy blindness.

     Energy being a core input to capital and labor in the production function, rather than being treated as just a minor factor of production, is such a fundamental departure from mainstream ideology that I don't see it ever taking that leap.

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     phiofx (phiofx@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 23:53:40 JST phiofx

     in reply to

     • Kyle Montanio

     @FantasticalEconomics @jackofalltrades

     one of my favorite quotes is: "there are no paths, paths are made by walking". Another one: "you never change things by fighting the existing reality. Build a new model that makes the existing one obsolete"

     That "walking/building" step is the acid test that separates theoretical visions of varying quality and coherence from the stuff that actually changes the world.

     It took one (1) person to build #mastodon. Imagine if we could get better at this.

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     Kyle Montanio (fantasticaleconomics@geekdom.social)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 23:53:42 JST Kyle Montanio

     in reply to

     • phiofx

     @jackofalltrades @phiofx

     Power structures won't collapse *solely* because of new models, but I definitely see them as a way to help change the system by providing a new path to follow.

     To highlight this, I'd point to the move to abolish the police. I think that was held back by not having a good alternative model to the broken system we have. I think that stalled that movement in many ways.

     New models give us a direction to make progress towards and point out issues of the current system.

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 23:53:43 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     • RD
     • Kyle Montanio
     • phiofx

     @phiofx @FantasticalEconomics @RD4Anarchy

     As to "power structures wont collapse due to improved models" we are in total agreement.

     However, there is something to be said about the so-called "scientists" that use their models to legitimize these power structures. They are complicit in the public's blindness to the reality of the situation.

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 23:53:43 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     • RD
     • Kyle Montanio
     • phiofx

     @phiofx @FantasticalEconomics @RD4Anarchy

     There really isn't a better example than #ClimateChange. Climate scientists have been raising the alarm for decades, while economists have been using their models to "prove" nothing fundamentally needs to change about the way we run the economy, and actually 3C of warming is "optimal".

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     phiofx (phiofx@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:27:32 JST phiofx

     in reply to

     • Kyle Montanio

     @FantasticalEconomics @jackofalltrades Roger Pensore has in some of his books (I forget which one, maybe the road to reality) a classification of theories: superb, useful, tentative. Superb are those that are phenomenally and profoundly accurate (very few) etc.

     The related joke is that some theories "are not even wrong". Much of economics falls in that category. NB: not dissing economists for failing (its an incredibly complex field) but for not humbly disclosing when that is the case.

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     Kyle Montanio (fantasticaleconomics@geekdom.social)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:27:33 JST Kyle Montanio

     in reply to

     • phiofx

     @jackofalltrades @phiofx

     Agreed! The whole notion of "objective scientist" is problematic, especially in socal sciences.

     But even in the hard sciences, the researcher comes up with questions and decides on study design and brings their world views with them to interpret results. While we can strive for objectivity, we need to know it's impossible to acheive.

     Then remove the nice controlled environments and apply theories to complex people and societies... Objectivety becomes a pipedream.

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:27:34 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     • Kyle Montanio
     • phiofx

     @FantasticalEconomics @phiofx

     Yes, exactly!

     Just like old models legitimize the status quo, new models can shake it up.

     I think Marx said it best:

     "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."

     Mainstream economists not viewing themselves as philosophers, but rather "objective scientists" is part of the problem.

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     phiofx (phiofx@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 12-Feb-2024 06:45:48 JST phiofx

     in reply to

     • Kyle Montanio

     @jackofalltrades @FantasticalEconomics its entirely conceivable (but the odds are unknowable) that in a not too distant future the role of energy in underpinning human economies will mutate yet again, and dramatically. We are, after all, drenched in low entropy solar radiation that is "free".

     So even as the project of explaining the economics the fossil fuel era has barely started it feels it will have an expiry date. The future "value multiplier" might be whatever constrains digital systems

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Monday, 12-Feb-2024 06:45:50 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     • Kyle Montanio

     @FantasticalEconomics

     The problem with "GDP is just transformed energy", that the interview highlighted beautifully, is that this kind of framing is not only too humbling to humans, but also upends the existing power structures.

     If the model was followed to its natural conclusion we'd all have to admit that 95% of our wealth does not come from our ingenuity or hard work, but from nature's endowment. Likewise, no one person could claim they *deserve* to be at the top of the hierarchy.

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     Kyle Montanio (fantasticaleconomics@geekdom.social)'s status on Monday, 12-Feb-2024 06:45:51 JST Kyle Montanio

     in reply to

     @jackofalltrades

     Really a great interview with Keen! Some of the parts that resonated with me:

     'Most economists don't know the history of economics, so they don't have a sense of the context and how assumptions build on each other.'
     - Yeah, that checks out. I've never taken a history of econ course to get my phd and I learned quite a bit from a brief history.

     'GDP is just transformed energy.'
     - that is a nice, simple, and accurate model that really could be the core we build on in econ.

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Monday, 12-Feb-2024 06:45:52 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     • Kyle Montanio

     @FantasticalEconomics

     Yes, it works for me, but if it doesn't work for you, try a YT link instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrMWSkzrMYg

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     Kyle Montanio (fantasticaleconomics@geekdom.social)'s status on Monday, 12-Feb-2024 06:45:54 JST Kyle Montanio

     in reply to

     @jackofalltrades

     Is the link you shared still working? I can't seem to open it, but it may be an issue on my end..

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     phiofx (phiofx@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 12-Feb-2024 17:30:18 JST phiofx

     in reply to

     • Kyle Montanio

     @FantasticalEconomics @jackofalltrades an extra challenge is that the current system is far from what it pretends to be. Milton Friedman defended the obsessive pursuit of monetary profit by saying that if you dont want private interests to pursue an X with negative externalities, you should just outlaw X. This ignores the reality of deep and pervasive political corruption, where acquired economic power shapes the conditions for its own further concentration and political influence.

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     Kyle Montanio (fantasticaleconomics@geekdom.social)'s status on Monday, 12-Feb-2024 17:30:20 JST Kyle Montanio

     in reply to

     • phiofx

     @phiofx @jackofalltrades

     Yeah the austems are going to change as what is scarce changes.

     It will be really interesting to see if we can convince people (particularly the powerful) that it is not us that matter... This whole notion of individualism and the 'rich deserving their outcomes' is so obviously backward.

     I hope we can find a way to open people's eyes to the fact that capitalism just rewards those who can most ruthlessly extract from the system, rather than anything of merit.

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 18:38:27 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     Also, mainstream economics will be quite useless in the upcoming collapse. As they say, you can't eat money, and neither you can fuel the machinery with it.

     As Steve Keen puts it: "Labor without energy is a corpse. Capital without energy is a sculpture."

     With the era of abundance ending it no longer will be easy to substitute or import what we lack. A new economic paradigm will be necessary.

     #economics #collapse #scarcity

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     Jack of all trades (jackofalltrades@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 18:38:28 JST Jack of all trades

     in reply to

     This line of thinking is not limited to CEOs, mind you. This concerns us all.

     The concept of "energy slaves" is very helpful in understanding this: https://mas.to/@jackofalltrades/110425979680740513

     Tokyo Outsider (337ppm) repeated this.