Archive I'm honestly surprised that economics has been able to attract any kind of prestige as a discipline – economists are basically witch doctors who are (in my personal experience) very bad at...
I'm honestly surprised that economics has been able to attract any kind of prestige as a discipline – economists are basically witch doctors who are (in my personal experience) very bad at maths and pretend that they can model the real world effectively despite evidence that their models require such wild assumptions that they aren't really able to predict things.
If you knew more about the state of modern economics you would probably agree. There are certainly economists out there interested in reality - look for the ones that talk about rent, home prices,...
If you knew more about the state of modern economics you would probably agree. There are certainly economists out there interested in reality - look for the ones that talk about rent, home prices, energy, wage growth by quartile, and so on, these are metrics that actually matter to real people's lives instead of stock market nonsense - but the majority are grifters and scammers that support any economic theory that helps the top 1%.
Take, for example, the proponents of zero interest rate policy and supply side economics. ZIRP obviously doesn't work and just devalues the currency over time while giving the ultra rich too much liquidity, something that was obvious to anyone that actually was interested in macroeconomics but suspiciously missed by all mainstream economists because obviously the lower the rates the freer the people. ZIRP is effectively the latest iteration of supply side economics, as it's intended to stimulate new business growth through decreased investment risk, which also was a clear and obvious failure back when Reaganomics was first implemented back in the 80s.
But we did the same thing again. Why? Either economists are really really stupid or the prevailing winds of the profession support the ultra rich's increasing consolidation of everything. This isn't to say all economists are idiots, far from it. The ones that think things are fucked up, that we need a negative income tax on the lowest bracket and to balance the federal budget with higher taxes on the rich, they're out there. They're just ignored.
I know plenty about the state of modern economics and have family and friends who have degrees in it. One who has a constant named after them. There are lots of issues with loud mouth idiots...
I know plenty about the state of modern economics and have family and friends who have degrees in it. One who has a constant named after them.
There are lots of issues with loud mouth idiots getting air time in economics but it’s much the same as damming the entire medical field because Dr. Oz sells snake oil
Did you... read my post? We said basically the same thing in different ways. There are good economists out there, they're just ignored, so mainstream economics has become this insane obsession...
Did you... read my post? We said basically the same thing in different ways. There are good economists out there, they're just ignored, so mainstream economics has become this insane obsession with looting the rotting corpse as efficiently as possible. That doesn't mean the study of economics inherently is useless but much of the 'prevailing wisdom' is wrong. I really don't think it's much of a stretch to call it witchdoctor-esque.
A thing to be mindful of: there are a slew of people who call themselves economists who really are just ideologues working at billionaire-funded think tanks, and they aren't taken seriously by...
A thing to be mindful of: there are a slew of people who call themselves economists who really are just ideologues working at billionaire-funded think tanks, and they aren't taken seriously by academic economists.
There’s also lots of guys like Tyler Cowen, who are academic economists who do get taken seriously, but also get outsized say in the discipline by virtue of working in a Koch funded economics...
There’s also lots of guys like Tyler Cowen, who are academic economists who do get taken seriously, but also get outsized say in the discipline by virtue of working in a Koch funded economics department.
Yeah, to be clear I'm explaining why the popular perception of economics is the way it is, because the ultra rich want yes men that tell them what they want to hear. I'm not saying that economics...
Yeah, to be clear I'm explaining why the popular perception of economics is the way it is, because the ultra rich want yes men that tell them what they want to hear. I'm not saying that economics is totally 100% fake - there are lots of real things to be talked about. It's just that our economy runs on "asymmetric information" (e.g. lying by omission) and so this is true of fiscal advice and economic thought too - it's full of scamming. The loudest voices are the ones that say what the rich want to hear, not what's actually true.
I'm not certain how to say what I'm feeling, so I might just ramble a touch. I think, even the "bad" economists are probably still technically very *effective." Which is different than parents...
I'm not certain how to say what I'm feeling, so I might just ramble a touch.
