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When faced with a sinusoid, humans seem to extrapolate exponentials in both directions. Take the business cycle, where the good times appear to approach a "new
by s1gnp0st 4y ago
When faced with a sinusoid, humans seem to extrapolate exponentials in both directions. Take the business cycle, where the good times appear to approach a "new paradigm!" just before a large correction, and the bad times seem like they'll never end.
- gallopingcomp 4y agoExactly this, and this is a general pattern. This is reminiscent of my previous struggles with cyclothymia[1], for example. Furthermore, the perception of impending calamity was contributing to the stress and worsened the symptoms further. (I wonder if there is an analogy to be drawn here as well, but I suspect this part is much less generalizable.) At the same time, it makes sense for people to have heightened awareness of "the bad times": each cycle represents added stress to the system, and with a heightened probability of calamity (eg. becoming insolvent / suffering a mental health emergency). [1] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17788-cyclothymia https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17788-cycloth...
- DasCorCor 4y agoThe business cycle is not a sinusoid. It’s a fractal. It’s chaotic and oddly correlated. Also, sinusoids are exponentials. ;)
- pineaux 4y agoOh! could you elaborate on this? To me even the name "business cycle" hints towards a cyclical/periodical movement. Sinusoids are not exponentials, sinusoids are periodical. They seem exponential for a short while though. The growthfactor also declines at some point. Could you elaborate on why you think its fractal?
- aoki 4y agoIt's a joke, sinusoids are sums of exponentials when you're talking about complex functions [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_formula#Relationship_to_trigonometry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_formula#Relationship...