This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. Some people in the Netherlands are spending $330,000 on a hamburger. The people are scientists at the University of Maastricht. They want to prove that they can make a hamburger that tastes good and does not require an animal to be killed. Agriculture Mark Post and his team have been growing muscle tissue cells in a laboratory with muscle taken from a cow. He says, we have committed ourselves to make a couple of thousand of these small tissues and then assemble them into a hamburger. Several teams around the world are trying to produce meat without killing animals. So far the Dutch team appears to have made the most progress. Mr. Post says he wants to show that the world's growing demand for meat could be satisfied more efficiently and with less harm to the environment. He says he is driven by care for the environment and food production for the world and an interest in life-transforming technologies. Seth Tibbet is the founder of Turtle Island Foods in Hood River, Oregon. His company makes a vegetarian turkey substitute called Tofurky. Mr. Tibbet says the idea of a hamburger made in a lab sounds pretty disgusting. Tofurky is made from tofu. Tofu is made with soybeans. The company estimates that about 3% of Americans are vegetarian. Many others are known within the industry as sometimes vegetarians or flexitarians, says Mr. Tibbet. Vegetarians do not necessarily want food that tastes like meat. But he says a lot of other people might try meatless alternatives if those products did look and taste more like real meat. Turtle Island Foods is building a new Tofurky factory that will let the company produce three times as much starting next year. Biochemistry professor Patrick Brown at Stanford University in California has started his own company developing a meat substitute. These food scientists are working with plant proteins and oils to try to reproduce the look and taste of the real thing. But he thinks the only way to really win in the market will be to make it a lot cheaper than real meat. The American beef industry uses the marketing slogan beef, it's what's for dinner. Jack Field is the director of the Washington Cattlemen's Association in Washington State. He says he is not too worried about competition from fake meat. In his words, real beef will be what's for dinner, now and into the future. For VOA Special English, I'm Alex Villareal.


You know, we had our opportunities. We had some open shots that didn't go down. You know, we had our chances. That's all you can ask for on the road. You know, tough team, you know, just didn't close it out. And like some of the looks we got, I liked our defense. They made some tough plays. Blake made that fast break down at the end. It was a heck of a finish. But I thought we did a lot of positive things tonight. Defensively, was it just the Pistons making plays at the end on the down one play drawn up with Levert driving? I draw that the same thing tomorrow and the next day. And the next day after that, it was a fade-keep. He got downhill on Drummond. You know, I do it again, carries to his right hand from the elbow on a switch against their center. We'll take it every day. I guess the question was, was it more just Pistons executing defensively, good play drawn up, just they made a play defensively? Well, listen, they got good players. They're a good defensive team. They were 10th ranked last year. They know how to get stops. They got some good veteran players. But again, I thought the third quarter, you know, that's when we kind of lost it. I thought we turned them all over a bunch. And they got out and ran. And that's kind of where they got their separation. So you got to look at the game. Like, where does that separation come from?  And I thought the third quarter was key. Was it, a lot of that was against the starters. And a lot of that was inside. Were you figuring at that point, it was probably just kind of difficult to have Jared and Ed out on the floor because you needed Ed kind of as Jared's backup? Or was it something? Yeah, we had to alternate those guys. And quite honestly, playing those guys together offensively is tough. You just be, you know, there won't be a lot of space out there.  I thought we had a good strategy in place. You know, I was worried about them shooting 43s tonight. We held them at 24 attempts. I thought our defense was really good. I, you know, the offense, I think our offense has got a ways to go. But, you know, it's a lot of stuff to clean up before the next game. With all the talk of Laverne off-season, how encouraging was it, even though in the loss to see him perform the way he did game one? So, you know, him and I just thought the whole team, we're on the rim all night. Like, you know, we, Joe drove it. He drove it. Spencer obviously was driving it. And those guys, those guys with their speed and our spacing, they should live at the rim. And really, really pleased that we put so much pressure on the rim tonight. I thought Jared was good on the rolls.  So, you know, you leave with some frustration that we had some good looks that didn't go down. But I was, again, pleased with the defensive effort overall. Delo in the fourth, was that a match-up? Or was he nursing something? The other guys were playing great. You know, I thought Spencer was playing great. And Karris sometimes, you know, Karris was playing great. Joe was playing great. And obviously, we need two big guys in there. So, you know, tonight it was him. Another night, it could be Spencer. Another night, it's a good problem to have that we have a lot of good guards. And, you know, Karris and Spencer were having two really good games. When you look at the three-point shooting, throughout the preseason, it was kind of a theme, the poor shooting. How much of that do you think is just a factor of the injuries? You know, you don't have crab. You don't have carol, all right? Can it get better? Are you happy with the looks? No. Obviously, Alan Krebs, you know, top five, you know, three-point shooters in the league. You know, you miss a guy like that. There's no doubt about it.  So you miss those guys. There's no doubt about it. But that being said, you know, I thought we had good looks. And I thought we passed up some threes. Like, I'm not happy with, I don't know, 27 threes. We want to be up near 40, you know, 45. But, you know, give Dependence Credit. Like I said, they were ranked 10th in the league defensively last year. I think they got, you know, they got physicality, they got drumming at the rim. You know, they're a good team defensively. How big was Joe Harris doing the dirty work? I'm sure some was out of necessity given the injuries, but...  Just, he's got great heart. He's after every loose ball. And again, tonight, he's at the rim all the time. He's not just a jump shooter. He knows how to play the game, competes defensively. You know, I thought he played his heart out. Might you get Alan back for the next, or do you have a better idea? You know, I think it's possible. I think it's possible. Again, we'll evaluate it tomorrow and practice and see where he is, but, you know, possible.


My work is focused on fiber access technologies for 25 years, and I've been the rapporteur of question two for over 12 years now. Over that time, I've had the great pleasure to watch passive optical network technologies and systems grow to become a dominant access solution. Especially in the last 15 years, PON systems have achieved great success in the market. The first widely deployed system, G-PON, is found almost everywhere now, and is used by well over 600 million subscribers worldwide. What we're seeing is a gradual evolution from G-PON to XG-PON and XGS-PON, which is now being deployed at scale in many countries. ITU is developing the next generation standard to succeed XG-PON known as High-Speed PON. High-Speed PON is based on a 50 gigabit per second per wavelength technology, and it will have both single channel and multi-channel variants. Work on these standards began in 2018 and expected to be completed in this year, 2021. Of note, 50G will be the first PON that will use digital signal processing or DSP. DSP provides so much advantage that 25G bandwidth optics can be used to produce the 50G system. This improves the cost profile of the system because DSP shifts the difficulty from the optical domain where it's hard to cost reduce to the digital domain where cost reduction is inevitable due to Moore's law. The network operators are active participants in the ITU-T, and this ensures that the new technology will work for them by fitting into their existing network and have the capacity they will need when the time comes. High-Speed PON is no exception to this, has been designed to work with the same fiber plant as GPON and ex-GPON, which has gone before, and High-Speed PON offers a five-fold capacity increase as expected to start deployment in a few years from now. The PON industry has been researching such an evolution step in PON capacity for at least five years. Several generations of prototype have already been developed and the results published in the literature. We know what technology is necessary. We now have reports of a 50G PON prototype that is based on a commercial PON platform and has already been trialed in several operators labs. Market demand is expected to begin in 2024, and the vendors will be ready to meet that demand. There have been alphabets soup of PON generations from A-PON, B-PON, E-PON, G-PON, 10G, E-PON, ex-G-PON, NG-PON2, 25G E-PON, and now 50G PON. Now, a successful technology requires a coincidence of both technical feasibility and strong global market demands. G-PON was really the first system to achieve this. It is also true that not every standardized system becomes successful. For instance, A-PON was just too far ahead of its time, the market wasn't ready for it. Both B-PON and E-PON filled a short-term need, but their market was limited and were quickly overtaken by G-PON. Given the large size and cost of the fixed access network, upgrades generally come once per decade, and the ITO has done a good job of trying to keep up with this evolution, working to match our standards projects to fit this pattern of rollout. We strongly believe that 50G PON will provide the right capacity at the right price and at the right time.


Are you excited about the future of programming in this DNA? Yeah, well, I mean, the whole chat GPT and the large language model movement, I'm a person who, where his glass is half full, because it's also very frightening. So it's, there's a dual feeling. So it's a bit like the invention of the car. All of a sudden, all the people who were driving horses, they were replaced by cars. You need to find a new profession or a different angle to use it. So, so it's a mixed emotion.  So if you just have internet connection, you now have a personalized teacher next to you if you have a computer. That's like universal training or universal education for everybody. We can still decide as a society where it's going to. We should also focus on all the positive things we can do with this. I think as a senior developer or an expert lord, you become even more productive. That's definitely what I've learned over the last 10 months here.