I think, even the "bad" economists are probably still technically very *effective." Which is different than parents comment that they are "witch doctors." When I say they are effective, they are effective at modeling a number of phenomena, such that they can make valid predictions about future outcomes based on policy approaches. I'm defining my terms as broadly as possible, such that policy might include investment and reporting policy for a certain REIT. Valid means that reality, in an evidence based way, tends to match what models' predictions.
Totally absent from my statement is whether they are "good," or "not grifters." Many of the outcomes they are examining and predicting (and trying to figure out how to cause or avoid) are meant to benefit whoever is paying the bill. As far as I am aware, there is no ethical standard that requires economists to adjust their models to avoid injustice.
So, a ruthless economist may be very effective, very able, and very scientific, most definitely not a "witch doctor" or con artist or even grifter. The grifters are the ones behind Reaganomics, the ones who don't care the cost to We the People, who will extract as much rent and profit as they can get away with (and sometimes even more).
N.B. I think true shamans exist and do wonderful things, and we should probably avoid the term "witch doctor" in the same way we avoid using terms like "retarded" or "gay" to describe we don't like.
honestly this is a better argument than the others. Witch doctors actually help people, something most economists and financial planners don't give a shit about. but I take issue with the idea...
N.B. I think true shamans exist and do wonderful things, and we should probably avoid the term "witch doctor" in the same way we avoid using terms like "retarded" or "gay" to describe we don't like
honestly this is a better argument than the others. Witch doctors actually help people, something most economists and financial planners don't give a shit about. but I take issue with the idea that economists that can apply concepts effectively to do bad things are effective. I just don't see how a science that concerns itself with something as all-encompassing as 'the economy' get brownie points for being able to apply previous wisdom to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
Economics has described lots of situations where external intervention into the market is needed to solve a problem - market failures - and knows what to do about them. We know how to actually solve inflation (tax away the excess liquidity) but this idea won't go mainstream. If economics as a profession doesn't start mainstreaming ideas like universal basic income, wealth taxes, land value taxes, housing cooperatives, things we literally have a basic need for as a society to survive the coming decades, it is clearly not a science.
How are we supposed to take seriously a profession that's based around maximizing humanity's success in a world of scarcity if it chooses to obsess over supposed societal benefits of GDP growth instead of the real material conditions people face and their continued decline for decades?
If I understand you, you are saying that the field of economics has some duty to advocate for social success. I interpret that as somewhat akin to expecting the field of metallurgy to advocate for...
If I understand you, you are saying that the field of economics has some duty to advocate for social success. I interpret that as somewhat akin to expecting the field of metallurgy to advocate for peace, amd holding it responsible for war because there are a lot of metal bullets in war.
I don’t see it. We should definitely, as a society, scrutinize and sanction those metallurgists who are so good at making fast and hart bullets. But the field itself is blameless. The scrutiny and limitation is the responsibility of we the people collectively.
That doesn't make sense. The point of economics is to study the economy so that we can make policy recommendations. If we can't do that the field has no meaning. It's more akin to metallurgists...
That doesn't make sense. The point of economics is to study the economy so that we can make policy recommendations. If we can't do that the field has no meaning. It's more akin to metallurgists learning how different metalworking techniques work and what they do and then making suggestions on how to improve processes at complete random or based on known bad advice just because "it's what we've always done."
If your idea of economics is just studying patterns and making models that's only half the picture - applying those models is the whole point. And economists are shockingly bad at this. Economics without real world applications is just statistics. The interpretation and recommendation for the future is the entire crux of the profession - how can you make this argument?
Maybe that's not so wrong? Plenty of people working in various fields have been horrified at seeing their work go to be used for nefarious ends, or even just at being associated with them. The...
I interpret that as somewhat akin to expecting the field of metallurgy to advocate for peace, amd holding it responsible for war because there are a lot of metal bullets in war.
Maybe that's not so wrong?
