What a cute gargantuan hamster! *promote for truthiness.

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, February 19th, 2010 2:28am PST - promote requested by fissionchips.

*eco

Adding video to channels (Eco) - requested by fissionchips.

Logical fallacies abound! Economies are not like biological growth (Straw Man, Red Herring), it is not silly for them to grow without end (Appeal to Ridicule), the study of human economies is ongoing and does not support either side absolutely (Hasty Generalization). There are other good reasons to disagree with the state of economies and politics of them, but you won't find them here.

Economic activity requires resources. That alone rather strongly suggests that infinite growth is impossible, since resources are not infinite.

"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.

The overall problem with economics as a discipline and field of study is that they've left out influencing factors. As a field of study economics has been overwhelmingly abstract idea and ideologically based. Rather than from the ground up evidence based to come to a hypothesis. If one were an economist and wanted to use the scientific method then they would want to take into account all the cause and effect influeces onto the outcome they're studying. Not negating environmental influences, long term social wellbeing, or within a conclusion what is the purpose or endpoint to what they are researching (who or what are they researching for). >> ^Stormsinger:
Economic activity requires resources. That alone rather strongly suggests that infinite growth is impossible, since resources are not infinite.

>> ^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.

*quality discussion stormsinger and GeeSussFreeK.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by geo321.

@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.