Re:Technologies I thought my son would never use
by repsilat on Sunday April 11, 2021 @08:01PM
(#26774747)
Another 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.
Re:Technologies I thought my son would never use
by chubot on Sunday April 11, 2021 @08:49PM
(#26775044)
Yeah 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-t...
Re:Technologies I thought my son would never use
by nvoid on Monday April 12, 2021 @04:04AM
(#26776998)
Isn't this handled by the fact Lindy-like things have to be non-perishable like ideas or technology?
Re:Technologies I thought my son would never use
by dmingod666 on Sunday April 11, 2021 @09:31PM
(#26775315)
Not if you are looking at motorcycle accidents data of older and younger people.
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.