Plenty of people working in various fields have been horrified at seeing their work go to be used for nefarious ends, or even just at being associated with them. The greatest mathematician of the last century walked away from his academic position to live in a hut in a little village because he refused to be associated with military funding, and I've always seen that as a heroic action. I personally side-eye colleagues whom I know are working on cryptocurrencies or generative AI, because I find those technologies ethically problematic.
Shouldn't we care about the ethics of the effects our actions have, even if they're indirect?
Furthermore, economics is kind of special because it does have such proximity to power. Every world leader listens to some economist, and economists sometimes play the dual role of, like, presidential advisor. With that kind of access, the field is inherently political. (The old term "political economy" also suggests this connection.)
It's a fair point that economics has a political weight that something like metallurgy lacks, and as such should have an extra ethical burden with a community focus, kind of like lawyers do. My...
It's a fair point that economics has a political weight that something like metallurgy lacks, and as such should have an extra ethical burden with a community focus, kind of like lawyers do.
My fear is a medieval approach, where fear of nefarious (or non-orthodox) extension of the field results in a complete prohibition of study.
I'm not dismissing the discipline – but they do claim to offer something they can't possibly deliver because it's impossible. The social sciences (and most non-economist social scientists don't...
I'm not dismissing the discipline – but they do claim to offer something they can't possibly deliver because it's impossible. The social sciences (and most non-economist social scientists don't make this pretense or have the same I-know-best ego) are very valuable, but it's wrong to claim that the kind of approach which works in the natural sciences (which work when we are observing closed and contained systems) will work when applied to human behaviour.
I think your understanding of what economics claims to offer is very flawed and naive. And I do say that as someone who has made similar arguments. That said, there are very specific areas where I...
I think your understanding of what economics claims to offer is very flawed and naive. And I do say that as someone who has made similar arguments.
That said, there are very specific areas where I think economics is making claims it can’t back. The entire field does not fall into that, and some sections of it are literally just math and statistics and require essentially no human element.
We’ve already got a post in here referencing the Kahneman paper in a light that is frankly misleading, and your claim they’re witch doctors doesn’t strike me as that well informed. I’m not sure what your personal experience with economists has been but as one who’s met several I’d bet money they’re in the 99th percentile on math skills.
And that’s still keeping in mind that it’s my own experiences and interactions that have led me to, again make similar arguments about certain claims, but not to disavow the entire field
The problem isn't that they're doing maths and statistics – it's that they do maths and statistics and then try to pretend that they are able to universally model human behaviour. Their modelling...
some sections of it are literally just math and statistics and require essentially no human element.
The problem isn't that they're doing maths and statistics – it's that they do maths and statistics and then try to pretend that they are able to universally model human behaviour. Their modelling also often makes really huge assumptions, and there is so much room for human input here that you can derive any outcome you want.
but as one who’s met several I’d bet money they’re in the 99th percentile on math skills.
Which isn't very good if you consider that 99 percent of people don't really have any need for maths skills? I mean "not good at maths" compared to e.g. people who have studied maths or something mathematical (e.g. electrical engineering, physics, theoretical/algorithms CS, etc).
I forget where online I read this take, but it seems to ring true any time I see the disconnect between economic models and reality. Behavioral economics (as referenced in another comment)...
Economics is an ideology masquerading as a science.
I forget where online I read this take, but it seems to ring true any time I see the disconnect between economic models and reality.
Behavioral economics (as referenced in another comment) attempts to address this issue head-on, but is more limited to microeconomics than macro, imho.
Keynes, Friedman, and even Adam Smith himself all seem to subscribe to this romanticization of macroeconomics as a theory for everything, when the reality seems to be more messy.
The Black-Scholes model became a self-fulfilling prophecy in my opinion due to the incompetence of financial analysts’ ability for truly independent analysis (and greed was probably another driver).
I have heard a lot of really bad thing about the workings of economists to agree with you about them being witch doctors. It just seems like there's a ton of bad actors. This forum is one famous...
