Vivian on 22/6/2016 at 13:00

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Gryz, anything that deals with natural, complex systems absolutely has to use stats. That includes physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc. It's because there are always horrible unknowns that you cannot measure or include in your models. Saying that you, as someone who basically just deals with number systems (not to deride computer science, it's a great field, but it deals with artificially created systems, not natural ones), can get absolutely correct answers and therefore so should everyone else is really silly. I mean how strong is a piece of steel? What's the resistance or whatever of a film of silicon of a certain thickness? These things can be measured and predicted based on a large enough sample size and theoretical modelling, but only up to a certain degree of certainty. And thats where stats comes in - 'based on a sample of (whatever number of steel bits) I conclude that there is a 99% chance this steel thing will take a load of (some number)'. You can't say for certain because the absolute load that steel thing will take will depend on its purity, ambient temperature, size and arrangement of crystals within it, precision of load application, minor shape deviations, etc etc etc. That's how things work.

Economics is an extremely complex system involving large numbers of intelligent and hard-to-predict agents (us) interacting with an extremely large parameter space. There's a lot of unknowns, so confidence margins are correspondingly wide, I imagine. It's still a field worth pursuing, I mean it's basically given us the modern world after all...

Also, I have a friend working on quantum computers, where you are stuck with statements like '1+1 is on average 2' (as far as I can follow, it's hard stuff, oof). What's your opinion on that? Those guys are within your field.

Gryzemuis on 22/6/2016 at 14:40

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Of course you are right in what you say. Numbers and statistics are hugely important in science. I don't disagree. But in the examples you mention, strength of steel, even quantum computing, are examples where you can not only measure, but you can also control the test environment. You can limit the amount of parameters. You can repeat your tests. And after a while, you can predict what will happen with X under circumstances Y and Z.

I don't think that is true for economics. Not the part of economics that tries to understand and predict stuff on a global scale in the real world. And even if some people could, I don't think they will be honest. If you can truly predict economics, you can get filthy rich very quickly. Lots of people try, for decades. And very very few succeeded in really predicting economics. (And even then, I would say it is statistically more likely those were just lucky, in stead of really knowing).

And the relevancy here is, that the pro-EU camp keeps repeating: "without the EU, we'll make less money". And for me, that is not a fact.


And even then, what is good "for the economy" is that good for me too ?
I'll give you another example.

Since the introduction of the euro, interest rates have fallen to almost zero percent.
This has a huge negative impact on me. I made a nice sum of money in the nineties. I don't have a wife and kids, I don't spend a lot of money, so that sum of money could have been enough for me to live and not work for a long time. In fact, I took a sabbatical of 14 years. Now I am back to work. If the interest rate had been 5-6% as it was in 2002, I might have not had to work for the rest of my life. But with 0% interest, significant inflation, and a yearly 1.2% tax, I would not have made it to 67 years old. So I went back to work. This fact, the zero interest strategy of the European bank or EU or whomever is responsible, has the biggest impact on my life of anything political to do with the EU.

Am I being selfish, and do I look only after my own interests ?
Nope, I don't think so.
People have pensions. Pay now, your invested money grows over the years, and when you retire, you have a nice pension. That only works if money actually accumulates through investment and interests. And currently it doesn't. All our pension-funds have big problems. And the paid pensions are occasionally dropping here and there. This impacts most middle-class people (and some lower-class maybe too, if they are lucky to have a decent pension).
Now from what I've heard, the Dutch are a nation where people on average have pretty good pension plans. We've got the best pensions of any country in the EU. And our pension-funds are pretty big. Maybe other countries don't care if pensions get fucked. I don't know. (Another fact, I've read (a few years ago) that the EU is looking at our fat pension-funds with a greedy eye. They're trying to find ways to release that money from those funds and use it for different purposes. I don't have any links, and I can't remember the details. But I believe it to be true. Our own government in the nineties pulled a similar stunt).

So to get back to "facts".
When presenting "facts" about the EU and the economy, you can show e.g. numbers how local economies grew 2% per year since 2002. Or whatever. And then conveniently leaving out the fact that our pensions are under great risk. Without that detail, the 2% per year might look great. (Even without knowing if you, as an individual, will see any of that extra money). But if you add the fact you might get a significant lower pension, that 2% might look a lot worse.

SD on 22/6/2016 at 15:48

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I am intrigued as to how my liberty is going to benefit from more obstacles being placed in my path for visiting, living in and working in Europe, in the event of us leaving the EU. That looks awfully like less liberty to me, not more.

dickturpin23 on 22/6/2016 at 16:10

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I think a free movement zone is actually a great idea in theory. It's just what it's tied to that is the problem.

Manwe on 22/6/2016 at 18:10

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Oh boo hoo your parasitic lifestyle will be more difficult to achieve. Most people can't afford to travel to other countries. Most people can barely pay their rent or buy food for their family. Get your head out of your ass and get your priorities straight! Fuck the upper class and their upper class problems.