If the analysis in the public discourse doesn't capture what matters, that's a problem, and that some more obscure report contains useful information is only a minor mitigation. If anything I'd say highlighting that obscure report is a perfect example of nerds using their abilities to contribute to the public discourse.
Economists get things wrong all the time. It’s not about others not possibly have thought of it already, it’s about the fact that policy and politics is still driven by other measures that are inaccurate.
Just because economists get things wrong, does not imply that therefore they can be, and need to be, corrected by computer programmers with superficial understandings of the field. You can both be wrong.
This is like arguing that politicians don't need to be corrected by non-politicians, or that people with no understand of programming can't criticize the tech industry.
No one is arguing that being a computer programmer gives a person unique insights here.
False equivalence. Politicians aren’t scientists, and people do criticize programmers all the time. I got at least 3 complaints at work today about bugs in our software.
Saying that economists are scientists and therefore above reproach from non-economists ignores the way that ideology and research become intertwined whenever public policy is involved.
Saying "trust the science" at all times, even when the scientists in question are neoliberal technocrats is how you end up with the populist backlash against "trusting the science" that America is presently going through.
Obviously people criticize can and should criticize programmers, that's the point.