I have heard a lot of really bad thing about the workings of economists to agree with you about them being witch doctors. It just seems like there's a ton of bad actors. This forum is one famous one, but I have also heard that the reason why female economists are rare is because conferences don't have basic courtesy to withhold questions until the end of the presentation; when a woman comes up on stage, they are constantly bombarded with questions to the point where they are unable to make their points clear. Between that and the sizable group of neocons coming up with more and more justifications to snuffle out the last bastions of common good, I'm not too terribly inclined to listen to anyone who uses "economist" as a title.
I feel obligated to add that it's a function of the discipline and the nature of the ideas discussed that people should ask questions in the middle of someone's presentation. It's similar to how...
I feel obligated to add that it's a function of the discipline and the nature of the ideas discussed that people should ask questions in the middle of someone's presentation. It's similar to how judges interrupt a lawyer in the middle of their case: if you don't sort out specific questions right away, the entire discussion quickly becomes fruitless, due to how fully dependent one link in the chain is to the next. There are ways to do this, however, that are respectful to the presenter.
I have a attended a number of science conferences (albeit just in biology-related fields), both in academic settings and in private industry, and I have never seen it done this way at any of them....
I have a attended a number of science conferences (albeit just in biology-related fields), both in academic settings and in private industry, and I have never seen it done this way at any of them. The presenter completes their presentation in their allotted time, and then a lengthy Q&A session follows (often as long as, or even longer than, the original presentation). This is a popular format because it ensures that the presenter finishes their entire presentation, which often answers many of the audience's questions before they are asked.
After everyone's presentations and Q&A's are completed, there is a very long mingling session where people can ask each other questions more privately or more casually (as well as seek advice, collaboration, etc., for their own work). And, of course, everyone's contact details are provided to everyone else to enable further questions.
I really like these types of conferences. Even as a terminally stage shy individual, I have found them very comfortable and enlightening environments to present, answer questions, and ask questions in.
I think I would find it hard to tolerate a conference where the audience commonly interrupted the presenter, whether I was a presenter or an audience member. It just does not seem like that would be very conducive to sharing information in an optimal way, especially if it prevented the presenter from finishing or derailed their flow — and seeing the most effective researchers are often abnormally socially awkward, I suspect it would cause a degree of brain drain out of the fields that commonly manage their conferences this way.
Outright interrupting people I'd say is a bit out of pocket if it's not a small group where people know each other, but raising your hand with the general expectation that the presenter should try...
Outright interrupting people I'd say is a bit out of pocket if it's not a small group where people know each other, but raising your hand with the general expectation that the presenter should try to get to you is different.
An important difference from the physical sciences is that there's not the same level of continuity in theory. You're often working with a variety of frameworks and assumptions, and you may be extending upon it in a way that's different from many people in the audience.
To that point, remember when someone won a Nobel Prize for proving that people aren't rational actors? https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/richard-thaler-nobel-economics/542400/
To that point, remember when someone won a Nobel Prize for proving that people aren't rational actors?
It's also not a Nobel prize – the prize is called the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" and was established by the central bank. The Nobel family has...
It's also not a Nobel prize – the prize is called the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" and was established by the central bank. The Nobel family has complained bitterly about this but to no avail.
I've noticed there's a distinct difference between Marxist economicists and the rest in that vein. Paul Cockshott really opened my eyes here. In part, because he demonstrates how and why in order...
I've noticed there's a distinct difference between Marxist economicists and the rest in that vein.
Paul Cockshott really opened my eyes here. In part, because he demonstrates how and why in order for something to be scientific, it must be verifyable. I guess it helps that he's a computer scientist first, economist second. Be warned his sound quality is often quite bad.
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I'm honestly surprised that economics has been able to attract any kind of prestige as a discipline – economists are basically witch doctors who are (in my personal experience) very bad at maths and pretend that they can model the real world effectively despite evidence that their models require such wild assumptions that they aren't really able to predict things.