All the way from the north sector of our camp to the south sector we had combining clearing operations between us the other companies in the the other platoons in the company and as well as the Georgians we all went through and cleared all the buildings. We were definitely a short man. We had one fire team of four people and two fire teams of three people and as we were pushing through we hit IED so we lost one man in the fire team. All the obstacles we face were just gear load out. You know a lot of guys carrying a lot of gear so it was it was pretty heavy. IED, amputee right leg from the knee down. All right can you hear me? You good Ones? Roger turn the kid in the squad. Well on that it really ran pretty smooth. IED has been good so far I think we've gotten the Georgians some good training. We had the three lanes running earlier which were urban patrolling, IED detection, IED indicators and then we had a coordinate search plane going so that was definitely some good training.


Good morning. Before we begin, will someone open us in prayer, please? They can say you're unmuted, but I can't hear anything. Okay, okay, sure. Okay, I need you to just open us in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time. Thank you, Lord, that you know our God, who seeks to reveal yourself to us. We pray that as we gather today, Lord, that you would be the one teaching us, you would be the one empowering me to speak and that you would be the one empowering us to receive, Lord, what you have for us today. We pray your presence, your power in this time together. In Jesus' name, we pray. I posted our assignments, two final assignments on Google Classroom. Have you all had a chance to look at that? Not yet. Okay, I'll just quickly go over it because one of your assignments is due this Saturday. So we have a personal reflection paper. You're all able to hear me, okay? Yes. Okay, so I posted two assignments on Google Classroom. There's a personal reflection paper, which is due this Saturday. I can see some people have handed it in. That's great. So this paper, I just asked you to look at your presentation on the revivalist. And I want to know what was your personal takeaway from that presentation? What did you learn as you studied that revivalist's life and how they were used by God? What was your personal learning and what are some things you can apply to your own life? I've asked a few questions just to help you know what you can include in your paper. So what impacted you from their life? What did the Holy Spirit highlight to you something that you felt is a personal takeaway for you? Why did it impact you? What is some specific new revelation you received? How does it apply to your life at present? And what steps are you going to take to apply what you've learned? So what are you going to do like some practical things that you're going to do based on what you've learned through that time of study? And the things I'm looking at is I want whatever you're writing to be original. So I don't want something just copied from an online source and pasted here. I am looking for, so this is a written paper. So grammar and your writing should be, you know, just looked at. So you can write whatever you've written. You can ask someone to look at it and correct any errors you've made, get feedback and make corrections. So the grammar is also important and correct writing. Submission on time, answering the question asked. So that you've asked answered it thoroughly. And then I've given you a word limit of 250 to 300 words. So it's a short paper. But it's an important paper because it's not meant to be purely an academic thing, whatever we're doing here, but we want to see it impacting us personally. And so that's why this paper is important. Now, if you have not done a presentation on a revivalist, then yeah. So you can pick a revivalist and do a study and you can share about that. But since you've not done a presentation, you won't be getting any marks for that one assignment. So but for this one, you can just pick any revivalist and do some study and then share your learning based on your study. So share in your paper, you can mention which revivalist you've looked at. And then your final paper. This is not a very complicated paper. So I've asked you to look at chapter eight textbook, which is the pursuit of revival, the cry for the visitation and move of God. And I've asked you to summarize what that chapter talks about. So you can just take the main points and provide a summary. Just mention all the main points that are there in the chapter and compare those points to another revival that is mentioned in chapter five. So chapter five is what they're starting with today and chapter five looks a little more in detail at just a few revivals. So you can look at what chapter eight is talking about chapter eight talks about what all happens in a revival. Compare that with one of these revival stories from chapter five. Or if you want to still stick to the revivalist that you presented, you can use that and compare it with what chapter eight talks about. So here again, check your grammar, check your spellings, all of those things and then submission on time and answering the question thoroughly and accurately. So those are two assignments and then we have one quiz which I will post probably the last two weeks of the semester. So that quiz, I'll give you all about two weeks to submit. This final paper is due on 11th November. So I think it's about you have, yeah, close to three weeks to work on the final paper. Does that sound okay? Any questions? Okay. Okay, sure. Let's go. Thank you. We will go into chapter five. Yes, the reflection paper is due on Saturday, this Saturday. That's the 28th of October. It's due, I think, sometime midday. So if you can submit it by the morning just to make sure you turned it in on time. That'll be good. Thank you. I'll just share my screen. October 28th, so that's this Saturday. The reflection papers due this Saturday. Okay, so we'll go into chapter five. We're just going to be looking in a little more detail at some of these, some of the revivals that we already covered when we were going through that whole timeline of church history. So the first revival we look at is the Moravian revival, which we actually, we did go into some detail when we were looking at it before, but we'll go over it and see some of the key points from that revival. So there was persecution in a place called Moravia, where a lot of Christians were present. And so to escape this persecution, they moved to Germany and they were taken in by Count Zindof. So he was the son of devout pietists who are people who kind of went against the mainstream church of that day in Germany. Because the pietists emphasized a personal faith and a personal walk with God, whereas mainstream church was much more just organized religion. So Zindof was the son of a couple who were devout pietists. And he took in this group of refugees and gave them a place to stay when they moved from Moravia to Germany. And this is how the Hearnhardt community was established. Now the Hearnhardt community was made up of 300 refugees and they had come from different places. So there was a lot of infighting within the group because they all were different culturally and all of that. So in May 1727, Count Zindof had a meeting and he talked to them about having Christian unity and shared about Christianity. There being no Christianity without community. And during this time they came as a community to repentance, to repent of all the fighting that had been happening between them. And then to be restored to one another in unity. After this, in August 1727, they were meeting with another church for a time of prayer. And they were with the Bertelsdorf parish church and they met with them and during this time of prayer, they were praying for greater unity. They were praying for themselves as a church, for their witness as a church. And during that time the Holy Spirit came in power and they just felt the presence of God in their midst in a powerful way. Count Zindof talked about it as if he said it was like they were in heaven at that time. So after this experience of the Holy Spirit's presence in their midst, this was the same group of people we talked about. They started a rotational time of prayer. So they were praying 24 hours a day in groups of two to three. There were 24 men, 24 women and so they would gather in groups of two or three. And each group would spend an hour in prayer each day. And they started this and continued for over 100 years. So this prayer really impacted the church powerfully. From here there were missionaries that were birthed and sent out. And like we see here, all the number of missionaries that were sent out was more than all the Protestant churches had sent out for the last 200 years. So this small group of people sent out more missionaries than all the Protestant churches in 200 years. This is a map of all the places to which they went, their missionaries were sent. So they had 70 missionaries that were sent from a group of less than 600 people. And it led to the beginning of the Protestant world mission movement. And through this Moravian church, there were many other movements that were impacted. So William Carey who came to India was impacted by the Moravian church. George Whitefield who was part of the first great awakening. John Wesley who was found of the Methodist church. All of them were influenced by the Moravian revival. And a lot of the prayer movements that started in the 18th century in America and in England were influenced by this church, by this prayer movement in the Moravian church. So some things for us to take away from this revival. All in all, there were about 226 missionaries that they sent in just 35 years. They had sent so many missionaries. And some things that we can learn from this revival is the importance of unity. So we see before the Holy Spirit came to them in that meeting, they had already dealt with division in the church. And so they come to a place of unity. They were also meeting with another church during this time of prayer. And so unity is a very important base before we see revival beginning in a community. The second is responding to the spirit. So when the Holy Spirit came and moved in their midst, they responded by starting this ongoing prayer movement. They didn't just receive that presence and enjoy it and then continue their meetings as usual. They chose to do something about it and that sparked further moves of the Holy Spirit and enabled them to take what God was doing there to other places, to other countries. And then prayer as a very important foundation for the work that was done. So it was prayer that fueled the revival and the world missions. That prayer didn't happen just at that point but continued for 100 years and continued to raise men and women who would go out to other parts of the world. I'm just going to pause this. I have something bought in my throat. Excuse me. Okay, so from there we are going to the next revival, which is the second great awakening of 1800. Now this happened in North America and at this point there was a big drop in attendance in church in all of the different denominations that were present at the time. And even in college campuses, even though those college campuses, Christian campuses, there were no believers on campus. So this is an example. Harvard didn't have any believers among their students. Princeton had only two believers in the entire student body. So that was the