> It's more usual to accept a weaker claim: that markets are the most efficient approximation to the perfect algorithm for price discovery
This claim is just as problematic. You may view it as weaker, but algorithmicly speaking it's the same nonsense. Algorithms in similar complexity classes are usually translatable to each other, which is to say they can be framed in terms of each other. You appear to be claiming that markets are the most efficient variant of an algorithmic class. Which is, again, nonsense. It might have some very nice qualities compared to other algorithms within it's class, but to claim it's the most efficient is, again, problematic.
A claim like that would require proof, not just the absence of contradicting evidence.
> Insisting that no better approach is possible is a strong claim; you'll find it in the wild
Ok, but I do believe the poster I was originally disagreeing with is arguing that:
> the market is an emergent behavior. It’s governed by laws beyond our control as surely as the behavior of materials are governed by thermodynamics.
> If the behavior of your markets fails to match the reality of the market, the best you can hope for is to only introduce a small amount of inefficiency. Of course, utopians who ignore the real nature of the market usually find themselves lethally encumbered by deadweight loss
This appears to be a strong claim that nothing can be more efficient than "the market" without introducing inefficiency or "lethal[.]" dead-weight loss.
> markets are what we have, and they're what we should use, with the burden of proof firmly on the inventor of anything new to demonstrate that it has greater efficiency.
This is a fallacious argument against my point.
To begin with, a new algorithm in the same class as markets is likely to have the same or similar efficiency. And it will be the other properties of it that are more interesting.
But the real issue is that the double standard people argue with the efficient market hypothesis (and especially the economic calculation problem) is problematic because it misunderstands computation. You simultaneously claim (in this post) to have the best approximation due to a lack of contradicting evidence, but then also want alternatives to provide proof of beating that physically impossible standard.
My main response though is: just because markets are the best thing we have does not mean we should accept absurd claims about them. Just because solar energy is effectively unlimited, does not make it a perpetual motion machine.