3 ms·
There's a survivor bias, many things do stop growing at some point, but these are harder to notice. You're more likely to perceive the things which did scale ex
by The_Colonel 3y ago
There's a survivor bias, many things do stop growing at some point, but these are harder to notice. You're more likely to perceive the things which did scale exponentially.
- ben_w 3y agoSure — all exponentials eventually turn out to be sigmoids, or some quote to that effect — but I'm unclear why this matters as I'm suggesting most people don't even know what an exponential really is and what to expect from them in even the short term?
- The_Colonel 3y ago> it's sufficient that people don't expect exponential change even when it's happening reliably for ages This sort of implied that people should have been expecting exponential change. But even if you know what exponential growth is, you couldn't know in advance with certainty if it would be the case for battery storage, renewables etc.
- ben_w 3y agoFor batteries and renewables, the growth had already been exponential for a decade or more prior to the relevant conversations and threads, but people were (even last month on HN) looking at the currently installed capacity and responding as if that was all it could ever be. (At some point the growth will slow, but that's never the criticism given in any replies I remember).
- The_Colonel 3y agoIt's the same problem, you don't know when the exponential growth stops / fades. Nuclear power was growing exponentially during 60s, 70s, 80s. Would it mean it has to continue growing exponentially through 90s and 00s?
- ben_w 3y agoIt would be the same thing if the people I'm thinking of actually meant "I think the exponential will, or might, soon stop"; I'm asserting they didn't demonstrate any awareness of what an exponential even is, which is a precondition to be able to make the claim it was going to stop.