Dismissing an entire discipline is uninformed and arrogant.
I am not in economics. I am in STEM.
No disrespect meant to you.
If you knew more about the state of modern economics you would probably agree. There are certainly economists out there interested in reality - look for the ones that talk about rent, home prices, energy, wage growth by quartile, and so on, these are metrics that actually matter to real people's lives instead of stock market nonsense - but the majority are grifters and scammers that support any economic theory that helps the top 1%.
Take, for example, the proponents of zero interest rate policy and supply side economics. ZIRP obviously doesn't work and just devalues the currency over time while giving the ultra rich too much liquidity, something that was obvious to anyone that actually was interested in macroeconomics but suspiciously missed by all mainstream economists because obviously the lower the rates the freer the people. ZIRP is effectively the latest iteration of supply side economics, as it's intended to stimulate new business growth through decreased investment risk, which also was a clear and obvious failure back when Reaganomics was first implemented back in the 80s.
But we did the same thing again. Why? Either economists are really really stupid or the prevailing winds of the profession support the ultra rich's increasing consolidation of everything. This isn't to say all economists are idiots, far from it. The ones that think things are fucked up, that we need a negative income tax on the lowest bracket and to balance the federal budget with higher taxes on the rich, they're out there. They're just ignored.
I know plenty about the state of modern economics and have family and friends who have degrees in it. One who has a constant named after them.
There are lots of issues with loud mouth idiots getting air time in economics but it’s much the same as damming the entire medical field because Dr. Oz sells snake oil
Did you... read my post? We said basically the same thing in different ways. There are good economists out there, they're just ignored, so mainstream economics has become this insane obsession with looting the rotting corpse as efficiently as possible. That doesn't mean the study of economics inherently is useless but much of the 'prevailing wisdom' is wrong. I really don't think it's much of a stretch to call it witchdoctor-esque.
A thing to be mindful of: there are a slew of people who call themselves economists who really are just ideologues working at billionaire-funded think tanks, and they aren't taken seriously by academic economists.
There’s also lots of guys like Tyler Cowen, who are academic economists who do get taken seriously, but also get outsized say in the discipline by virtue of working in a Koch funded economics department.
Yeah, to be clear I'm explaining why the popular perception of economics is the way it is, because the ultra rich want yes men that tell them what they want to hear. I'm not saying that economics is totally 100% fake - there are lots of real things to be talked about. It's just that our economy runs on "asymmetric information" (e.g. lying by omission) and so this is true of fiscal advice and economic thought too - it's full of scamming. The loudest voices are the ones that say what the rich want to hear, not what's actually true.
I'm not certain how to say what I'm feeling, so I might just ramble a touch.
I think, even the "bad" economists are probably still technically very *effective." Which is different than parents comment that they are "witch doctors." When I say they are effective, they are effective at modeling a number of phenomena, such that they can make valid predictions about future outcomes based on policy approaches. I'm defining my terms as broadly as possible, such that policy might include investment and reporting policy for a certain REIT. Valid means that reality, in an evidence based way, tends to match what models' predictions.
Totally absent from my statement is whether they are "good," or "not grifters." Many of the outcomes they are examining and predicting (and trying to figure out how to cause or avoid) are meant to benefit whoever is paying the bill. As far as I am aware, there is no ethical standard that requires economists to adjust their models to avoid injustice.
So, a ruthless economist may be very effective, very able, and very scientific, most definitely not a "witch doctor" or con artist or even grifter. The grifters are the ones behind Reaganomics, the ones who don't care the cost to We the People, who will extract as much rent and profit as they can get away with (and sometimes even more).
