Connection explorer
Why are two ideas connected?
1 hop3 disciplines3 mental modelsStructural connection — not a causal or historical ordering
The clearest explanation
- causesEstablished
An externality causes market failure: when a cost or benefit falls on third parties, the market price ignores it and the outcome is inefficient.
1 step2 concepts3 disciplines1 relation families
Why this route
- strong relations
- well-established links
- explains the mechanism, not just the fact
Where else this idea appears
The idea you arrived at recurs elsewhere. Following it means reasoning about the same structure in a new context — that is transfer.
- shares a mental model
- shares a mental model
- shares a mental model
About this view
What this is
Choose any two concepts. Thinking OS traces the chain of reasoning between them — with the mechanism and epistemic status of every link — and shows that more than one valid path often exists.
How routes are chosen
A route is ranked by explanatory quality, not brevity — the clearest mechanism wins, not the fewest hops.
Honest
Every edge shows its mechanism and epistemic status; the “To” picker offers only reachable targets, so never a dead end.