News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:From Underwear to Cars, India’s Economy Is Fraying by sifar on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @06:13AM (#21058290)
Central banking is a technology. Capitalism is a technology. Democracy is a technology.

At least that's what the tech tree in Civilization says :).

Seriously, in the modern world, almost everything is a technic[1].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/d...

Re:From Underwear to Cars, India’s Economy Is Fraying by Accujack on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @12:40PM (#21062031)
You can choose to view things that way, but that's just a perception, not the actual nature of these concepts. You could equally well say they are all philosophies and use that to reinforce a view you hold.
Re:From Underwear to Cars, India’s Economy Is Fraying by sifar on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @01:26PM (#21062513)
Yes, my thoughts are partly shaped by how I perceive things, see them, read about them.

However when you have spent time exploring the concepts, go to their origins, subject them to your analysis, to what people before you have thought about them through the different ages, pay attention to the meaning of the names and not use them flippantly, look at who wields the power and who benefits, watch your own motivations and those of others, then I believe it ceases to be mere perception and the true nature of the thing under consideration reveals itself. Yes you may not understand it in its entirety, but you tend to grasp the essence where earlier it was cloaked in myth.

I'll give you an example. People exemplify the benefits of division of labour stated by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. That is how it is conventionally taught. But they conveniently ignore how he talks about the soul crushing, mind numbingness of it later in the book. How it negatively affects the nature of man. And this resonates with ones experience having gone through the grind.

Also the nature of things is not fixed, static. It evolves too. It changes those using it and in turn is shaped by them. What started of as a good idea, mutates into a self-perpetuating myth.

Please read the book I referred if you are really interested in the actual nature of these concepts.

Re:From Underwear to Cars, India’s Economy Is Fraying by rohan_shah on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @09:57AM (#21060185)
Exactly. The science and art of economics is also a technique with only probability based outcomes. If the underlying assumptions change, then things will slowdown / grow in unexpected ways.