Even if we didn't invent the name "Purchasing power parity" or even the concept, it's principals would still be in effect.
Like you said once before "if you are dying of thirst, which is more valuable, a gallon of water of a ton of gold?". This is essentially the PPP in effect. This is not some artificial construct that humans have unanimously decided to agree with - things really do have value dependant on context.

Originally Posted by ImmortalCow

You are confusing economics with with future chronology. Economics neither predicts the future, nor does it deal with specifics... an economist cannot predict the future without much data, and as with physics, there are many events with small probability that could change the outcome.

However if you ask a physicist or an economist to explain the expected outcome of a closed system event, both will thrive.
Once the flood occured, the price projections were calculated.

Economics deals with a FAR more complex and volatile field than physics. Besides that, real world economic predictions are NOT a field of pure economics - they are a multi-disciplinary field of macro behavioural science, mathematicians, business analysts - and you seem to think that seismic geologists and astronomers too!

...even though we can't predict when prices will rise or fall, if we have a closed feedback loop we can easily adjust to always take the best choice of action to move towards a goal.

Originally Posted by deprav

tl;dr : If you were about to die of thrist, would a ton of gold be more valuable than a galon of water ?

[Cow's answer >]

I would take the gold, then sell some for water. Hell if I take a kilo of gold to someone's house, they will probably give me water for free so we can negotiate the price.

That is the realm of psychology, not economics. [programmed obsolescence]

You may notice that wikipedia does not say that economics is governed by money. Stop putting words in to wikipedia's mouth. Why did you just quote the article, then ignore it and add your own sentence?

Originally Posted by Boredpayne

Economics is a science, but even though conceptually it may be concrete, in practice it is not.

Originally Posted by Boredpayne

The ambiguity is introduced when you realize that the man might actually take the gold, and there is no way to quantify this probability. Indeed, there are so many incalculable possibilities (see: a random walk) that economics as applied to the real world is extremely imprecise, much more so than physics. Economics is a science, but even though conceptually it may be concrete, in practice it is not.

Originally Posted by Skolfe

I would like to back up his claim by saying that this can be seen by how communism inevitably failed, even though it was marked as a "Utopian Lifestyle".

Originally Posted by deprav

The funny thing is he did choose the gold.

Originally Posted by deprav

In what manner programmed obsolescence falls into the realm of psychology? (not sure I'm following you here.)
And ain't psychology a huge part of economics? Because if it wasn't, how could it ever be viable ?

Originally Posted by deprav

"...The classic brief definition of economics, set out by Lionel Robbins in 1932, is "the science which studies human behavior as a relation between scarce means having alternative uses." Without scarcity and alternative uses, there is no economic problem. Briefer yet is "the study of how people seek to satisfy needs and wants" and "the study of the financial aspects of human behavior."

Originally Posted by deprav

As you said yourself, you need money (in our present world) to satisfy needs and wants.
And regarding scarcity and the "economic problem", what if scarcity of certain ressources or goods is created on purpose by men for their profit? That makes one of the fundamental economics theories totally unpredictable, even more if men generally tends to hoard money, by greed or whatever.

Originally Posted by deprav

"In behavioral economics, psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002 for his and Amos Tversky's empirical discovery of several cognitive biases and heuristics. Similar empirical testing occurs in neuroeconomics. Another example is the assumption of narrowly selfish preferences versus a model that tests for selfish, altruistic, and cooperative preferences.[92] These techniques have led some to argue that economics is a "genuine science."[10]"

Originally Posted by deprav

Also I'd like to point out again that economics is full of political opinions.

Originally Posted by deprav

So yeah, I think I percieve economics more as a "constantly changing scientific tool" instead of a science, since it studies an eternally evolving and changing matter (humans and their needs).

Originally Posted by deprav

Our needs, wants, customs and political opinions are constantly (but slowly) changing and differ from one person to another, which require economics to be constantly changing if we ever want it to be useful - which differs from other sciences relying on immuable laws.

Originally Posted by deprav

Anyway, what is now a debat about economics being a science or not was initially intended to show how currency/money, being a constant factor of our evolution, has impacted on our perception of our environment, as well as our perception of money itself. I think we did see what I meant now.
One simple sentence in your first answer expose it pretty well :

"Money is a means to the end, and while some people do completely associate money with happiness, it should be obvious to everyone that money is the ability to produce happiness (both by providing food, shelter, and for trivial means too)."

Money does provide what you need to survive (sadly), but it doesn't provide friends, love, self-respect, humility and answers to existential questions.

Originally Posted by ImmortalCow

The fact that no political movement has been implemented ideally is itself very predictable. The tragedy of commons and the concept of 'ego' are both very well documented.
Plus that all communism ever implemented in a large scale was really just a military dictatorship - thus pure marxism has never been implemented in a large scale.

Originally Posted by Skolfe

Well, I was moreover agreeing with him for the economic standpoint of communism. The one where dictatorship has no effect because politics are completely removed from the system.

