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>When you say 'textbook definition' you are implying canonical usage, not there exists a textbook that I use that defines this.

I know. It seemed like the textbook definition because all the textbooks (and the economics related writing) I had read, as far as I could recollect, used it that way.

>European approaches to economic education differ quite a bit from American ones.

I don't doubt it. In Norway the education/social science establishment (who are pretty socialist) make sure you notice everything that may discredit arguments for laissez faire. Allegedly unrealistic assumptions about rationality and information are gleefully (and sometimes unfairly) ridiculed.

As for your other points it now seems like there is little factual disagreement. Discussing different definitions and interpretations of earlier comments further is probably a waste of our time.

"Innovation is hardly considered in economics at all."

Well, you're wrong.* It should, however, be noted that the dominance of this kind of economics may be new to the mainstream. I have only been reading economics textbooks for the last three years.

"Networks and interconnectedness are not considered at all in 'textbook' economic definitions."

Of course they are, for example in every study ever written on globalization, the structure of corporations, corporate governance or insider trading. Or is there some special definition of the terms you're using?

"When agents already have perfect information, why do you need to meet others?"

None of the textbooks in economics (HS and undergraduate courses) or economists I have read assume this to be true, or even a useful approximation for most markets.

"I'd love to see a textbook definition of innovation that comes close to what you have asserted here."

Innovation is used in my textbook as it is in the description of the innovation economics theory. (I don't have it with me now.)

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation_economics

Changes in institutions/networks/interconnectedness etc. as described in the Beinhocker book is innovation according to the economic textbook definition. I have read the summary of his books and he does not seem to contradict the essay. I'd be interested to see an explanation of how you think he does (assuming you do).

The marginal value of more use of antibiotics is not necessarily constant, if a certain antibiotic can be used a certain number of times before it is ineffective, those "turns" can be used more or less effectively (I propose). These turns put together make up a commons, how do you avoid the tragedy of it?

"That's the official line, anyway. The whole issue of who is a citizen, and who has merely been there for years is part of it."

It's not a difficult issue at all, you're a citizen if the law says so. No one promised guest workers citizenship and I doubt they expected it. Only westerners subscribe to the novel idea that anyone they let into their countries are also owed a part of it (citizenship, welfare etc.).

"the Saudis gave them what looked like a marginally better option."

There are five million guest workers, a lack of horror stories would be surprising. I'm not convinced coercion to stay is widespread before I see some statistics, if coercion to stay is not widespread then I trust that most of the five million guest workers know what is best for them.

Yes, you're not really arguing against me here (I'm only claiming that the monetary value of some externalities are hard to measure.) For example, the problem of overuse of antibiotics leading to an increase in resistant bacterias, how do you solve that one? Even if the judges found a way to make the parties pay for the harm they do to others. How do you measure the harm of an increase in resistant bacteria that leads to a shorter average lifespan the cause of wich also, on average, makes it possible to work more hours (and thus raises lifetime income and consumption)?

I'm sure they want their cut but I think some of the reason for this might be more pathetic:

"“It’s unfortunate because they are a major player in this area, and we are going to continue to have a long, in-depth conversation,” on these topics, said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)"

My first thought was that this is a man whose biggest fear is irrelevancy. Wich fits well with my assumption that politics is full of narcissists.

I'm not at all hostile objectivism, however, you need to realize (I'm sure you do, but some people will assume you don't) that the foundation of capitalism, private property, is a state enforced right. All schemes to have private property enforced by non state actors in a modern society are, at best, only plausible (but untried). A total separation of state and commercial activity is thus not possible. Furthermore some commercial activities have negative externalities; some of these are hard to measure in monetary terms; wich, in turn, makes a value judgement from the ultimate arbiter (the state) necessary; etc. This shows the difficulty of separating the state and economy even to the degree church and state are separated today. (I said degree for a reason; right to worship is also meaningless without (state) enforcement, without wich some radical muslim would surely sometimes enforce sharia laws on some unlucky apostates from their religion)

How is the lack of resource curse working out in Yemen and Egypt? (nations fortunate enough to be without oil) They are doing even worse. Arab nations with oil do better than arab nations without oil. I'm only arguing against the notion that large mineral resources will always be a catastrophe. Yemen and egypt has about a tenth of Saudi Arabias gdp pr. capita. Saudi arabia, the emirates and kuwait all have welfare states for their citizens who are better off (materially) than egyptians or yemenites. Those (really) poor and oppressed people are guest workers. They were desperately poor before they went to Saudia Arabia, the Saudis merely gave them a marginally better option.

It would be interesting to see an estimate of how many lives the disappearance of men like him from africa cost. And have you, by the way, been reading mencius moldbug? (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-cr...)

the arabs do well, africans don't, who knows what will happen to the afghans?

He's not talking about an invasion but of infiltration by saboteurs and spys..

If china was to big to stop, so was surely the soviet union. The soviet union had independence from the US, political elites in control who wanted to succeed and the opportunity to try out several "versions" of socialism. If socialism works, why did it not work for them? Where they too stupid or unorganized to copy the successful vietnamese or latin americans? I think not. (A general rule of politics and history: If the germans can't pull off a system of goverment/production, it can't be done.) Chavez is on an oil driven spending spree, it won't end well[1].

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

"Likewise, wealthy nations also have vested interests in certain poor nations staying that way."

