Why was Hoppe such a colossal dumbass?

>>138761811
If you want his opinion, you can always email him. He probably still has a UNLV email address.

The scientific method is very difficult to apply to economics because there are so many factors involved in the economic functioning of any society over time. For instance, see the very next sentence after the one highlighted. A nigger monarchy is going to function much differently from a white monarchy.

>>138762939
Whether it is difficult or not, it is THE ONLY god damn scientific method. How else you fucked up lolbertarians would apply scrutiny to your strange cult, if not through examining practical application and confirmation of various ideas?

>>138763328
reason
this is a rationalists vs. empiricists debate thread now
my opinion, fwiw:
the closer you get to physic, empiricism works better
the farther you get from it (politics, economics, social sciences) the less applicable it is, leaving us to reason to make sense of things

>>138763328
A priori lives matter

>>138763594
when trying to assert a theory in medicine: even double-blind studies which are the gold standard in medicine still have trouble with ruling out confounding variables that have gone undetected/unaccounted for. empiricism really breaks down once you start getting into psych. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

>>138761811
>modern monarchies tend to be far poorer than modern democracies
maybe it's because better people are able to sustain democracies that their economies are better?
this is a failing of a strict empiricist mindset: you don't even understand that there is more than one variable feeding into a complex system. the most skeptical take on this is that there are uncountably many factors/variables involved
models, both emprical and rational can only provide us with leaky abstractions/heuristics to reason about things

Economics is not a science. An understanding of the scientific method makes this quite clear.

>>138764433
yes but what if i pull correlations from data, assume causation, make an equation out of it, and call it "a sound theory based on data"?

econometrics is science, yes?

>>138763594
There is no "vs" here necessarily. Both methods are working with the different fields.

Economic theory deals with organising economy in a stable, productive and predictable way, as well as, well, predicting the outcomes of processes in existing economy. Both of these applications are in the realm of scientific method.

"NAP is good" is not. However, that is why there is no way to establish objectively whether "NAP is good" or "Communism is good".

>>138765301
How would you go about tracing a change in the economy to a specific economic policy?
You really should actually read up on the scientific method before you start to make claims