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A comment on The Zizians and the Rationalist Death Cult. Parent comment

Re:The Zizians and the Rationalist Death Cult by harrison_clarke on Sunday February 02, 2025 @12:03PM (#42909887)
not exactly a rationalist thing, but a lot of bay-area people will tell you that exponential growth exists, and it's everywhere

i can't think of any case where exponential growth actually happens, though. exponential decay and logistic curves are common enough, but not exponential growth

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Re:The Zizians and the Rationalist Death Cult by alain94040 on Sunday February 02, 2025 @12:55PM (#42910303)
Viruses until they reach their plateau of course.
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Re:The Zizians and the Rationalist Death Cult by scotteric on Sunday February 02, 2025 @07:18PM (#42913339)
That would be the logistic curve then
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Re:The Zizians and the Rationalist Death Cult by bee_rider on Sunday February 02, 2025 @01:02PM (#42910367)
Well yeah their whole business model is convincing investors that logistic functions and exponentials are the same thing, actually.
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Re:The Zizians and the Rationalist Death Cult by ben_w on Sunday February 02, 2025 @04:33PM (#42912061)
The rats I hang out with know the difference between exponential and logistic just fine.

Hmm.

Not sure if it matters, but I'd note logistic curves can be hard to distinguish from an exponential for long enough that the difference isn't always very consequential — a nuke exploding doesn't keep doubling in power every few microseconds forever, but for enough doubling periods that cities still get flattened.

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