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Stupid doesn't quite do it justice. The first fallacy is the Malthusian fallacy: namely that humans cannot grow indefinitely. If anything, history has shown as

Stupid doesn't quite do it justice. The first fallacy is the Malthusian fallacy: namely that humans cannot grow indefinitely. If anything, history has shown as that we can. People have been predicting the coming scarcity apocalypse every few decades and they have always been wrong (the most recent predicted famines in 1985. Then people came up with artificial nitrates...). The second fallacy is that a certain number of borrowers must default: The money can go in a circle reflecting the value created by the borrowers in excess of interest. Fallacy 3: It assumes that if nobody had any debt, then there would be no money. The fallacy is that the original money issue (~$2 trillion for the US) is unaccounted for. If there are absolutely no debt, we would still have that amount. (Which can go on ...) The replacement ideas suggested are idiotic beyond words. This video starts well and quickly degenerates into loony-ville.

kingkongrevenge 18y ago
> the Malthusian fallacy: namely that humans cannot grow indefinitely Nothing grows geometrically forever. Malthus's discovery was that any increase in food supply was matched by an increase in population until food per person was pretty much the same. He didn't actually say anything about limits to growth. But guess what? He perfectly described all human societies all over the world for over 50K years. The data clearly show that Victorians and cavemen and modern day residents of Ghana had basically the same quality of diet on average. The Malthusian equation has only "stopped" being clearly applicable in a select few industrialized countries and since different points in time after about 1820. For most of humanity the equation actually still works. That's a pretty flimsy set of evidence to start talking about the "Malthusian fallacy" with its huge pile of evidence.
- newt0311 18y ago
  "Nothing grows geometrically forever." No, not in the empirical sense but the universe is large and, as far as we know, ours for the taking. By "'stopped' being clearly applicable", you mean completely irrelevant and flat out wrong. Also, >200 years of data is flimsy? In a scientific sense maybe, but economics isn't a science -- you can't really perform controlled experiments on the entire economy. Also, if some of the third-world countries do indeed start to grow in economic terms, I am certain that their food production capabilities will catch up. India can feed its 1 billion population and I am pretty sure that 50 years ago, that would have been considered impossible.
  - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
    The point isn't that India can't feed its 1 billion. The point is Indians have close to the same standard of living and quality of diet as when they were feeding half that. They're running in place. That's the malthusian trap.
  - Eliezer 18y ago
    If you want to grow faster than cubic in the long run, you need some different physics than the ones we currently believe.
    - newt0311 18y ago
      No problem. Physics goes through a major revision every ~100 years. Last revision brought us relativity and QM the latter of which may result in computers which are exponentially faster than the ones we currently have. The next one is around the corner and I am sure that will open up even more opportunities for progress.
jerf 18y ago
Malthus didn't go wrong we he observed that humans can't grow geometrically forever. That's totally correct. He went wrong in a much more subtle way, and one that I can't really blame him for. He went wrong in the assumption that humans would continue to grow geometrically until all resources were expended, then be forced back down by resource starvation. Instead, human growth has been tapering off in industrialized countries, and long-term forecasts of human population in the year 2100 has been dropping for a long time now. Many, many, many people have all the food they need and the continued realistic prospect of all the food they need, yet choose not to have children. That is Malthus' fallacy, even though he was reasonable to believe it. Now, as it turns out, he was also wrong about where the resources would run out because he grossly failed to account for human ingenuity, but that just moves the "end-of-resource" date around if humans still grow geometrically, it doesn't actually ruin his argument. Voluntary, pervasive non-geometric growth does, especially when combined with continuing human ingenuity. (This is very poorly understood on the internets.)
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  > He went wrong in a much more subtle way, and one that I can't really blame him for. He went wrong in the assumption that humans would continue to grow geometrically until all resources were expended, then be forced back down by resource starvation. You are badly misrepresenting his theory.
  - jerf 18y ago
    A brief review of Wikipedia leaves my opinion unchanged. Care to detail? (I mean, yeah, there's a lot of fairly uninteresting stuff about how selfish people are and such, but whether or not he realized that, that also just fiddles around with "when" the catastrophes happen, not "whether". My summary rather gives him the benefit of the doubt.)

kingkongrevenge 18y ago

> the Malthusian fallacy: namely that humans cannot grow indefinitely Nothing grows geometrically forever. Malthus's discovery was that any increase in food supply was matched by an increase in population until food per person was pretty much the same. He didn't actually say anything about limits to growth. But guess what? He perfectly described all human societies all over the world for over 50K years. The data clearly show that Victorians and cavemen and modern day residents of Ghana had basically the same quality of diet on average. The Malthusian equation has only "stopped" being clearly applicable in a select few industrialized countries and since different points in time after about 1820. For most of humanity the equation actually still works. That's a pretty flimsy set of evidence to start talking about the "Malthusian fallacy" with its huge pile of evidence.

newt0311 18y ago
"Nothing grows geometrically forever." No, not in the empirical sense but the universe is large and, as far as we know, ours for the taking. By "'stopped' being clearly applicable", you mean completely irrelevant and flat out wrong. Also, >200 years of data is flimsy? In a scientific sense maybe, but economics isn't a science -- you can't really perform controlled experiments on the entire economy. Also, if some of the third-world countries do indeed start to grow in economic terms, I am certain that their food production capabilities will catch up. India can feed its 1 billion population and I am pretty sure that 50 years ago, that would have been considered impossible.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  The point isn't that India can't feed its 1 billion. The point is Indians have close to the same standard of living and quality of diet as when they were feeding half that. They're running in place. That's the malthusian trap.
- Eliezer 18y ago
  If you want to grow faster than cubic in the long run, you need some different physics than the ones we currently believe.
  - newt0311 18y ago
    No problem. Physics goes through a major revision every ~100 years. Last revision brought us relativity and QM the latter of which may result in computers which are exponentially faster than the ones we currently have. The next one is around the corner and I am sure that will open up even more opportunities for progress.

jerf 18y ago

Malthus didn't go wrong we he observed that humans can't grow geometrically forever. That's totally correct. He went wrong in a much more subtle way, and one that I can't really blame him for. He went wrong in the assumption that humans would continue to grow geometrically until all resources were expended, then be forced back down by resource starvation. Instead, human growth has been tapering off in industrialized countries, and long-term forecasts of human population in the year 2100 has been dropping for a long time now. Many, many, many people have all the food they need and the continued realistic prospect of all the food they need, yet choose not to have children. That is Malthus' fallacy, even though he was reasonable to believe it. Now, as it turns out, he was also wrong about where the resources would run out because he grossly failed to account for human ingenuity, but that just moves the "end-of-resource" date around if humans still grow geometrically, it doesn't actually ruin his argument. Voluntary, pervasive non-geometric growth does, especially when combined with continuing human ingenuity. (This is very poorly understood on the internets.)

kingkongrevenge 18y ago
> He went wrong in a much more subtle way, and one that I can't really blame him for. He went wrong in the assumption that humans would continue to grow geometrically until all resources were expended, then be forced back down by resource starvation. You are badly misrepresenting his theory.
- jerf 18y ago
  A brief review of Wikipedia leaves my opinion unchanged. Care to detail? (I mean, yeah, there's a lot of fairly uninteresting stuff about how selfish people are and such, but whether or not he realized that, that also just fiddles around with "when" the catastrophes happen, not "whether". My summary rather gives him the benefit of the doubt.)