>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


Ironic that you say Hans Rosling doesn`t know what he`s talking about. How can 2 billion of the poorest people turning into 4 billion help economic growth? In fact, its one of the factors that perpetuate the cycle of poverty, as limited land is passed down to successive generations. When your small plot of land is divided amongst your 6 children, and they each divide their land amongst each of their 6 children, it does not help your condition one bit.

Also, sure an individual from a developed nation choosing to live frugally (like the 'sandal people') may result in a net positive effect on their local climate by reducing their individual carbon footprint. However, an additional 2 billion 'sandal people' will significantly increase our environmental impact through increased demand and things like deforestation.

>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


Wealth is not created by humanity's growth. Much of the financial "wealth" of the last century was created by banks and bankers. Money is a very misunderstood concept. http://videosift.com/video/What-is-money

In relation to population growth and the environment Rosling's concern is that the trend of rising economies is that they tend to adopt the behavior of the economic state they rise towards, i.e. trading in bicycles for volvos. He states point blank that technologies should be developed so that these people can choose to use electric volvos rather than diesel ones, and thus curb behavior to have a reduced environmental impact.

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.

This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.

If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).

Might get removed again soon.

So, lets think about this y'all. What is the primary drive of our economic system, capitalism? Profit. Profit runs our world. Corporations need profit in order to invest, creating economic growth. It was profit that caused BP to disregard safety procedures, pick up production and further exploit their workers. It was profit that caused BP to worry about collecting oil as much as they could, instead of covering the leak. It was profit that prevented BP from stopping rig early when there were clear signs of danger.

Profit, because they have to. You cannot reform capitalism's primary drive. Regulations were in place already. Its that they weren't enforced. Why? Because the regulators have been bought out by corporations. Our government is owned by corporations, the logical conclusion under capitalism.

This greed is literally destroying our planet. How much longer are we going to sit by our computer screens? Its time to get organized and take to the streets. Its time to stop this shit, because our planet wont survive.

If I'm reading all this right, pretty sure "free market" for blankfist means getting rid of corporations. More specifically, getting rid of the limited liability and legal personhood it provides them. If you didn't have incorporation as an option for creating a business, things would be a lot different.

Currently, forming a corporation allows a group or single person to create a separate immortal entity that can own property, be taxed, be sued, etc, under a completely different set of laws from other people, including its shareholders. So, the existence of corporations means people do not control the market directly. The corporate entity, shareholders, owners, boards of directors, labor, etc, are all separated and have separate legal status.

Limited liability of corporations means they're not liable to the full amount of their assets. If you sue a corporation, you're suing that created entity, not its shareholders, investors, or owners. Basically, this is supposed to encourage economic growth by reducing risk for investors. So, just by being a corporation, BP's liability for how much can be ordered to be paid out in damages by courts is limited. I'm guessing these are the sorts of "meaningful change" blankfist is referring to.

So, up until the 8 minute mark this sounded utterly correct. In particular around 7:20 or so, he mentions that the system of ownership breaks down when you get a fair income distribution, and see a middle class start to emerge.

I agree.

Then he takes a really stupid rightward turn, and insists that it's unions who're doing the hatchetwork for our owners. Please. Unions don't work for governments, or for companies. They work for us livestock.

Government, on the other hand, can easily wind up doing all the hatchetwork for the owners. Take the ultimate libertarian government -- one that only enforces ownership rights. What more could our owners want than that? Here is the natural endpoint of such moronic ideas. All the better if people come to believe that such slavery is really freedom. After all, freedom only belongs to the owners, and limits on their freedom so you can have some is wrong.

That's why income equality is such a threat to the owners -- once people get to the point where they're not constantly in a struggle to provide the basics for their family, and get a taste of real disposable income, they realize how very little money they really need, and they get very, very dangerous to the system.

They're right that economic growth attracts thieves -- the capitalist kind, who demand tax cuts and a continued maintenance of welfare to keep their livestock healthy and educated. That leads to debts, debts that they don't have to worry about paying, because they can just use their ill-gotten gain to keep bribing politicians and brainwashing the ignorant livestock into thinking it's us livestock who've been living lives of undeserved excess.

PS: The other 1984 slogans were "War is Peace", "Ignorance is Strength", along with "Freedom is Slavery". They'd fit nicely on the RNC front page.

PPS: George Orwell was a democratic socialist.

I saw the farm, then realized there is no physical way out. Except for zombies.

On a serious note. This has been happening for a long time, enslavement, one way or another. It seems, from the video, that enslavement changed to employment when there was economic growth. What happens when that economic system breaks down? Social Entropy.

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

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^rougy:
Had we spent 10% of our military budget on seeding economic growth in Afghanistan, it would have given us 500% or more in positive returns.
You're probably right, assuming we sent that money back in time to when the Mujahideen (and Osama bin Ladin) still worked for us, and they'd just kicked the Russian occupiers out. We probably could've prevented Al Qaeda from coming into existence in the first place.


Fuck Al Qaeda. It's obviously another boogie man.

No more Russian commies, so they invented another boogie man.

What I said had nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

It had to do with a real way to solve a real problem.

>> ^rougy:

Had we spent 10% of our military budget on seeding economic growth in Afghanistan, it would have given us 500% or more in positive returns.

You're probably right, assuming we sent that money back in time to when the Mujahideen (and Osama bin Ladin) still worked for us, and they'd just kicked the Russian occupiers out. We probably could've prevented Al Qaeda from coming into existence in the first place.

The very simple fact of the matter is this: nothing we do in Afghanistan, militarily, will make things better for the people of Afghanistan.