state of Christianity. The country had been so... Christianity was the foundation of the people who had gone to the United States. But they'd slowly forgotten their faith and they had just kind of had become something that was not of great consequence. And at that time was also a growth in atheism. There was a growth in importance given to thinking versus faith. So everything should be proved by logic or by science. And so more and more people were starting to leave the church and were coming to this place of disbelief in God completely. So that was the state of the church. And at this time, a Baptist pastor named Isaac Bacchus began to recognize that there was a need for revival. And he himself started to pray for revival and to send out to other pastors from other denominations just an invitation to pray for the churches in America. And so they started to meet together and they set aside the first Monday of every month they would meet together and they would pray. Soon after that Christians across the country started to form these prayer groups and they would meet together and pray. One day a month they would pray together and then every Saturday morning as well they would meet for prayer for half an hour. And so it was during this time of prayer that they started to experience revival. It started in Kentucky in a county called Logan County and then spread to various other parts of the US as well. So this is where one of the revival spots the Red River Meeting House where they started to experience God moving in power. There was a Presbyterian pastor and he was pastoring three small congregations in Logan County and he started to lead his congregation in prayers for revival. Every Saturday and Sunday morning they would pray and then on the third Saturday of every month they would fast and pray for God to move. The congregations were very small. The largest congregation had just about 25 people. So it was small gatherings but they were continuing to meet and seek God and asking God to move in their midst. So for four years they continued doing this and there was no change that happened. But in June 1800 as you were having a four day meeting at this Red River Church, the Holy Spirit began to move in their midst. Many of them began to cry. Many of them broke down, collapsed, weeping and many of them just felt deep conviction of their sin. Assurance that God had forgiven them and so just a lot of people coming to salvation as Holy Spirit was moving in their midst. At the same time in one of the other congregations that the pastor was leading, they started to experience God moving in their midst as well. And people started to come from all over the place like we see in so many of these survivors. People start coming from around that location to experience what God is doing in their midst. And there were powerful manifestations we'll read about different ways in which they saw the Holy Spirit moving in their midst. And there were such large groups of people attending that they had to start setting up camps for people to move. So if we see in this picture here on the left there are tents where the people were staying so that they could stay there for days and they could just come out on the camp grounds and listen to the preachers speak. So there were large, large groups and meeting for several days in the outdoors because they were just wanting to see what God was doing. At the same time in another part of the same state, Kentucky, is where God started to move in Cain Bridge, Kentucky. So there was a pastor Barton Stone and he was the pastor of Concord and Cain Bridge Presbyterian churches in Kentucky. He attended some of the revival meetings in this Red River church and then he took that back to his congregations and started meetings in Cain Bridge in August 1801. So people soon started gathering and there were 25,000 people who had gathered to see what God was doing at these camp meetings that he conducted. There were signs, wonders, manifestations. So people would be slain in the spirit. There would be loud laughter, people running and shouting, some even barking like dogs, holding onto trees, repenting of their sins. So it was things that were very unexpected, not things that the pastors were expecting, not ways in which they were expecting the Holy Spirit to move. But even through that they were able to see that people were coming to repentance, people were being impacted, their lives were being changed and so they knew that it was a move of the Holy Spirit. So just in three years in that time there were 10,000 people added to the Baptist church, 40,000 people added to the Methodist church in just three years and even other denominations grew in large numbers during this time. So in this second picture here on the left you see many groups because there were so many people, 25,000 people gathered and there were actually pastors from many different denominations who had come together in these meetings. So what we did was they formed little groups of preachers and so the crowds would gather in different groups and in those different groups there would be a different preacher preaching. So there were many sermons happening simultaneously on the grounds because there was no way to preach to such a large crowd at one time. And so we can see all of the different groups and preachers there with those groups. Also on college campuses many students started to come to Christ so like we were talking about atheism was growing and this focus on using your mind. And so there was less people willing to come to faith. So Jonathan Edwards grandson was actually a president at Yale University and he had been preaching for seven years in the college campus on Christian faith. But until that time it had had no effect on the students. In 1801 he preached on infidelity and during that time about half of the body came to Christ, half that student body came to Christ. And similarly in other college campuses as well revival started to spread and so there was a great increase in believers on campus which was also a powerful move of God. So we see here a few things again we see prayer as an important part of the revival. We see that it was prayer that led to the revival right. So people gathering to pray as a church gathering to pray fasting and praying and asking for the Lord to move. And it was a consistent prayer so taking even up to four years of the meeting and praying and asking God. There were unusual manifestations so that was there was controversy about is this really God moving but because they could see life's changed and repentance they knew that it really was of God. And then a transformation of communities so Logan County there were many criminals but there was a transformation in that community and transformation on college campuses. That was another effect of the revival. Okay, so from there we move into the layman's prayer revival. So the layman's prayer revival also we looked at before as it started in New York in 1857. It is one of the biggest and most widespread revival in American history and came at a time when there was also economic challenges that were happening in in North America. So businesses were collapsing people in New York alone there were about 30,000 people who are unemployed banking system in different parts of the US had collapsed. And so that had affected a lot of people. At the same time there were preachers that God was raising up Charles Finney, Walter and Phoebe Palmer who started to preach and there was a deep hunger within people's hearts to see revival. At this time in 1840, there's a church named Park Street Church in Boston. That's where they started to pray for revival. And many churches and individuals across New York and Boston started to pray. One specific individual is Jeremiah Lanphere, and he had just been sent to New York as a city missionary. And he came up with this plan to start or start prayer meetings at noon. So noon was when people would take a break from their work and they have their lunch and they dressed. And so he thought during that time he would start a prayer meeting and maybe people would attend it and so he distributed some pamphlets and held the first meeting at a Dutch reform church and only six people attended that first meeting. But the second week there were 20 people, the third week there were 40 people and by the fourth week there were 100 people attending those meetings. So there were up to 3,000 people coming for those prayers and then it continued to grow further and further 10,000 people attending meetings out of 800,000 people in the city, 10,000 people who were attending those daily meetings for prayer. And then because those meetings were happening, it got published in the newspaper and that spread it to across America. So just from New York with people meeting, so many people meeting in prayer, it started to spread to other parts of the US as they heard about it through the newspaper. So it's estimated that in that time just because of these gatherings of prayer, one million people were converted and another one million church members were revived in just two years. And by 1858, there were 50,000 conversions per week of people coming to Christ without any preaching or any pastors reading anything. It was just these prayer meetings with lay people. It was not being led by any pastor, it was just regular people who were part of the church who were gathering and meeting and praying and through that so many people being converted. So some reflection on this, so this is yeah, Jeremiah Lanfeer who started those meetings and this is just what the prayer meetings would look like. So some things we can take away from this is again prayer that went on for many years before revival and that that move of God's spirit happened. There was a small spark that lit the fire and that spark was just the idea of starting on Monday prayer. So just a simple idea that God used powerfully to make such a huge impact across the nation. It was just lay people who God used. There was no pastor, no preacher, no important or well-known person that did this. But it was just these common people because of their faithfulness to meet every day for prayer to sacrifice that time of eating and rest to actually meet for prayer. God used that powerfully. Newspapers, so newspapers being used as a way to share the news with others and then other people across the United States started doing these prayer meetings where they were. So how God used media in this revival and then global impact. So we see that what God started here in New York, spread to North America and then spread to the United States and then from the United States around the world where a season of revival broke out in other parts of the world. From this, from this revival. We'll move into the Welsh Revival. I don't have that on the presentation. So I'll just stop sharing screen. So the Welsh Revival happened in 1904 and Evan Roberts was a key person in the Welsh Revival. So Wales was not again in a very bad spiritual state at this time and Christianity was not having a great influence on the community. There were many churches that were empty. People were not attending churches, were not attending church at all. But around 1897 is when prayer within Wales started to increase and from 1902 prayer intensified within the church and there were more prayer meetings happening and in 1904 is when the revival broke out. So how is it that all of this started that the prayer that there was this desire to pray and people started to see revival? Sorry.