No, they don't. Heard of China? Growth in China? That shit makes capitalists giddy. And when the guys at Goldman Sachs are happy, your political elite smiles too. Would they like 800 million africans to become another china? Yes, they would. Industrialization of a nation does not make it's raw materials more expensive. Africa's cheap labour is of little use to the west (or china) (extraction of raw materials is not labour intensive, africas commercial agriculture is underdeveloped). Growth in africa would not hurt the evil imperialists.

Considering the catastrophe* de-colonization in africa has been the smugness of those who dismiss all ideas carrying the faintest whiff of colonialism is nauseating.

*Africa is the only continent on earth were falling levels of gdp per capita has been the norm in several countries. THis picture becomes bleaker if you consider the fact that the increase in gdp per capita is from resource extraction that brings little benefits to the people. De-colonization was a disaster on the scale of maos great leap forward.

An ice bath is one of the recommendations Tim Ferris gives in this* post.

A summary:

1. Consume 150-250 calories of low-glycemic index foods in small quantities (low glycemic load) prior to bed.

2. Use ice baths to provoke sleep.

3. Eating your meals at set times can be as important as sleeping on a schedule.

4. Embrace 20-minute caffeine naps and ultradian multiples.

5. Turn off preoccupation with afternoon closure and present-state training.

He says he has problems falling asleep too so what works for him may work for you.

*http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/01/27/relax-like-a...

They are neither modern nor recent, you are completely wrong about this. And when people abolish capital markets people have a tendency to starve, see the russian revolution, maos great leap forward and the de-colonization of the third world. Today the us is at a level of prosperity that would make sure people didn't starve if financial markets disappeared, it got that rich trough a process of economic growth for wich financial markets were essential.

Finance is about as old as civilization,* the Babylonians did it. To take an amount of money from someone who does not, at the moment, need it and loaning it to whoever can pay the most for the privilegie (often another middleman in the huge network that is a modern financial market) is a type of work that is essential to our system of production. Without people doing this kind of work this page would not have existed (if memory serves me right viaweb, PGs company, got venture capital). The arrogance with wich people diss finance (and the amount of upvotes these kinds of comments get) show why learning finance 101 really should be part of a good undergraduate curriculum.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money

edit: yes, some financial markets are indeed parasitic, this is often because someone got the public to guarantee for something. This has more to do with the political economy than financial markets per se.

"however, we've all got different preferences when it comes to physical attractiveness"

"this policy is a bunch of discriminatory, attractiveness-norm-reinforcing"

"why are they falling prey to the same arbitrary attractiveness standards as your local meat market-y douchebar?"

This is what reading too much sociology will do to you. I just spent a year with it as a major, it won't happen again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_attraction

"How much should physical attractiveness play a role in relationships?"

It matters as much as nature intended it to. Regardless of what the womyn at Bitchmagazine think about it.

Reading someone's prose because they are "such good storytellers" is a bit like introducing your sister to this* guy because he's such a charmer.

*http://mysterypua.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mysterypua....

For those about to read: It's true, Gladwell gets pwned. If you want feel sophisticated while quoting the tipping point this will not help.

I enjoyed the debate between Gladwell and Steven Pinker after Pinker wrote a negative book review.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html...

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/malcolm-gladwe...

It's astonishing that this got downmodded. Marxists did think that banks and investors did nothing (or, at least, that they did whatever they did badly and should be replaced with an elite of planners.) Pseudo-communist rhetoric (as in rhetoric without any real connection or commitment to communism per se) is indeed very popular in a recession.

It is ok to call a piece of text communist if it contains ideas or opinions that are typically communist. That capital markets in general are unnecessary, (very) ineffective at capital allocation (as opposed to the alternatives) and/or immoral is something almost only communists/hardcore socialists believe today. (It was actually once a widely held belief. A belief reflected in the nature of some new deal programs, Mussolini's economic policy or post-colonization economic policy in the third world to mention some examples.)

In a small company (a startup for example) the boss will know who knows who. To make that kind of information available to the CEO in a big company seems pretty harmless.

"Banks and investors make money by doing nothing" this is false. Weeding out bad wanna be founders, for example, is important, difficult and something VCs spend a lot of time doing. If being a VC was so easy they would be paid like janitors.

"Therefore, they don't care if the employees or customers are happy" You are wrong, they do. Customers write the check and employees deliver what they write it for, obviously they have some influence on whetter the check arrives or not (and how big it will be)..

"they only care about maximizing the chance that they get their check tomorrow" They care about maximising profit, this obviously involves planning for the long term. (A company expected to earn more money in ten years will be worth more right now.)

"This article explains a lot of Corporate America." You don't get corporate america. Hacker news is great for technical news but there is a surprising amount of this kind of simple/uninformed anti-market rhetoric.

I find the glimpse into such a surreally horrible society fascinating (and cool) too. You should read this:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offende...

Those who enjoyed this should google "viceland north korea" for a very cool documentary.

nuclear power could deliver far more energy per year than is used yearly now for thousands of years. Innovation makes energy more useful. When the potential for growth these two cause is exhausted there's scifi stuff; solar power from satellites around the sun; fusion; etc.

The question was not meant to be a refutation. It is a reference to the dangers of making the perfect the enemy of the good. Problems such as these does not always require (or have) a solution. The kinds of social engineering that may or may not solve a particular problem often have unpleasant and unexpected results.

I want to read that. Do tell if it comes back to you.