Although I would like to say that I, personally, don't agree so much with your predictability argument. Possibly because I don't think reoccurring trends should influence an outcome in any way. Like saying, if I flip a coin that lands on heads 83 times in a row, I should still expect heads on the next flip. However, as long as there's still a possibility for it to land on tails, I can't be sure of it until after it's happened.

Obviously. That is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

No, supply and demand is a fundamental theory of economics, so reducing the supply in order to increase the profits is obvious.
If you increase supply, the price will drop, if you decrease it then price will rise. If you increase demand the price will rise, if you decrease demand the price will drop.
This is fundamental and basic economics. Why would people putting this in to practice invalidate the theory??

Yes, that is interesting. The idea of economics not only being a social science, but also a universal truth is generally accepted, and I agree with Lazear's ideal that economics should be considered as 'genuine' (equal to physics and mathematics etc) rather than a social science.
I don't know what you are trying to say, because once again this quote supports my arguments not yours...

Of course, so is archeology, physics, chemistry, astronomy ... Anything studied by human will be subject to politics. To quote Lazear: "Economics is not only a social science, it is a genuine science. Like the physical sciences, economics uses a methodology that produces refutable implications and tests these implications using solid statistical techniques."
Again, what is your point?

The fact that no political movement has been implemented ideally is itself very predictable. The tragedy of commons and the concept of 'ego' are both very well documented.
Plus that all communism every implemented in a large scale was really just a military dictatorship - thus pure marxism has never been implemented in a large scale. But like communism, democracy, theology, etc, it will never be possible to implement in practice.

Randomness does not affect the legitimacy or concepts of economics.

FYI Random walk is a hill climbing algorithm that is completely unrelated to economics :I

Originally Posted by Boredpayne

Randomness is uncertainty, and I'm saying that economics is more uncertain than physics. I am not questioning its legitimacy.

Originally Posted by Boredpayne

Different context.

Originally Posted by deprav

Lel, not really... it's more like the whole discussion is totally irrelevant from that point because that's what I wanted to point out at first, then you went all mad about Economics and value, and somehow I followed you.

Originally Posted by deprav

It does not invalidate the theory, it changes its very nature. Because it does not studies the needs of human beings anymore, it shows ways to create needs and generate profit. That's one of the "political aspect" of economics.

Originally Posted by deprav

I put that here to point out some cognitive biases were exposed in 2002, it either means all we believed was true in Economics before 2002 was in fact false and unapplicable, or people change depending on their political environment and Economics need to change as well (acquire new knowledge) depending on people.

Originally Posted by deprav

Whether you're capitalist or communist or whatever, doesn't affect your perception of physic laws, chemistry laws or astronomy laws etc... o_O Theories are of course created from personnal opinions at first but nothing related to politics.

Originally Posted by deprav

Now my point with those 3 quotes :

Economics is "the study of how people seek to satisfy needs and wants" ( if we take the largest simple definition on wikipedia.) ok.
We said Economics "works better" or can be applied more easily in a closed system. ok.
So, if we consider economics on a world scale, what we could define a "closed system" to apply economics would be, in short, liberal capitalism - since that's the direction the world has seemed to take those last decades, even considering each country's own system. yes ?
So economics, on a world scale, considers that people produce and consume goods according to the capitalist system.

But, what if someday, people realize things have to change because it obviously doesn't work with the current system. They'll considere producing & consuming under a new angle, and redefine their needs and priority. Since "Political beliefs depend most strongly on the political beliefs most common in the community where we live." yes ?
Economics would have to change as well if it "wants" to be reliable, no ?
I undersand some principles like PPP can be applied whatever system is applied, but PPP isn't the one and only principle of economics, amiright ?
Like people would have to reconsidere "the economic problem" if we manage ourselves differently.

Originally Posted by deprav

That doesn't make Economics less of a science**, I'm not trying to prove it's uneffective, it does what it aims for, but it differs from other sciences because of that particular narrow relationship with our political environment.

Originally Posted by deprav

Which at first made me want to slap you in the face and shout "WAKE THE FUCK UP!", but I'm a peaceful person.
This exactly illustrates my point, like I said in some earlier posts : trying to apply communism or real democracy or whatever in ONE country, included in the world scale capitalist system, is like trying to spread some margarine on butter, there's no point.
But that doesn't mean those systems are theorically inapplicable. We HAVE to aim for a better system and even if we can't apply it perfectly, we CAN'T stay immobile in the actual capitalist system because it's killing us, deminishing our freedom, raising us as senseless consuming sheeps, and altering our political discernment (which is necessary for a social specy, yes?).

Originally Posted by deprav

So yeah that probably is my main beef with economics : considered as an immuable science, it closes our perception and possibilites for other political system ; considere as a mean and not an end in itself, it still gives us possibilities for other ways of shaping our society.
Do you get this point I want to show you ?

As you said yourself : "if you keep doing the same thing over and over again it's unlikely the outcome will change."