N.B. I think true shamans exist and do wonderful things, and we should probably avoid the term "witch doctor" in the same way we avoid using terms like "retarded" or "gay" to describe we don't like.
honestly this is a better argument than the others. Witch doctors actually help people, something most economists and financial planners don't give a shit about. but I take issue with the idea that economists that can apply concepts effectively to do bad things are effective. I just don't see how a science that concerns itself with something as all-encompassing as 'the economy' get brownie points for being able to apply previous wisdom to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
Economics has described lots of situations where external intervention into the market is needed to solve a problem - market failures - and knows what to do about them. We know how to actually solve inflation (tax away the excess liquidity) but this idea won't go mainstream. If economics as a profession doesn't start mainstreaming ideas like universal basic income, wealth taxes, land value taxes, housing cooperatives, things we literally have a basic need for as a society to survive the coming decades, it is clearly not a science.
How are we supposed to take seriously a profession that's based around maximizing humanity's success in a world of scarcity if it chooses to obsess over supposed societal benefits of GDP growth instead of the real material conditions people face and their continued decline for decades?
If I understand you, you are saying that the field of economics has some duty to advocate for social success. I interpret that as somewhat akin to expecting the field of metallurgy to advocate for peace, amd holding it responsible for war because there are a lot of metal bullets in war.
I don’t see it. We should definitely, as a society, scrutinize and sanction those metallurgists who are so good at making fast and hart bullets. But the field itself is blameless. The scrutiny and limitation is the responsibility of we the people collectively.
That doesn't make sense. The point of economics is to study the economy so that we can make policy recommendations. If we can't do that the field has no meaning. It's more akin to metallurgists learning how different metalworking techniques work and what they do and then making suggestions on how to improve processes at complete random or based on known bad advice just because "it's what we've always done."
If your idea of economics is just studying patterns and making models that's only half the picture - applying those models is the whole point. And economists are shockingly bad at this. Economics without real world applications is just statistics. The interpretation and recommendation for the future is the entire crux of the profession - how can you make this argument?
Maybe that's not so wrong?
Plenty of people working in various fields have been horrified at seeing their work go to be used for nefarious ends, or even just at being associated with them. The greatest mathematician of the last century walked away from his academic position to live in a hut in a little village because he refused to be associated with military funding, and I've always seen that as a heroic action. I personally side-eye colleagues whom I know are working on cryptocurrencies or generative AI, because I find those technologies ethically problematic.
Shouldn't we care about the ethics of the effects our actions have, even if they're indirect?
Furthermore, economics is kind of special because it does have such proximity to power. Every world leader listens to some economist, and economists sometimes play the dual role of, like, presidential advisor. With that kind of access, the field is inherently political. (The old term "political economy" also suggests this connection.)
It's a fair point that economics has a political weight that something like metallurgy lacks, and as such should have an extra ethical burden with a community focus, kind of like lawyers do.
My fear is a medieval approach, where fear of nefarious (or non-orthodox) extension of the field results in a complete prohibition of study.
I'm not dismissing the discipline – but they do claim to offer something they can't possibly deliver because it's impossible. The social sciences (and most non-economist social scientists don't make this pretense or have the same I-know-best ego) are very valuable, but it's wrong to claim that the kind of approach which works in the natural sciences (which work when we are observing closed and contained systems) will work when applied to human behaviour.
I think your understanding of what economics claims to offer is very flawed and naive. And I do say that as someone who has made similar arguments.
That said, there are very specific areas where I think economics is making claims it can’t back. The entire field does not fall into that, and some sections of it are literally just math and statistics and require essentially no human element.
We’ve already got a post in here referencing the Kahneman paper in a light that is frankly misleading, and your claim they’re witch doctors doesn’t strike me as that well informed. I’m not sure what your personal experience with economists has been but as one who’s met several I’d bet money they’re in the 99th percentile on math skills.
And that’s still keeping in mind that it’s my own experiences and interactions that have led me to, again make similar arguments about certain claims, but not to disavow the entire field
The problem isn't that they're doing maths and statistics – it's that they do maths and statistics and then try to pretend that they are able to universally model human behaviour. Their modelling also often makes really huge assumptions, and there is so much room for human input here that you can derive any outcome you want.