And now it gives me a great pleasure to introduce our Mises Memorial Lecturer, Renaud Fillieu. Renaud is Professor of Sociology at the University of Lille in France. He first studied the natural sciences and received an engineering degree from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon. He then went on to study philosophy, sociology, and economics, and received graduate degrees in those fields, and then a PhD in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris. He has done extensive research and very, very good research, and actually cutting-edge research, and teaching in Austrian economics, and has recently published a book in French that introduces the main techniques of the school to the French audiences. Currently, he's working on Austrian macroeconomics as well as price theory and epistemology, a true Renaissance man, Renaud. So it's difficult for me to express with words how honored I am to have the opportunity to give this 2012 Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture. So I wish to thank Professor Joe Salerno, of course, for the invitation, all the staff here at the Mises Institute, for the flawless organization, and Professor Guido Hürsmann for his support. von Mises, von Mises is the economist I most admire, as is probably also the case for many people in this room. And he fully deserves our admiration. As an outstanding scientist, a great epistemologist, and a leading fighter for liberty. And in this lecture, I want to pay tribute to the depth and relevance of his conception of theoretical social science as praxeology. Misesian praxeology rests upon two main pillars, first, the concept of action, and second, the a prioristic character of the theories of human action. But when he developed these insights, von Mises had mainly economic science in mind, and that's perfectly understandable. Now, I would like to illustrate his principles of action and of a priorism with the help of another branch of social science, namely the sociology of delinquency. And this survey will offer an unusual, but also, I hope, an instructive perspective on the foundation of social sciences as elaborated by von Mises. The title of von Mises' greatest treatise, Human Action, clearly indicates the foremost importance that he attached to the concept of action. And his whole theoretical and epistemological edifice is built upon this key concept. There are also many pages to his presentation. His starting point is the definition of action as a conscious or purposeful behavior, and he then deduces the main components implied in this concept. So I will review them very briefly. Beginning by ends and means, the two most basic elements of a theory of action. Causality, the relationship between ends and means implies the category of causality. The means, at the very least, are causes and the ends are effects. Rationality, an action is necessarily rational in the sense that it's always adapted to the end pursued on account of the personal knowledge of the actor. But the choice between ends, on the other hand, is a value judgment that specifically belongs to the acting person and is neither rational nor irrational. Scale of values. So the ends envisioned by an actor can be crudely materialistic or highly refined, but whatever their concrete content, their value or importance for the acting person is purely subjective and they are ranked along a scale that is ordinal, no measure or calculation of subjective values as possible. Then we have imputation. The means of an action only play an instrumental role in bringing about a chosen end. The value is derivative, it's imputed or ascribed to them from the value of end. Profit, psychic profit or loss. An action, if successful, will bring a subjective or psychic profit, a non-measurable but positive difference between the value of the end reached and the value of the end foregone. And if the action is unsuccessful, there's a psychic loss. Then we have time. An action necessarily takes place in time. Its aim is always set in the future since the present cannot be changed. Uncertainty. Action also implies change and uncertainty. If the future was certain, no action could possibly change it. There would be no role for acting. Now, in the 1920s and 1930s, Von Mises was very busy laying down the foundations for theory and epistemology of action. But during these same decades, sociologists and criminologists were developing theories in which the core concept was not action but rather culture. Modern criminology or sociology of delinquency appeared in the 1920s with the classic treatise by Edwin Sutherland, who is considered at the most influential criminologist of the 20th century. Born in 1883 was two years younger than Von Mises, so they both belong to the same generation. And Sutherland developed a famous cultural theory according to which criminal behavior is explained by the antisocial or pro-delinquency value system held by the criminal. More specifically, his theory rests upon two main principles. First, a learning principle, very simple. Delinquency or criminality is learned. This learning is a socialization process that takes place in small and intimate groups where members mainly learn two things, criminal techniques and pro-delinquency values. This idea of learning may seem overly simplistic but it was very important because it broke with the genetic theories of criminality developed in the 19th century by the positivists, César Elombroso and his famous born criminal. The second principle of this cultural criminology is called differential association. So here each individual belongs to some groups that favor conventional or low abiding behavior such as family, for instance, and may also belong to groups that favor antisocial or delinquent behavior such as groups of young delinquent peers. So the individual, so explained Sutherland, is confronted to contradictory or conflicting influences. And if antisocial values predominate around the individual, then he will become delinquent. And if conventional or pro-social values predominant, then he will comply with the law. And on a more general level, this explanation belongs to the cultural spreading that was developed by the first Chicago School of Sociology and which uses the idea of cultural conflict in order to account for the pathologies, including crime, of course, of the great American cities in the first decades of the 20th century. In the 1950s, two criminologists, Sykes and Madzah, provided one of the first convincing criticisms of this culturalist criminology. They showed that criminals or delinquents, in fact, do not have a set of values different from that of the general population. And they came to this conclusion through an investigation of the arguments used by the criminals themselves when they tried to justify their own illegal actions in court. And they observed that these offenders do not challenge the conventional value system. Rather, they use what these authors famously called neutralization techniques that help them to excuse their own behavior. For instance, they use the technique of the denial of responsibility. They justify, try to justify their illegal behavior by saying that they were pushed by an overwhelming force because they were drunk or needing drug or angered and so on. Now, what's very interesting here is that in all these kinds of arguments used by the offenders themselves, the conventional system of moral and legal norms is implicitly taken for granted. It's not criticized, it's not attacked. It is acknowledged and circumvented. So even if the delinquents have specific subcultures, those are not directly opposed to the conventional and usual morals prevalent in society. Criminals, in their own words, are not committed to a broad delinquency system of values. The culturalist explanation by Sutherland is totally contradicted by these observations. And also, the theoretical question of the cause of delinquency now drastically changes. Sutherland tried to answer the question, how do some people acquire an antisocial value system that turns them into criminals? But now the question becomes more subtle. Why do some people break the moral and legal rules to which they otherwise believe, even if not very strongly? And at this point, the society of delinquency is ready to take a praxeological turn that is to some extent similar to the subjectivist revolution that took place in economics at the end of the 19th century. And indeed, once the culturalist approach is discarded, the Misesian conception of action becomes highly relevant. And there are two reasons why this is so. In the culturalist approach, delinquency is an end in itself. Breaking the law is valued as such. Now, praxeology has nothing to say about ends and valued judgments. In the words of Van Mises, its object is means, not ends. It does not seek to explain, for instance, why some people choose asceticism, while others choose hedonism, why some people enjoy refined pleasures, while other people enjoy crude pleasures, and so on and so forth. So if the difference between criminals and non-criminals was their respective value systems, then praxeology would not have much to say about criminality and maybe nothing at all. The question, why do some people choose delinquency would be similar to the question, why do some people enjoy classical music? But if the moral values are more or less the same, they cannot by themselves alone explain why an individual commits a criminal act and another one in similar circumstances does not. The difference between criminality and non-criminality essentially becomes a choice of means, not of ends. And to that extent, delinquent acts are perfectly legitimate object of a praxeological analysis. Quebec criminologist Maurice Cusson has consistently followed this line of analysis. He has shown that delinquent action indeed follows the same kinds of ends as low abiding action, such as the search for wealth, prestige, power. The difference is that the means are obtained through theft, fraud, or illegal physical violence. There's a second reason why sociology of delinquency was really in the 50s to take a praxeological turn and break with culturalism. The culturalist approach rests upon a very naive conception of the relationship between culture and behavior. Behavior is supposed to follow the rules prescribed by the culture or subculture in which the individual has been socialized. And if I can use this metaphor, culture is conceived as a computer program and the individual supposedly follows the cultural moral code just like a computer follows the steps of a program. Now, as we have seen, offenders believe in the conventional moral code, even if not very strongly, of course, but their behavior more or less often violates this code nonetheless. And in the culturalist framework, this situation is paradoxical and very difficult to account for. In the Misesian framework, on the other hand, the explanation is straightforward. Even if a person is reluctant for moral reasons to break the law, she will choose an illegal act if it brings a higher psychic profit than the alternative legal acts. Let's suppose that an individual would prefer everything else equal to choose legitimate means rather than illegal means in order to reach his ends. In the context of a specific decision, he can nonetheless choose illegal means for the simple reason that they allow him to reach an end that is sufficiently high on his value scale. It is thus very easy to account for the common sense observation that people sometimes break their own moral code. And to sum up here, the culturalist approach is plagued by a paradox. If an individual has been socialized in a culture, how could he possibly act against the rules prescribed by this culture? And this paradox completely disappears when we use the basic proxological concepts, ends, means, and psychic profit. The proxological solution to this culturalist paradox is a bit reminiscent of the marginalist solution to the paradox of value in economics. After this criticism of this critic of culturalism, the next significant theory developed in the field of sociology of delinquency is the theory of social control. This theory clearly belongs, as I will show, to the proxological paradigm framework. Very briefly, this theory explains why individuals commit more or less serious delinquent acts by the fact that they are bound to society is weak or broken. Now, the expression, born to society, is not very misasian, to say the least. It seems to imply a holistic conception of society that von Mises forcefully criticized. But society here is not at all conceived as a separate entity that exists above and beyond the individual. And I'm going to show that, in fact, social control theory can easily be expressed in a proxological language. Let's follow the presentation offered by one of the most prominent