• lugal@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    You got it the wrong way around: If it’s consensus, no one questions it anymore so you don’t need a source. If you start to question commonly hold beliefs, you will have to unlearn the whole field of economics. Do you want that?

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      This entire quote is actually a perfect encapsulation of orthodox economics, said with absolutely no self awareness.

      • enkers
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        1 year ago

        It’s the system I’ve lived with my entire life!! How could it be anything but correct?! I’m a smart guy, I’m sure I’d have noticed if something were amiss.

        • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          Plus look at all these high-paid people who agree with me! Surely they wouldn’t be so rich if they were telling lies!

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Economics is less accurate than astrology because at least if you are an astrologist who gets things wrong you stop getting paid. Sure it is cold reading and Barnum statements but it is still more accurate.

    • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In order to reach a consensus like that, you have to have supporting evidence that it’s true. Otherwise that consensus should absolutely be challenged.

      • lugal@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It happens in all kind of scientific fields that things that feel logical and common sense, are taken for granted. I think SciShow made a video about it but I can’t find it right now.

        • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          We’re talking about anthropology/history here. People spend their entire careers researching things like this and publishing papers on it.

          To make a claim like this requires evidence. Historical records would exist that some person at some point gathered together and published a peer reviewed article on.

          If no sources or peer reviewed articles exist on the topic other than a few blog posts, then it’s extremely likely it’s a pile of horse shit.

          • lugal@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I don’t think you got my point at all. My point is that even natural science, which is “hard science” and much easier falsifiable, this also happens. I found the video if you’re interested (It’s by Be Smart, I was wrong about the channel).

            There is also a video about the history of work that is more on topic. If you don’t want to watch the video, you can just read the sources in the description.

            But talking about anthropologists: here is a quote from David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs:

            Feudal lords, insofar as they worked at all, were fighters—their lives tended to alternate between dramatic feats of arms and near-total idleness and torpor. Peasants and servants obviously were expected to work more steadily. But even so, their work schedule was nothing remotely as regular or disciplined as the current nine-to-five—the typical medieval serf, male or female, probably worked from dawn to dusk for twenty to thirty days out of any year, but just a few hours a day otherwise, and on feast days, not at all. And feast days were not infrequent.

            He is an anthropologist who devoted his whole career debunking such claims and published a book together with a historian who does the same. It’s called “the dawn of everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021). You should check it out. I could look up more anthropologists to back my claim but I don’t want to spend too much time for people who talk down on me (none of these are block posts, surprised?) and you are yet to come up with all the anthropologists and historians (not economics, they don’t count) who support your claim.