3 ms·
I think you could mount some interesting objection to the Lindy effect, but this isn't it. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. It's not claiming to
by chubot 6y ago
I think you could mount some interesting objection to the Lindy effect, but this isn't it. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.
It's not claiming to be a scientific law; it's a heuristic for making decisions. The rest of Taleb's books are also about making decisions, not "being right" (whatever that means).
A concrete example is if I'm writing a blog, and I want people to read my posts in 5 or 10 years. Do I go with the cloud platform that just launched or an older hosting provider? This is a decision people make every day. Of course there are many people who don't care if their blog is readable in 5 years; this isn't a judgement.
The Lindy effect is not about what's "better"; it's about what lasts longer. It's also not making statements about the present, which is what survivorship bias typically means.
- repsilat 6y agoAnother helpful angle is to consider things that aren't Lindylike. People for example -- we expect older people to die sooner than younger ones, not later. And radioactive nuclei -- we expect their ages to be irrelevant to their expected future longevity.
- chubot 6y agoYeah there are definitely some subtleties, and they would be interesting to tease out. Older people obviously will die sooner, but having survived does give you some information. For example, your life expectancy at age 1 is 75 years, but at age 40 it's closer to 79 years. e.g. https://www.annuityadvantage.com/resources/life-expectancy-tables/ https://www.annuityadvantage.com/resources/life-expectancy-t...
- dmingod666 6y agoNot if you are looking at motorcycle accidents data of older and younger people.
- nvoid 6y agoIsn't this handled by the fact Lindy-like things have to be non-perishable like ideas or technology?
- nvoid 6y agoAnd if you are writing a blog, it should be written in a way that it could be read 10 years ago if you want it to be read in 10 years if we're following Taleb's thinking.