this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
102 points (93.2% liked)

World News

39023 readers
2328 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Alt title: 3 Old White Men Discover Colonialsm Bad

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Quick reminder that the "Nobel prize in economics" is not actually a Nobel Prize.

(I didn't know this for a very long time, so this may be news to some people reading this.)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

The prize wasn’t included in Alfred Nobel’s will and the funding for it doesn’t come from Nobel’s estate (it’s funded by the central bank of Sweden). However, the prize is administered by the Nobel Foundation and announced on their website.

The official name of the prize is THE SVERIGES RIKSBANK PRIZE IN ECONOMIC SCIENCES IN MEMORY OF ALFRED NOBEL which makes the distinction a bit more clear.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

That is interesting to know but I feel that Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is a bit long and the distinction is not really that meaningful.

Either the research is good or it isn't.
People keep attacking the price simply because it was not sponsored by Nobel himself as if only that direct connection to him transferred some sense of divine truthfulness to the other Nobel prizes that this one lacks.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (4 children)

. . . I used to teach this to high school sophomores in World History. To whom is this news?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Economists = a giant cocaine fueled circle jerk.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

...consisting of guys born to a fantastic level of wealth who all have to pretend inequality doesn't exist in any capacity what so ever in order to make any of their theories work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

How is the culture minister the "same people" as the Royal Academy of Sciences?

Did you also teach your students about ethnic prejudice?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sorry about that, I mistook you for someone else. The Royal Academy of Sciences doesn't administer the Nobel Prize for Economics, which isn't one of the five official Nobel Prizes and thus overseen by a complex mix of the Swedish government--including the Academy of Sciences--and the Sveringes Riksbank.

Oh boy, ethnic prejudice: my own academic researched focused on borders and migration in colonial and post-colonial states and I taught US and World History on both the high school and college level. Race, racism, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and colonialism/post-colonialism pervade all of those subjects and were constants throughout my curriculum.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

The economics prize is funded by Sveringes Riksbank but they are not involved in selecting a winner. Neither is the government. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is solely responsible for selecting the winner, and it is not part of government.

Here's the thing about economics: the "dismal science" is often trying to prove - or disprove - what appears to be common sense.

For instance, to some it's common sense that minimum wage increases cause more unemployment. To others, it's common sense that they don't. Eventually economists will reach a consensus, and it will be "not news" to half the population.

Since you've done research in this field, you must be aware that Acemoglu and Robinson have been publishing on this topic for ~20 years. Is there some earlier economist who was not properly given credit for their results?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (6 children)

My dude, generations historians, economists, and social critics from India and across sub-Saharan Africa have discussed these issues at length. There are libraries full of diverse works on the subject. The erasure of all that is on-brand for the Nobel Prize in Economics (which even Hayek said shouldn't exist in his own acceptance speech) and frankly on-brand for the Western academy as a whole.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

South America also has a huge body of work on this.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As a quick semi-aside: 20 years isn't that long in academic research, and it's especially not that long when we're talking about colonialism/post-colonialism. It's a tremendous amount of time in the hard sciences I'm told but it's a mistake to apply that lens here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's kind of my point. They didn't come up with their ideas yesterday, so you shouldn't expect the results to appear groundbreaking today.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Ah, gotcha. We're talking at cross-purposes a bit I think.

Thank you for being civil through this; I genuinely appreciate that and it's nice to meet someone else who cares about these issues.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The Swedish government and the Swedish academy are notoriously myopic/tone deaf when it comes to these issues.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

*The Nobel Prize Committee

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The Nobel Prize is awarded after a lifetime of work, not the latest news.

The 2022 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for describing the violation of Bell inequalities. The initial experiments were performed in the 80s and the results are "not news" to many current high school physics teachers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (13 children)

That is not true for the Nobel Prize in Economics, which is not one of the five official Nobel Prizes.

load more comments (13 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's kind of nice to see formal studies on it though - it might help with aide advocacy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I'd like that to be true but the reality is the folks in charge will self-congratulate for a moment and then move on to the next "raising awareness" du jour.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

First of all, I assume it was news to them when they got it and now it's news to the rest of us.

Secondly, I'm guessing what you taught did not include the research and the mathematics necessary in order for them to get the hard evidence to prove the thing you taught to high school sophomores.

I'm picturing a math or a science teacher saying something like this and it makes me laugh.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Well no, but what I taught to high school sophomore is--believe it or not--based on the research that academics and specialists have been doing for generations. The same is true for high school science and math teachers, by the way.

Thankfully your attempt to look sophisticated allows me to reiterate my point: this has been heavily researched, documented, and explored for several generations now. It's only news to people who have had the privilege of ignoring colonialism; many of them are in positions of authority or prestige. I'd recommend taking a look at the work of Franz Fanon or Aimee Cesaire to get a sense of how far back this line of thinking and research goes. Read that and I'll pass you some more global academic research on the topic.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Has anybody actually looked at the paper instead of reacting to The Guardian's reaction?

Because as bad as the Nobel Prize Committee is at their job, that doesn't look like something you would find in one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Thank you.

That was my point to the person above criticizing this.

I don't have the skills to review their work so I'm not going to say it's undeserved. And so far, I don't think anyone else commenting does either.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

What hysterical was that I was listening to the BBC World Service hourly cast (5 minute summary) and they mentioned everything BUT the colonialism aspect.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Good job whitewashing the ethnic Armenian, OP.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I think that comment was aimed more at the Nobel Prize in Economics committee--administered and funded by Sweden's Riksbank--but your point does stand.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I guarantee you it didn't even occur to them. (Which is also bad.)

load more comments
view more: next ›