Whilst technically true, those who attempt to use this fact to predict future growth tend to end up just as wrong as those who don’t.
All exponentials end, but if you don’t know when you need to prepare equally for the scenario where it ends tomorrow, and the one where it ends with the universe in paperclips.
Whilst technically true, those who attempt to use this fact to predict future growth tend to end up just as wrong as those who don’t.
Then why not use it, because at least their curve will have the right shape and they will be slightly less wrong than those who don’t acknowledge that growth eventually ends, even if the end of that growth is very far off.
Because it has the wrong shape in every way that matters if they draw an s curve with us at the halfway point (which seems to be the natural failure mode), and they’re actually at the 1 percent mark. The s curve isn’t particularly illuminating over simply saying this exponential will stop at some point but we don’t know when, but unfortunately tends to lend itself to overconfident predictions.
Failing to acknowledge that growth will end also leads to overconfident predictions. I’m not making an argument in favor of bad predictions. I’m making an argument in favor of not making an extremely obvious mistake when modeling reality.
Your complaining about how the graph is drawn, and hope to fix that by drawing a graph that is almost certainly wrong? At least the graph they drew only relies on actual past data.
I agree they would do better to acknowledge that whilst the growth is currently exponential, it will have to stop at some point but we have no idea when. That gets a bit tiring after a while though.
I agree they would do better to acknowledge that whilst the growth is currently exponential, it will have to stop at some point but we have no idea when. That gets a bit tiring after a while though.
And yet, people keep forgetting this basic fact so aggressively that I think they need to be aggressively reminded of it, even if it feels tiring.
Whilst technically true, those who attempt to use this fact to predict future growth tend to end up just as wrong as those who don’t.
All exponentials end, but if you don’t know when you need to prepare equally for the scenario where it ends tomorrow, and the one where it ends with the universe in paperclips.
Then why not use it, because at least their curve will have the right shape and they will be slightly less wrong than those who don’t acknowledge that growth eventually ends, even if the end of that growth is very far off.
Because it has the wrong shape in every way that matters if they draw an s curve with us at the halfway point (which seems to be the natural failure mode), and they’re actually at the 1 percent mark. The s curve isn’t particularly illuminating over simply saying this exponential will stop at some point but we don’t know when, but unfortunately tends to lend itself to overconfident predictions.
Failing to acknowledge that growth will end also leads to overconfident predictions. I’m not making an argument in favor of bad predictions. I’m making an argument in favor of not making an extremely obvious mistake when modeling reality.
Your complaining about how the graph is drawn, and hope to fix that by drawing a graph that is almost certainly wrong? At least the graph they drew only relies on actual past data.
I agree they would do better to acknowledge that whilst the growth is currently exponential, it will have to stop at some point but we have no idea when. That gets a bit tiring after a while though.
And yet, people keep forgetting this basic fact so aggressively that I think they need to be aggressively reminded of it, even if it feels tiring.