Talk:Lindy effect

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Probability and Humans

The article states "it is very likely for a 70-year-old human to die within the next 70 years, while the Lindy effect would predict these to have equal probability." Shouldn't the probability of death of a 70-year-old be smaller than the 5-year-old's in the presence of the Lindy effect? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.155.48.243 (talk) 12:23, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I believe so. Otherwise the effect makes no sense. I came to the talk page to say the same. 2601:14D:4E01:1860:BD0E:E50:ADDE:207F (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your quote left out the first part of the sentence, which (read carefully) should resolve this confusion: it is unlikely for a 5-year-old human to die within the next 5 years, but it is very likely for a 70-year-old human to die within the next 70 years, while the Lindy effect would predict these to have equal probability. (my bolding).

Feel free to make suggestions about how to reword the sentence to make it easier for hasty readers to avoid this misunderstanding. But it is correct as written.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:10, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The current quotation For example, human beings are perishable: the life expectancy at birth in developed countries is about 80 years. So the Lindy effect does not apply to individual human lifespan: all else being equal, it is less likely for a 10-year-old human to die within the next year than for a 100-year-old, while the Lindy effect would predict the opposite. may be misleading, as it implies the entire human lifespan. The Lindy Effect indeed may apply to perishable items, for a period of time, so long as their probability of death is decreasing over time sufficiently to skew the average life expectancy, which may be the case for humans lifespans under certain conditions, or if you consider all of a human being's development (in particular, the fetal period, which is subject to very high miscarriage rates) as part of its lifespan. See an additional (non-human) example in "Perishable Goods," below.

Perishable Goods

The statement that it applies to non-perishable items does not exclude the possibility that it applies to some perishable items for a period of time. As a simple example, consider a manufacturing line that produces cars. Let 90% of cars fail exactly at the 1 year mark and the remaining 10% of cars last until the 3.5 year mark. The average life expectancy at manufacture is 1 yr * p(fail at 1 yr) + 3.5 yr * p(fail at 3.5 yr) = 1.25 years. For any cars that survive past the 1 year mark, the average life expectancy becomes (3.5 yr - 1 yr) * 100% = 2.5 years, twice what it was at birth. As time moves forward beyond that point, the Lindy effect no longer applies. Another example could be human life expectancy, given sufficiently high infant mortality rates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.108.194 (talk) 23:57, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comparing 10-year-old to 100-year-old

The usefulness of the phrase "all else being equal, it is less likely for a 10-year-old human to die within the next year than for a 100-year-old" seems to be vague, as I'm not sure how to imagine that all else is equal between a 10-year-old and a 100-year-old besides their ages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.108.194 (talk) 21:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was merge. Skallas is notable in his own right, but not more than the Lindy effect. Therefore, let them sit together in beautiful coexistence. Ornov Ganguly TALK 13:03, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As anyone on this talk page would be aware, there are a number of Lindy effect lifestyle gurus who would independently be not meaningfully notable. Paul Skallas is one such case. He has a lacklustre writing career (four self-published books and a Twitter account) that is only kept afloat on Wikipedia in a prior discussion by two NYT and Protocol articles.

I would like to reiterate that I believe the NYT article on Skallas is skin-deep, and I will note that it has not inspired much further analysis. He is an internet microcelebrity who is better suited as a sentence in this article. It would allow us to flesh out those two WP:NOTEWORTHY articles. Again, taken as an individual writer, Skallas has not come up with anything new. He is riding on Lindy to the point that he chose it as his nickname. Ornov Ganguly TALK 02:34, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I was late to comment on this, but I find it humorous that you essentially trimmed his article down first, proposed the merge, no one voted on it (my fault), and then closed it and did this. I know that's how the process goes (I think this could have waited a week more or so), but I sincerely found it amusing. As for Paul himself, I mean, in principle I agree he doesn't seem to have much meat to his bones for a separate article, but besides Nicholas Taleb I think he's the only semi-mainstream (to use this term very loosely) figure who is an active proponent, if not evangelist, of the Lindy Effect. He's not only defined by that the past couple years, and most people seem more interested in his general insights on Substack these days. I won't call him a pure "influencer" but he's more than a gimmick at this point.--~Sıgehelmus♗_(Tøk) 06:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well by all means we can split the articles again if you want to cast a vote now. The only reason why I trimmed Skallas' article down was because the majority of it was fluff/actively promoting him which is against WP:NPOV. About his Substack, we'd need an article telling us about it to include it as I understand WP policies. Feel free to open a discussion if you'd like. Ornov Ganguly TALK 12:07, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]