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Comment by jfoutz | Hacker News Reader

It's physicists bias. Economics doesn't make very accurate or precise predictions. I mean, economic systems are complicated, it's not really possible to foresee all of the influences on a system. It's not an attack on economists, it's just how it is.

Physicists, however, expect 5 digits of precision.

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Physicists are just as stumped by complex and chaotic systems as the rest of us.

At least the physicists' models let you land on Mars.

And an accurate, predictable model of economics would pay for the trip.

I don't think interplanetary travel will ever make economic sense. It's for other reasons that we reach for the stars.

Depends on your definition of economic success. If you define it as the ability to distribute resources necessary for survival, and extend that to the species, then interplanetary travel is the only eventuality that makes economic sense.

>It's not an attack on economists, it's just how it is.

If it's not, it should be. Economics are a dismal science, a tiny part math (quite simple at that), and huge parts of hand waving and ideology.

The "not being able to predict shit" is not some accidents, it steps from the whole "hand waviness" of it all.

http://xkcd.com/435/

5 digits accuracy ... that's essentially being entirely wrong :).

(and for various new physics theories I'd argue that 5 digits accuracy is not actually there, and there's the matter of the holes in the theories, like gravity)

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