exponents of social control theory and a great sociologist, the American Travis Hershey. In his well-known book, Causes of Delinquency, he explains that the bonds to society, mainly consist in the attachment to others and the commitment to conventional lines of action. Both of these elements have a straightforward proxological interpretation. The attachment to others, to family, to friends, to friends, to peers, to coworkers, and so on, is the fact to care about them, to be sensitive to their needs. And in terms of action, attachment is reflected in landing a sympathetic ear and providing help or advice. This act can be carried out as ends in themselves when it pleases us to help others for the sake of helping. But quite often, they are also means. Means for the individual who wants to get, in return, some marks of respect, affection, love, or friendly help. And in order to get these valuable services, the individual chooses to create and maintain relationships with other people through friendship, wedding, parenthood, and other kinds of associations. So attachment, as a means towards ends, clearly falls under a proxological analysis. The second element, commitment to conventional lines of action. This commitment explains why most of the people, most of the time, do not carry out any criminal act. And this is very simply because if they were caught, these conventional lines of action would be threatened by legal or informal sanctions. Their educational career would be at risk, or their job, or their family life, or their spare time activities, et cetera. And the proxological translation is here obvious. The values of the ends, sought through conventional lines of action, are higher than those of delinquent lines of action. In other words, carrying out a criminal act would, in this case, result in a psychic loss. It's also interesting to note that Hirshi uses a correct conception of subjective cost, the cost of a delinquent act is not the legal and informal sanctions that may ensue. It is the ends, and strictly the value of the ends, that could not be reached anymore if these sanctions were incurred. So this is a nice illustration of the Austrian concept of subjective cost. To sum up, the theory of social control explains that the weaker is the bond to society of an individual, the less he is attached and committed, the more he tends to carry out delinquent acts. And this theory can be considered in the interpretation I have given as a proxological theory. Most people follow the rules most of the time because there's a social control, inciting to conformity, and the avoidance of deviant acts, but this control is not an external force emanating from a holistic society. It can and should be analyzed in terms of ends, means and instrumental rationality and psychic profit. Now, if the theory of social control is right in that the bonds of delinquents to society are weak, then the question of group delinquency immediately arises. How is it that delinquency is quite often a group phenomenon, especially juvenile delinquency? Are not delinquents tightly bonded to the group of peers with which they carry out their delinquent activity? And this was the starting point of the culturalist theory, whose premise is that delinquency requires an interpersonal transmission of techniques and values that can only take place in a small and tightly-knit group. This is pure culturalist theory. Social control theory, on the other hand, claims that delinquents are weakly bonded even to their delinquent peers. A fact that has indeed been corroborated by empirical study. A simple and convincing praxeological explanation of group delinquency has been provided by Maurice Cusson, whom I have supported before. He shows that a delinquent act is easier and less risky to perform when in group. In a burglary, for instance, accomplices are quite helpful. They can monitor the area, help in picking up and carrying more spoils. The burglary can thus be quicker and safer for the offenders. In a holdup or a robbery, a group of criminals is more frightening than a single individual and reduces the risks that the victims will refuse to comply, flee or even attack the offenders. In the case of shoplifting, the accomplices can distract the seller while the stealing goes on smoothly. And furthermore, in the case of teenagers, the members of the group can turn delinquency in a sort of game in which each one challenges the others to perform delinquent acts. So with the group, delinquency is safer, quicker, more efficient and possibly also funnier. In other words, constituting a group is a means to reach the valuable ends looked for through delinquency. The culturalist theory explains the constitution of delinquent groups through a quite mysterious and largely ad hoc socialization process. But we see that the explanation provided by Cusson, on the other hand, is crystal clear and rests upon solid proxological ground. Let's now turn to another crucial feature of delinquent action, namely its impulsiveness. The concept of impulsiveness can be translated into the economic language as high time preference. And again here, as we shall see, the Misesien conception of action is highly relevant. The impulsiveness of teenage delinquents and of adult criminals has been noticed for a long time and by several authors. The most detailed analysis to date has been developed by Gottfriedson and Hirschi in the book which is my personal favorite on the whole subject of delinquency, A General Theory of Crime, 1990. That starting point is a description of typical delinquent acts such as burglary, robbery, homicide, auto theft, and so on. Here is, for instance, their description of the typical burglary. I quote, a young male or group of males knocks on a door not far from where he lives. Finding no one home, he tests the door to see if it's open. And if it's open, as it often is, he walks in and looks to see if the dwelling contains anything of interest that he can quickly consume or easily haul away. In most cases, the proceeds of the burglary are quickly consumed, used up, given away, or discarded. Unquote. Of course, not all burglars fit this pattern, but this is the typical burglary and the basic nature of this activity can only be deduced from a typical scenario, not from the very rare and unusual burglaries reported by the mass media or from those entirely fabricated for movie audience. Based on this understanding of what burglaries and other acts of violence or fraud typically look like, excuse me, Gottfriedson and Hirschi conclude that almost all delinquent acts share a series of essential features that go as follows. They provide a quick and easy gratification of desires. They are exciting and thrilling, but offer few, if any, long-term benefits. They require little skill or planning and they show insensitivity to others since they result in suffering of the victim. So in short, the typical delinquent act displays all the characteristics of an impulsive act and people who commit this kind of act on a regular basis can be labeled impulsive. They tend to grab very short-term gratifications while jeopardizing their long-term projects, assuming they have any. In the terminology of Gottfriedson and Hirschi, they are characterized by a low self-control. Maurice Cusson uses a suggestive expression. He calls this psychological feature, presentism. And in economics, of course, we would say that they have a very high time preference. Now, in the very first chapter of his treatise, von Mises devotes a section to the analysis of the relationship between impulses and action. He explains that, of course, people have impulses, impulses to grab things that are not theirs, to molest people that they dislike, and so on. But most of the time, they choose to resist these impulses because yielding to them would be much too costly. And this, what is it? It's the core of the theory of social control. And von Mises adds two very interesting considerations. First, when an individual yields to his impulses, it's still an action, not an automatic behavior. Emotions, impulses affect the terms of the choices faced by the actors, but they do not prevent nor replace action. Anger, for instance, may favor the use of physical violence as a means. But whether in anger, in fear, or in a quiet mood, the person acts nonetheless. She consciously uses means in order to reach a chosen end. And here is his second consideration. The reason for yielding to an impulse is to be found in high time preference. The benefits from an impulsive act are immediate, but the negative consequences are often suffered at a later date. So the higher the time preference, the more the future inconveniences are disregarded, and the more likely the person will yield to her impulses. And this, this is the core of the theory of low self-control by Gottfriedsen and Hirschi. So the analysis offered by von Mises on the subject of impulses, even though it's quite short, is brilliant. He anticipates some of the most important theoretical developments that have taken place in the following decades in the study of delinquency. A very important phenomenon can also be explained with the help of the concepts of impulsiveness and time preference. It's the relationship between age and delinquency, which is called the age curve. So let's take a look at the following figures that show the relation between the age of offenders and indicators of delinquency. The first one here, age curve, male criminal offenders, England and Wales, 1842, 1844. Second one, age curve of male criminals at first conviction, England, 1908. And the last one, age curve of arrest for property crimes in the United States, 1999. So all these curves are from very different years and very different countries, but they show exactly the same pattern. The tendency to commit delinquent acts peaks around age 18, then quickly diminishes. So a massive and natural phenomenon of rehabilitation occurs with age. How can this phenomenon be accounted for? Certainly not by the culture's theory, which is in fact contradicted by this pattern. Why would small primary groups of individuals socialized within delinquency, why would they tend to dissolve and disappear after age 18? Godfreytson and Hershey have provided an explanation that I find quite convincing for this phenomenon. They say that when people grow up, they tend to become more and more mature, which means that their time preference decreases. They become less and less impulsive with age. So when people age, they tend to commit less and less delinquent acts, hence the shape of the age curve. But it must be made clear that this process that occurs with age is not a praxeological phenomenon. It's a psychological phenomenon, of course, and ultimate data from a praxeological viewpoint. I would now like to take, as a last example, another major development in Sociology of Delinquency, the so-called routine activity theory. It was expounded at the end of the 1970s by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Falson, to criminologists. And these authors start from a puzzling phenomenon. Between 1960 and 1975 in the United States, delinquency exploded. Robberies increased nearly fourfold in just 15 years. Aggravated assaults increased nearly threefold. Rape, homicides, burglaries, each also increased nearly threefold according to police data. There's, of course, much to be criticized in police data. But since they are collected roughly in the same way year after year, they offer a quite reliable image of the evolution, not of the level, but of the evolution of delinquency. This explosion of delinquency is all the more enigmatic that this very period was quite favorable from a social and economic point of view. Unemployment was low. Poverty in the official sense was diminishing and income inequalities were also decreasing. So it's impossible to explain this surge in delinquency from 1960 to 1975 by the usual scapegoats, such as unemployment, poverty, and inequality. The starting point of the explanation offered by Quen and Felsen for this puzzling phenomenon is a consideration of the minimal conditions for predatory criminal act to occur. They contend that three minimal conditions are required. First, a motivated offender. Second, a suitable target. And third, the lack of a capable guardian. But they immediately cast aside the first condition, a motivated offender. They take for granted that there are motivated offenders, always have been and always will be. They focus instead entirely on the two last conditions, which are both purely situational and from their own, their theory is extremely simple. If it so happens that suitable targets multiply and that capable guardians are more and more lacking, then we should expect an increase in the number of criminal acts. And they show that these are just the circumstances that occurred in the period