We could be there another fifty fucking years bombing the shit out of everything and it won't make a jot of difference.

And any analyst worth his salt will tell you that our presence there is only making things worse, not better, in both the long and the short term.

Only the war monger pricks beg to differ, because they're making a killing off the place.

Had we spent 10% of our military budget on seeding economic growth in Afghanistan, it would have given us 500% or more in positive returns.

Michael Moore is right, and @bcglorf isn't worthy of carrying his piss bucket.

@GeeSussFreeK, sorry, but I'm gonna call bullshit on your accusation of "logical fallacy".

You incorrectly used all of the ones you mentioned, and in the process committed most of the ones you mentioned yourself.

A Straw Man argument is when you mischaracterize an opponent's position, and then attack it, just like you did when you said "Economies are not like biological growth."

A Red Herring is when you bring up an unrelated topic to try and get your debate opponent to follow it, like you did when you said "the study of human economies is ongoing and does not support either side absolutely."

An Appeal to Ridicule is when you simply insult the idea without making a counterargument, like when you said "there are other good reasons to disagree with the state of economies and politics of them, but you won't find them here."

Your entire comment seemed to be based on the Hasty Generalization that because the YouTube video lacked evidence and methodological rigor, that there was no evidence or methodological rigor behind the argument, even though they give a link to their 100+ page paper in the video.

The closest thing to a logical fallacy here would be that this is a Weak/False analogy, but for that to really stick the analogy would have to really be a bad one -- the economy does consume resources, and it's not at all crazy to think that there are limits posed on economic growth by the availability of finite resources. A False analogy would be something like "providing national health insurance for everyone would be just like the Holocaust."

BTW, stating a hypothesis that's wrong (e.g. The sun rises every morning because the god Helios pulls it into the sky in his chariot) is not logically fallacious in itself. If you want to disprove the hypothesis that economic growth is bound by the finite natural resources of our planet, knock yourself out. Just keep in mind that takes actual work, not the silly pretense that everything you disagree with inherently contains a logical fallacy.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
"Economic activity requires resources" is close, but not accurate. Certain types of economic growth require resources. Moreover, technology seems to always increase yields or make things last longer. While I share the sympathies of the video, the logic is not sound. There are millions of sound arguments against rampant commercialism, but they aren't here. If anything, unfortunately, history shows us that we can only make and consume MORE crap given a unit measure of resource, which I find technologically amazing, but morally tragic.


It is absolutely accurate. Name one single economic activity that requires no resources of any sort...

Economic -growth- may come from increased efficiency, but that's not what I said. The very fact that resources are required means that unlimited growth is a logical impossibility. Claiming otherwise is claiming to have invented perpetual motion.

"Economic activity requires resources" is close, but not accurate. Certain types of economic growth require resources. Moreover, technology seems to always increase yields or make things last longer. While I share the sympathies of the video, the logic is not sound. There are millions of sound arguments against rampant commercialism, but they aren't here. If anything, unfortunately, history shows us that we can only make and consume MORE crap given a unit measure of resource, which I find technologically amazing, but morally tragic.

>> ^RedSky:
@NordlichReiter
The dollar is only really down to levels it was pre-financial crisis. Taking your reference point at the height of the global financial crisis is unfair because everyone was buying up US treasury bonds and over inflating the currency.
The fact that countries are considering moving away from the US dollar as the reserve currency, the currency they trade in, and which they keep as foreign reserves is a good thing in the long term. This has kept the US dollar overvalued for decades, and has contributed significantly to the unsustainable consumption and housing binge, and was obvious a major catalyst for the global financial crisis. A rebalancing would put the onus further on factors of GDP such as investment as a contributor to economic growth.
To say that the economy is in recovery is not disingenuous. They're simply using leading indicators such as stock price or inventory levels, which are generally good predictors of economic recovery and in this case a pending fall in unemployment. The scale of that is anyone's guess though, as is how much of the economy was spurned by returning business confidence in the private sector rather that purely government stimulus and specific programs such as first home buyer's grants and cash for clunkers.


Cash for clunkers was the biggest waste. The other parts of your arguments I cannot find fault with.

Taking assets that can be modified, recycled reused, and even melted down for metals and destroying them and leaving them in a dump yard is a waste. Why would you destroy something that has re-usable parts and resources?

Differential gears, transmission parts, bearings, four wheel drive parts, pinions, springs, headers, skid plates, hubs, disks, and shoes. Instead they put sodium silicate into the engines. All because the government doesn't want the cars traded in being re-sold back into the market.

I would argue that having a hulking dump of cars, like I see on the side of the Highway is worse than seeing a repaired 78 Volkswagen van that runs on diesel, or electricity.

@NordlichReiter

The dollar is only really down to levels it was pre-financial crisis. Taking your reference point at the height of the global financial crisis is unfair because everyone was buying up US treasury bonds and over inflating the currency.

The fact that countries are considering moving away from the US dollar as the reserve currency, the currency they trade in, and which they keep as foreign reserves is a good thing in the long term. This has kept the US dollar overvalued for decades, and has contributed significantly to the unsustainable consumption and housing binge, and was obvious a major catalyst for the global financial crisis. A rebalancing would put the onus further on factors of GDP such as investment as a contributor to economic growth.

To say that the economy is in recovery is not disingenuous. They're simply using leading indicators such as stock price or inventory levels, which are generally good predictors of economic recovery and in this case a pending fall in unemployment. The scale of that is anyone's guess though, as is how much of the economy was spurned by returning business confidence in the private sector rather that purely government stimulus and specific programs such as first home buyer's grants and cash for clunkers.