RolfAndreassen comments on Mathematical simplicity bias and exponential functions - Less Wrong

12 Post author: taw 26 August 2009 06:34PM

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Comment author: RolfAndreassen 27 August 2009 05:01:30PM 2 points [-]

Comparing a made-up exponential to a process that no scientist who knew anything about radioactivity would expect to model with anything but a sum of coupled exponentials is a bit of a straw man. There's a bias to simplicity, certainly, but there's not that much bias!

Comment author: taw 28 August 2009 02:36:34PM 0 points [-]

I used radioactivity example because it was painfully (as in smacked in the face by truth) clear what the correct answer is. But people do use stupid models like simple exponential growth for things like population and economic growth all the time.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 29 August 2009 07:25:17PM 0 points [-]

Like certain singulatarian futurists.

Comment author: milindsmart 25 August 2016 04:12:25PM 0 points [-]

So someone has mentioned it on LW after all. Lots of singulatarian ideas depend heavily exponential growth.