And that leads to my point, an inconsistency in this particular choice of axioms or with reality was found merely through considering a couple of well known empirical counterexamples.

But a tool which can act quite independently when it is not under close supervision. And let us not forget human children. Here, we have a process very similar to making a tool, conception and giving birth, where the result is a new human, capable of Austrian-style action, not merely a new tool.

A computer trading program is a tool used by humans. Animals "act" in the vernacular sense but the Austrian school's idea of action derives from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... which is the study of *human* action.

I see the failing is more widespread. In the examples I gave, animals are acting in the Austrian School sense of making purposeful decisions. I guess that makes them at least somewhat *human* in the Austrian School sense.

In thinking of economics, while it certainly makes sense to consider the actions of animals as you noted, the only relevance is in guiding the actions of humans. It's irrelevant to consider what honeybees are going to do outside of how that impacts humans and how we must react to them.

Except that once the precepts of the Austrian School are satisfied, then the conclusions inevitably follow, whether it be honey bees living in the wild or human traders on a stock market. It doesn't matter whether or how you choose to ignore this.

Then I guess I better go with that as well. I don't want people considering me any more of an idiot than they already do.

Another possibility is that the "well-reasoned logical argument" wasn't actually well-reasoned. For example, I've seen a perversion of the Austrian School axiom of action in which it is claimed that humans and only humans can act.

That bolded part can be refuted easily by observing non-human actors such as computer trading programs and animals. The latter can make economically relevant decisions without having a human involved anywhere in the process, for example, bees harvesting honey and incidentally pollinating plants or a host of scavengers and predators taking turns on a large carcass.

Thus, empirical observation trumps the perceived "well-reasoned" logical argument. I'm not claiming that this particular argument is representative of all Austrian School adherents, but rather of someone who thought they had a well-reasoned logical framework for which empirically based scrutiny should be useless. It turned out not to be so.

Also, how does one determine the well-reasoned nature of a logical argument? In an abstract sense, via a construction of a mathematically valid certificate, which is traditionally called a "proof" in mathematics. The problem is that construction of such a proof may be computationally very hard while construction of an empirical counterexample can take much less effort.

Nor are these problems considered in a vacuum. All this effort is to explain empirical observation of real world economic systems.

Back at you. I don't see any reason I need to answer that any more than you do. One could also read my post.

But they weren't unprepared for a more or less uncontrolled meltdown. When things fail hard, the planners of a system can still steer how the system fails.

An effect is the result of a cause. So to demonstrate "effect", I have to show an initial phenomenon, such as the cessation of nuclear plant building (while I don't demonstrate in the previous post that it's due to anti-nuclear hysteria, there's plenty of evidence such as propaganda, lawsuits, and restrictive regulations to back that up). Then I have to show a second, subsequent phenomena (here, the continued operation of old nuclear plants). Finally, I have to present an model which explains the connection between the first phenomenon and the following one (my "claim" as you put it).

I did so.

Just like a certain magnitude 9 earthquake was a disaster that the operators of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant weren't prepared for? A big difference is that the nuclear plant was designed to fail in a certain way that would greatly reduce its risk (including a number of safety features such as shutting down near instantly in response to the earthquake and a concrete containment vessel for holding a meltdown), while no similar effort had been done with the dams that failed in the 1975 Chinese disaster.

One doesn't need to be an expert to observe this effect in action. And some of it is painfully, mallet whacking on the head, obvious.

For example, no new nuclear plant has started construction in the US since the late 70s (the little bit of recent construction has all happened at existing nuclear plants).

Then in Japan there's the scuttling of an entire generation of nuclear plants in the decade 1995-2005 which led directly to the pre-earthquake decision (beginning of 2011) to keep the oldest of the Fukushima reactors, reactor 1 operating for another ten years rather than shutting down and decommissioning the reactor at the end of April, 2011.

Lack of options has forced these countries to make unsafe decisions, particularly to extend the lifespan of older less safe reactors.

I wouldn't say "all", just "most". Anohter classic example is the continued operating of older, less safe plants because new ones can't get built.

In Jane Q. Public's defense, you're just an innumerate savage flinging poo. Not only does the non-free cost of power plants not boggle the minds of economists, it doesn't boggle the minds of engineers who routinely calculate these sorts of costs. The field is called "engineering economics". Look it up sometime.

Because social costs happen to be whatever numbers you decide to pull out of your ass that day. But even if we were to somehow find a valid and objective means to calculate such social costs, you would find that hydroelectric wouldn't far that well simply because it kills more people per watt of generated power, causes more environmental damage per watt, and prevents the use of more land for normal human activities per watt of generated power - all of these include the effects of meltdowns.

Because a dollar 20,000 years from now is just as valuable as a dollar today.

No, I don't think this is a serious post. First, we have proof by a research paper where the researcher spends a fair portion of their time inventing terms for imaginary phenomena. Now, we're consulting Seinfeld as if it were scientific observation. That's pretty much the progression one would expect for this topic.

As long as webapps are designed like things are designed, built like things that are built, and operated like things that are operated, you'll have this reciprocal problem of things that are designed, built, and operated like webapps.

No, because we're getting early warning of near inconsequential asteroids. That indicates that we have decent early warning. You do want to know that at least you're detecting this stuff before it hits.