rnd

The The Lindy effect doesn't make sense

4 posts in this topic

I've never understood the Lindy effect.

"If a blog post has been around for 2 days, it's likely to remain for just 2 more days". And tomorrow there'll be 3 days, therefore it should remain for 3 more days = 6 days. And in a week-time it'll have been around for 9 days, therefore it'll remain around for 9 more days = 18 days.

Right? But how have we jumped from "2 more days" to 18 days?

Or "if a war has been taking place for 1 year, it's likely to take continue for 1 more year". But in a half year from now one can claim "it's been around 1.5 year, therefore it'll continue for 1.5 year". And 6 months from that, it'll have become 2 years + 2 years more.

 

 

Therefore, according to the Lindy effect -- nothing can EVER disappear, get destroyed, stop, cease to exist, because every additional minute and hour make it continue to exist double the time it's been around. What a gibberish. Factually it's wrong.

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43 minutes ago, rnd said:

Therefore, according to the Lindy effect -- nothing can EVER disappear, get destroyed, stop, cease to exist, because every additional minute and hour make it continue to exist double the time it's been around. What a gibberish. Factually it's wrong

The Lindy effect is not a law of the universe, its just a theory of how things that last a long time are more resilient to change.

"If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not "aging" like persons, but "aging" in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life" - Nassim Taleb, Antifragile

Edited by Phil King

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I know what it is, and of the examples of it, including the example from Taleb. I'm asking how can it possibly be true.

Edited by rnd

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There are sub events happening within an event which would also be subject to lindy law. 

An event is likely to last as long as it has already lasted given that the system has to reach it's initial state over the same path that it took to reach the peak state. Whatever time it took for to reach a place is the same amount of time it will take you to move back.

But that's not taking into account the *different* sub-events that's happen along the way. 

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