of the 1960s and 70s. Let's just take one example, burglaries. Thanks to the increased quantity of consumers' goods produced, houses were more and more often filled with suitable targets such as electronic devices, vinyl records back then, bottles of alcohol, jewelry, fancy clothes, and so on. Furthermore, in the case of electronic devices, their weight and size significantly decreased during this period, so that they became easier to carry away. Now, as far as capable guardians are concerned, they were indeed more and more often lacking during this period. Houses were more often empty during the day simply because the proportion of women working was increasing. Also, families were leaving their houses empty to go on vacations, vacations that lasted for longer and longer periods. So, the routine activity of American households around their house was greatly altered during the 60s and 70s, and this is the explanation of the name of their theory, routine activity theory. This alteration in the routine activity explains for a big part, the upsurge in burglaries and in other aspects also. So, in a general way, these authors show that in the period considered, delinquent action has become more rewarding, less difficult, and less risky. So, the initial puzzle, an explosion of delinquency in a quite favorable economic situation, has been solved by adopting a strictly praxeological approach. The authors did not care at all about the motivational or cultural aspects of delinquency. Instead, they analyzed delinquent acts or means toward ends and discovered that these acts could henceforth reach more valuable ends at lower costs. In the Mesesian language, we can say that the psychic profit of delinquent acts tended to rise relative to other kinds of acts and that therefore, delinquent acts were more often carried out. Culturalism, however, has not said its last word. Let's take a look at the following figure. Trends in murder and robbery United States 1972-2006. A surprising phenomenon occurs in the 1990s. During this decade, the delinquency rate in the United States has been divided by two. This is a very substantial drop. Now, this evolution is quite difficult to explain. The most obvious cause would be the huge increase in the number of people behind bars. According to the statistical calculations of some authors, this policy has had a quite strong negative effect on criminality, but other authors find weak correlations. So, there's no consensus between the statisticians on this topic. And furthermore, in Canada, a similar strong decline in delinquency has occurred, which cannot be explained by an increase in the incarceration rate since no such increase has taken place there. And among the other explanations, no one is really convincing. For instance, the strong economy of the 90s, the changing demographics with a lower proportion of teenagers and young adults, the increase in the number of the police, the improvements in police organization and practice, etc. Even when all the aforementioned causes are taken together, they do not seem to deliver a satisfactory explanation of such a significant and unexpected phenomenon. So, some criminologists fall back on a culturalist explanation. Mark Wimet, for instance, Canadian criminologist, thinks that the decrease in criminality in the 1990s could be an effect of, I quote, the new ethos of moderation, unquote, that characterizes the US and Canada since the 1980s, the new ethos of moderation that's observable in the reduction of overall drinking and smoking. The drop in delinquency could thus be explained by an important change in collective values. And the famous American criminologist, James Q. Wilson, also considers that the usual factors are not sufficient to explain the phenomenon. And he concludes a recent paper in the Wall Street Journal by saying that, I quote, crime in the United States is falling because of a big improvement in the culture, unquote. Well, it's true. It's true that major surveys in moral values conducted worldwide tend to show that culture is slowly but surely improving. But this culturalist explanation is hardly satisfactory. The connection between the two phenomena, criminal behavior on the one hand, and moral surrounding on the other is never clear in the culturalist approach. And this is the main reason why this approach is unsatisfactory and inferior to the praxeological approach. Let's now turn more briefly to the second main element in the Mises Yen conception of social science, namely the a prioristic character of praxeology. This issue is controversial, not here, but outside. It's not an exaggeration to say that almost all social scientists today reject a priorism, almost all of them. They are positivists in the sense that they believe that in social science, a theory can be corroborated or falsified by empirical data. And they think quite simply that social science is an empirical science in the exact same way the natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, and so on. This positivistic viewpoint is, of course, totally rejected by von Mises. According to him, the theories of human action are logically deduced from the postulate of action combined with specific initial conditions. And the postulate of action states that human action consciously uses means in order to reach chosen ends. This postulate is a priori true. It would make no sense to test it against experience in order to check its validity. So the whole edifice of theoretical social science has an a prioristic character, too, since it's logically deduced from this postulate of action. And I will now show that the development of the sociology of delinquency, properly understood, exemplifies the Mises Yen a priorism. One of the main episodes in the sociology of delinquency in the 20th century was the critique and demise of the culturalist theory, as I have explained above. As we have seen, this theory has been convincingly criticized by showing with the help of empirical investigations that criminals do not have a system of values opposed to that of conventional surrounding society. So it seems that we have here an example of an empirical refutation of a theory of social science, namely the culturalist theory of criminality is empirically refuted by the data, by the empirical data. But according to von Mises in social science, theories can be neither confirmed nor refuted by empirical investigation. So does this episode, very important episode in the history of sociology, contradict the Mises Yen a prioristic conception and the answer is a resounding no. In this case study, the empirical investigation shows that criminals do not have a system of values that extols criminality as such. But the question, do they have an antisocial value system, or do they not? This question is purely empirical. It's devoid of any theoretical content whatsoever. It is a historical question whose answer is to be found in an examination of historical evidence. And this is just what sociologists such as Matzah and Hirshi have done. They have analyzed some relevant historical material collected with the methods of observation, interview, surveys, et cetera. And they have concluded from these historical sources that so far they could tell criminals do not have a value system opposed to the conventional one. Their statement is an empirical generalization from the little number of cases that they have studied to criminals in general. They resort to an inductive inference in order to reach an empirical generalization, an empirical generalization. But this kind of generalization is not, not at all a universal low. It clearly belongs to the branch of history, not of praxeology. In our society, we have good reasons to think that most delinquents, if not all of them, share the common system of moral values. They are not deeply committed to it, obviously, but they share it nonetheless. And this is a historical statement that could be proved wrong in another society or at another period. So the refutation of the culturalist theory is not at all the refutation of a praxeological law. It is the rejection of a historical premise of the culturalist approach. And Misesien's apriorism is in no way contradicted. In fact, it's not even challenged by this example. The routine activity theory offers another example that shows the relevance of epistemological apriorism in the social sciences. This theory, as we have seen, explains the great surge in delinquency in the 1960s and 70s by a deep change in the routine activities of American households, and especially the dispersion of these activities away from home. Stated in a positivist vocabulary, this theory is a hypothesis according to which delinquency, first variable, is positively related to the dispersion of activities outside of home, second variable. In order to test this hypothesis, the authors calculate an empirical indicator of dispersion and they find that there is indeed a positive and statistically significant correlation between the level of delinquency and the intensity of dispersion outside of home, even when economic and demographic changes are controlled. So the scientific enterprise of these criminologists can quite easily be expressed in a positivist framework. They formulate a hypothesis and then test it against empirical evidence. But this interpretation, strictly speaking, is incorrect. In fact, the authors expound a praxeological theory and their empirical study neither corroborates nor refutes this theory. Here is, I think, the praxeological core of the explanation provided by Cohen and Felsen. When an action, for instance, a delinquent action, becomes more rewarding, less risky, and less difficult, then it will tend to be more widespread, everything else equal. Can this statement be empirically tested? No, it's a pure logic of action related to psychic profit and it should be noticed that the authors never even attempt to test this core statement. But then what's the meaning of their empirical study because in their paper there is a very large empirical part? Is this empirical investigation useless and irrelevant? No, it's in fact very useful but must be correctly interpreted. It's not an empirical test of the theory. Rather, the empirical study is intended to check the conditions necessary for the application of the theory. Are these conditions indeed present in the historical reality of a given period? Delinquent acts will be more numerous if they become more rewarding, less risky, and less difficult, everything else equal. This is the praxeological reasoning with true, true with a prioristic certainty. Now in the period under study, do these acts indeed become more rewarding, less risky, and less difficult? This is the question that the empirical or historical investigation has to answer. At first sight, it may seem as if the authors are testing their theory against the fact, thus demonstrating that Misesian a priorism is erroneous but they are not. Their core theory is a priori true and they test its applicability to a specific historical period. Misesian a priorism is not contradicted, it's in fact exemplified by this very important case study in society. This example of the routine activity theory and the previous one of the cultural approach, both show that if words are not used carefully, they can mislead us into adopting the positivist viewpoint. When we say the cultural theory has been refuted by an empirical investigation, we use the word theory in a questionable sense. We should say more rigorously that an empirical premise of the culturalist paradigm has been invalidated. When we say that the routine activity has been tested, routine activity theory has been tested against the empirical evidence, we should say that the conditions of applicability of the routine activity theory have been checked for a specific historical period. The scientific vocabulary is full of positivist traps that can only be avoided if we stick to the very strict demarcation specified by von Mises between history on the one hand and praxeology on the other. Let me now conclude. In order to pay tribute to Ludwig von Mises, I have tried to show in this lecture that his thinking on the foundation of social science is fruitful and relevant well beyond the realm of economics. I have taken the example of the sociology of delinquency, but there's no doubt that all the branches of sociology could be considered as well. His conception of action and his a prioristic epistemology are both essential in order to understand the development of the sociology of delinquency. And his praxeological framework in turn is nicely exemplified by some of the most important theoretical developments in this field since the 1950s, such as social control theory, low self-control theory and routine activity theory. It's now time for me to thank you very much for your attention, thank you.