Which isn't very good if you consider that 99 percent of people don't really have any need for maths skills? I mean "not good at maths" compared to e.g. people who have studied maths or something mathematical (e.g. electrical engineering, physics, theoretical/algorithms CS, etc).
I forget where online I read this take, but it seems to ring true any time I see the disconnect between economic models and reality.
Behavioral economics (as referenced in another comment) attempts to address this issue head-on, but is more limited to microeconomics than macro, imho.
Keynes, Friedman, and even Adam Smith himself all seem to subscribe to this romanticization of macroeconomics as a theory for everything, when the reality seems to be more messy.
The Black-Scholes model became a self-fulfilling prophecy in my opinion due to the incompetence of financial analysts’ ability for truly independent analysis (and greed was probably another driver).
I have heard a lot of really bad thing about the workings of economists to agree with you about them being witch doctors. It just seems like there's a ton of bad actors. This forum is one famous one, but I have also heard that the reason why female economists are rare is because conferences don't have basic courtesy to withhold questions until the end of the presentation; when a woman comes up on stage, they are constantly bombarded with questions to the point where they are unable to make their points clear. Between that and the sizable group of neocons coming up with more and more justifications to snuffle out the last bastions of common good, I'm not too terribly inclined to listen to anyone who uses "economist" as a title.
I feel obligated to add that it's a function of the discipline and the nature of the ideas discussed that people should ask questions in the middle of someone's presentation. It's similar to how judges interrupt a lawyer in the middle of their case: if you don't sort out specific questions right away, the entire discussion quickly becomes fruitless, due to how fully dependent one link in the chain is to the next. There are ways to do this, however, that are respectful to the presenter.
I have a attended a number of science conferences (albeit just in biology-related fields), both in academic settings and in private industry, and I have never seen it done this way at any of them. The presenter completes their presentation in their allotted time, and then a lengthy Q&A session follows (often as long as, or even longer than, the original presentation). This is a popular format because it ensures that the presenter finishes their entire presentation, which often answers many of the audience's questions before they are asked.
After everyone's presentations and Q&A's are completed, there is a very long mingling session where people can ask each other questions more privately or more casually (as well as seek advice, collaboration, etc., for their own work). And, of course, everyone's contact details are provided to everyone else to enable further questions.
I really like these types of conferences. Even as a terminally stage shy individual, I have found them very comfortable and enlightening environments to present, answer questions, and ask questions in.
I think I would find it hard to tolerate a conference where the audience commonly interrupted the presenter, whether I was a presenter or an audience member. It just does not seem like that would be very conducive to sharing information in an optimal way, especially if it prevented the presenter from finishing or derailed their flow — and seeing the most effective researchers are often abnormally socially awkward, I suspect it would cause a degree of brain drain out of the fields that commonly manage their conferences this way.
Outright interrupting people I'd say is a bit out of pocket if it's not a small group where people know each other, but raising your hand with the general expectation that the presenter should try to get to you is different.
An important difference from the physical sciences is that there's not the same level of continuity in theory. You're often working with a variety of frameworks and assumptions, and you may be extending upon it in a way that's different from many people in the audience.
To that point, remember when someone won a Nobel Prize for proving that people aren't rational actors?
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/richard-thaler-nobel-economics/542400/
It's also not a Nobel prize – the prize is called the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" and was established by the central bank. The Nobel family has complained bitterly about this but to no avail.
I've noticed there's a distinct difference between Marxist economicists and the rest in that vein.
Paul Cockshott really opened my eyes here. In part, because he demonstrates how and why in order for something to be scientific, it must be verifyable. I guess it helps that he's a computer scientist first, economist second. Be warned his sound quality is often quite bad.
Especially relevant to this conversation is Epicycles and neoclassical economics, and Part II, where he addresses head-on the 'witch doctor' aspects of modern economists.
Here are some other great ones:
The determination of rate of profit and
India and the rate of profit.
The coming world crisis and The world crisis.