the effects of exponential growth Oh god not this again. The problem the world has right now is not a lack of understanding of what exponential growth means.

the effects of exponential growth Oh god not this again. The problem the world has right now is not a lack of understanding of what exponential growth means. Plenty of people understand that just fine. It's so easy to understand that there is even a simple ancient parable about it (of the Chinese Emperor and the chess board). The problem is people who are obsessed with the concept of exponential growth even though "grows exponentially until everyone is infected" is not a real thing that happens with viruses, even though COVID-19 no more shows exponential growth than the sine wave does (sin roughly doubles at points), even though Farrs Law is all about how microbial diseases show S-curve type growth. This leads to crazyness like the UK's chief medical officers going on TV and presenting a graph in which the last few data points are in decline, but with sudden endless exponential growth projected into the future, along with claims that "this isn't a prediction, but clearly, we have to take extreme action now because of exponential growth". Observing exponential growth for a few days in a row does NOT mean endless growth until the whole world is infected. Growth rates can themselves change over time, and do. That's the thing people don't seem to understand.