Good afternoon and welcome to this press conference from the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum here in Snowy Davos Thank you for joining us in the room. Thank you for joining us on the live stream Whether you're watching on Periscope or Facebook. You're equally welcome. We Quite untypically for the forum gave this press conference a humble title. We called it a press conference an update for the fourth Industrial Revolution. We actually have some quite exciting announcements to make here today To which we'll come in a second. But first, let me introduce the wonderful panel. We have to talk about the fourth Industrial Revolution First to my immediate left. We're joined by Murat Sunmes Who's the head of the Center for the fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco and also a member of the managing board of the World Economic Forum? To his left, we're joined by Yui Chi Funabashi Funabashi-san is the head of the Asia Pacific initiative Welcome and thank you for being here right at the heart and center of our panel here today We're joined by Jean de Dieu Urang Grégoire The Ministry from the Ministry of Information Communication and Technology of Rwanda. Thank you for being here Minister Further down the line. We're joined by Nancy Brown the CEO of the American Heart Association and last but not least a Fellow friend from Geneva. We're joined By Seth Berkeley the CEO of Gavi the vaccine Alliance. Thank you all for being here and Thank you for watching Murat without further ado What is the update on the fourth Industrial Revolution that we would like to share with our audience here today? Thank you, Gorg. Since we launched the Center in San Francisco in March 2016 We have assembled a dream team on all nine eight projects that we're running In addition, we have 37 business partners 10 governments who are co-locating with us Today we have announced the expansion of this concept to the global locations By announcing sister centers in Japan with Funabashi-san And Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry in India as well as the United Arab Emirates These jurisdictions are very eager to accelerate the positive impact of the fourth Industrial Revolution in their own Countries but by being a global Member of a global network. They want to also contribute to the global design of these protocols So the expansion of the network of centers is one of the major Announcements from today. We're also announcing the formation of global councils on artificial intelligence blockchain Internet of Things precision medicine autonomous vehicles and drones. These will be global governing bodies for each of these six projects consisting of governments civil society business academia as well as Technology entrepreneurs and finally we're announcing the formation of fourth Industrial Revolution Center academic fellows Which allows postdoctoral students from universities who are engaged in research in these eight or nine areas that we're working on Giving them the ability to be part of this global Ecosystem Contributing to the creation of these protocols and also for us tapping into the leading research We will have five already in place soon and they'll go back to their campuses for an ex for the second year So each year we expect to have initially five already announced by under Hoffman and we expect to have many more Thank you more at Funabashi son you represent the Asia Pacific initiative, which is one of the founding supporters of the center in Japan Why did you throw your weight behind this? Why do you think this is an important development? But first of all, thank you very much for having me here. I'm very delighted to announce the launch of Tokyo Center Japan said I should say today and this is Made up of three founding partners the World Economic Forum the Ministry of the economy trade and industry and Asia Pacific Initiative our think tank Tokyo based independent think tank First I really should emphasize that how important how crucial to set up sister Centers and I like to Upload the World Economic Forum particularly Professor Khrushchev to create this centers That technology transcend that national border the regulation however local so that what the world needs is to Find that good ways to harness the Technological prowess the same time Being focused on that social stability and Value system so I think that the We really need collaborates globally how to harness those things so I think that Sister organizations and centers Will be very much conducive to promote that cooperation second I Also like to emphasize that Critical aspect of collaborating that Private public partnership That Actually that government just cannot keep up with that a dramatic speed of the technological innovation But at the same time that Radical technology technological innovation Cannot deployed at the scale without public trust and Due process so what the world need is to Find a new way of For the government to Work with the private sector You know well in a way It is a new Model of private public partnership and I think that to Find that best formula of That Technological deployment in societies and harmonizing governance so We are very much proud to be a part of this adventure and I think Japan has much to contribute in the field such as Mobility including the driverless vehicle and the healthcare Blockchain and drones and Others so robotics So I am very much excited that to be a part of this Venture. Thank you very much Thank you very much Minister more I'd mentioned the dream team and and you and run I have been early very early members of the dream team A run has been very engaged in the San Francisco Center particularly on the area of drones Please share with us your perspective on why do you think this is important? Thank you. Yes We thank the word economic forum professor Schwab and the center for for industrial revolution We are already Benefiting for the from the work of the of the center in 2016 We got an invitation to partner with the center in Enhancing and upgrading our drone regulation I would like to say today and I'm happy to say that The regulation now have passed in cabinet last week now. We have a regulation that really can Support our drone Rollout we already have Use case or a base case or we've Zipline where we deployed drones in the delivery of Blood to remote hospitals. We are witnessing now the impact The initiative is having on our cities and lives. We are seeing now Madas being served that we are seeing now the reduction in in what is time required To deliver blood to to remote hospitals We are having now new applications and new entrants to our market interested in exploring how the drone drone can really be used to to to in various sector including agriculture collection of various data and The regulation is something that we really needed now to to promote that That's an incentive. That's a guideline that we wanted even to monitor and to secure the use of drone and to promote The interest we are seeing in in in drone application in various sectors I think we are seeing a Multiplayer effect from the young people in various innovation labs and centers Trying now to dig deep into the drone and we are seeing that Dislegration as something that will really help us manage risks Providing a platform where people can create new Opportunity new concept proven and testing the ideas and really thank the Center for the tremendous effort and and and work and we are happy and Soon will be sharing actually how now we are going to to to manage Those opportunities on our table. Thank you. Thank you very much minister And we of course appreciate your partnership Nancy you represent the American Heart Association That's not necessarily the organization one would first and foremost associate with the fourth industrial revolution and yet you've decided to partner With the San Francisco Center tell us why Well, thank you for the opportunity and it's really the honor of the American Heart Association to have the opportunity to be a partner of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Center and one of the founding partners. I might add What you should know is as perhaps context is Cardiovascular diseases that include heart disease and stroke are the number one killer of people throughout the world 17 and a half million people a year lose their life to cardiovascular diseases And we've been focused for almost a hundred years on finding new solutions Scientifically to change that trajectory for people in addition to all of the great work We do in changing environments and changing policies and inspiring people to live a more Healthful life and at the foundation of our work in science as a scientific organization We have in addition to funding science and research We have our own Institute for precision cardiovascular medicine where we are working to help deliver the right treatments to the right patients at the right time and Clearly at the center of that value proposition is data and technology We recognize the critical role that the center will play in helping to make sure that there are global Standards for data sharing and data regulation that this intersection of scientific data and data Collected by individuals is used to further and enhance scientific study But also in a way that protects and promotes What individuals and patients want and desire to have happened with their personalized health data? And we think that the center will play a critically important role in helping to Understand how many of these new technologies that are being created can contribute data for precision medicine From wearable devices and other sorts of of technologies that can give real-time information To further and rapidly advance precision medicine The final thing I might Mention is that in addition to data being such an important currency in science and technology This idea of redesigning clinical trials, which is how drugs and devices get to market We'll have real promise once we can have a universal agreement on how this data can be and should be governed for scientific use And so those are a few of the many reasons that we are so excited to partner with the center Thank You Nancy Seth the minister mentioned sipline and sipline is not just a social enterprise of the Schwab Foundation It's also an organization that had tremendous help from from Gavi to to to go where it is now This could be one example, but but tell us why is Gavi part of this of this of this work So, thank you so much and first of all to say Gavi is a child of the World Economic Forum born here 18 years ago One of the most successful public-private partnerships. We've immunized more than 650 million additional children prevented more than 9 million deaths and Provide vaccines to about 60% of the world's population in the 73 poorest countries Plus deal with epidemic diseases now you might say well What's the connection there the challenge is we want to get these vaccines to every single person and that means? We need to use technology to leapfrog to get to that last mile today often It's in urban slums. Sometimes it's in hinterlands and we were really pleased to work with Rwanda to Help bring this technology of drones to be delivering blood We originally looked at it for rabies vaccines. It turns out Rwanda's in pretty good shape with rabies But other technologies like snake venom. These are time-sensitive things now What's important about this is not every country is Rwanda? So now that we have success in Rwanda and it's being extended to the whole country We want to take this forward in Tanzania, which will be a different challenge And we're lucky to have Rwandese Scientists who will come and help do this but when they do that as we begin to move country to country How do we deal with the regulation the governance? How do we deal with the sharing of technology the data these are the problems we have and we're talking about drones But we have similar issues in terms of new ways with digital technology We're looking the child health card is the most common a piece of vital registration more than birth certificate death certificates marriage certificates How do we turn that into digital identity? How does it work with blockchain? How do we think about using that as a way to improve supply chains which will make a difference across countries? So there are many ways we can we see in working with this exciting new Forum center that can really make a difference bringing technology to the world's poor to help solve their problems Thank you Seth And I'm sure a lot of journalists in the room want to ask what will the fourth industrial revolution do with the media industry? But you're shy to ask anyway, let's let's open the floor for for question and answers. We have microphones in the room If I can have a show of hands Don't be shy You shouldn't have chosen the profession of journalism if you shy I see there is a question Yeah, very good the lady in the middle if you could state your name and organization for the sake of our livestream audience as well Yeah, my name is Kate moody from France 24 in Paris Under Emmanuel Macron's administration Paris has really been pushing itself as a new tech hub for Europe I'm wondering if there's been any thought among any of you for any of you To expand your presence in France. Is that something that's is it a message that's being heard in your industry? What's the reaction to these efforts that the that the macro administration has really been trying to get out there to make France an attractive place not just to do business but to do in space to particularly develop new kinds of technology Thank you very much more. Do you want to share with pleasure? We're Following the developments not just from the news, but we're actively engaged with the Macron government who will be here later this week In our engagement model in San Francisco is to invite select governments representative governments from around the world To collaborate with us like we have done with Rwanda In fact Rwanda moves so fast that Eileen was there fellow showed up before we open the center And we now have 10 governments engaged with us Japan followed them with Meti And we said just be patient will be there and then we launched the center So we have invited a number of governments to collaborate with us today. We have Japan Rwanda Bahrain and Inter-American Department Bank to expand into Latin America much like with Gavi into emerging countries Before I came here we signed the memorandum of understanding with the government of United Arab Emirates to open a center in the Emirates and Put a fellow into the San Francisco or work with the San Francisco Center on data policy So we will make more announcements as we have more governments and we would welcome definitely France's involvement with us and We'll make those announcements as we move forward And and I can't emphasize enough the importance of having governments focus on this technology So for us in many francophone countries having the Macron government talk about the importance of technology and engagement We hope to have some announcements later this week in working with some of those Francophone companies that can make a real difference in the countries that we work in so that enabling environment is really very important I might also add that through our work in precision medicine at the American Heart Association We have a very valued relationship with the European Society of cardiology, which is based in France And we will be in the coming months Announcing some joint projects around precision medicine that will have data and technology at the center of them Thank you very much so in short, I think Emmanuel Macron qualifies for the dream team Do we have any other questions in the room? He's a young global leader. He is a young global leader. That is that is correct Yes, there's a lady on the left side, please Press Agency who's actually financing these fourth industrial revolution centers. How much is the web part of it? More I think that's a question for you. Yeah, so we invested About 15 million dollars for the opening of the San Francisco Center and that's an annual commitment and in line with the forums Engagement with the global community. We have we're following the same model of inviting businesses to Become members on an annual basis. So as we expand into these different centers, we have the business community or in the case of UAE the government providing the initial funding to launch these centers The continuous engagement of the business community is essential because that's the that's where the doing Comes in to the picture and so far in San Francisco. We have 37 companies. It's all publicly listed and We're expanding those partnerships and earlier today when we announced the Japan Center for Navarro San I think we had seven or eight Japanese CEOs on the panel who will be part of the Japan Center so the initial funding is coming from the business community We have secured that for the three jurisdictions. I mentioned India Japan and the United Arab Emirates but that's not going to cover all the costs, but it gives us the engagement more than the financials the engagement and commitment of the business community to Make these investments and we'll invite more and more businesses to engage with us over time Thank you very much And I should also mention that we invested in in great colleagues as well at the center here in the room Also our speaker Timothy and Anne and Amanda who also all working in at the San Francisco Center And I'm happy to answer questions afterwards for you as well. Happy to put you on the spot dear colleagues Are there any other questions we have probably time for one more question Could you wait for the microphone, please? Sorry, Mr. Berkeley Could you expand on your comments about the child health car card cards and how technology will improve? Thank you. Yeah, one of the Problems in the world in my world is the fact that a third of children are not registered And that is a problem for me to be able to track You know where we're missing children, but it also becomes a problem as they get older for example We know what girls are in school We don't know what girls are out of school and later on in life for taxation or for voting registries, etc What you'd love to have is universal registration, which is something we see in the West What's interesting is that since every family virtually gets a child health card when they have an immunization If you could link that to a vital registration, you would have that introduction It would be non-controversial. It wouldn't be associated with voting or other aspects So the question is how to do it and what we want to do is link that with the work that's going on on digital Identity and also on just being able to use digital technology to track births And in fact here at this Weff will announce as part of our infuse innovation for upscale and equity We will announce that this year's challenge will be in this area And so this is an example of where the the forum brings together lots of Entrepreneurial expertise in this and the center does and so there's an opportunity for us to work together to try to drive this forward Thank you very much if there are no further questions Let's be very Swiss and and this press conference on time. Thank you very much to all our panelists today here Thank you very much for the audience. Thank you for watching


years it's been years and years and years of this stuff happening and we've had protests before and we've always been told that that's find a different way that's not the right way there's been many many forms and it's never right with George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor I think the difference between that and what's been happening is that that was in the span of a couple months all three people in a couple of months and so we need to get our message out we need to let people know that we are here to be peaceful but we are also going to demand justice because that's what we need we will not we're not going to settle anymore for anything less as we want because we're advocating for change we want to be heard and not murdered in the street we want people to wake up to understand that the justice system is broken been broken and so what are we going to do for it to change and I my response is to that it's not our problem for it to change it's the government's problem they need to for it to change we need social reform everybody keeps getting killed in the streets and murdered by police officers and yet nobody's being held accountable but it took for five days of protesting not six days of protesting I'm sorry for us for for the police officers to be discharged and so we're sick of it we want social reform we want justice we want equality for all and we're not going to stop until we get it


Now the removal process of a red-black tree can get a little funky, so we'll start off with at least a rather simplistic one. Let's say, for example, I came in with a remove 20. Well, we would traverse our tree and we see that we happen to have this 20, and considering it is a node with two null node children, we can simply delete it, replace it with a null node child, and we're good to go.