I've always had this idea in my mind that the 'legendary failure rate of IT projects' is best explained in terms of an exponential increase in points of failure (or even just points of activity) when you deal with computer systems. Are there any famous papers that flesh out this idea? Anyone?
Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
91–100 of 126 posts
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the context of population growth, the logistic function means that something has made it stop. He dealt with this is the second video - he says we'll get zero population growth one way or another, because exponential growth forever is impossible. Around minute 7 of the second video (did you actually watch it?) he points out that many of the checks on population growth are generally considered bad things - war, fam…
did you actually watch it? Yes. many of the checks on population growth are generally considered bad things - war, famine, disease The countries with the lowest population growth (e.g., Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan) are among those with the least war, famine, and disease. Something else is going on.
Do you notice that the countries with the lowest population growth were severely battered in wars during the last century?
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#93I think we actually do have a deep implicit understanding of the exponential function, and THAT may be our greatest shortcoming. We don't understand it precisely, and we don't intuitively relate to "4^x".
But we very intuitively get things like "really big changes will come from small things" And we rate highly getting a seemingly small increase in personal ability. This is why videos like this can capture our attention at all. It seems like a basic ability to recognize and reason approximately about exponential growth is required to do agriculture.
I think this is why we like RPG's and katamari damacy, and talking about peak oil.
I think that this mental flag also makes us extremely sensitive of people 'from the wrong tribe' being in our area.
In short, I think that we were surrounded by exponential functions in our ancestral environment, and developed an ability to recognize them and see them as very important, with out really knowing what they are.
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the context of population growth, the logistic function means that something has made it stop. He dealt with this is the second video - he says we'll get zero population growth one way or another, because exponential growth forever is impossible. Around minute 7 of the second video (did you actually watch it?) he points out that many of the checks on population growth are generally considered bad things - war, fam…
did you actually watch it? Yes. many of the checks on population growth are generally considered bad things - war, famine, disease The countries with the lowest population growth (e.g., Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan) are among those with the least war, famine, and disease. Something else is going on.
There were many other reasons listed, including low immigration, small families, contraception/abortion, abstinence and pollution.
This checks do apply do the countries you cited, but the list is still far from comprehensive. They are far better than war, famine and disease, but still regarded as bad things, which is the point.
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
did you actually watch it? Yes. many of the checks on population growth are generally considered bad things - war, famine, disease The countries with the lowest population growth (e.g., Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan) are among those with the least war, famine, and disease. Something else is going on.
Do you notice that the countries with the lowest population growth were severely battered in wars during the last century?
Italian birthrates aren't low because of Il Duce. Once people reach a certain level of wealth, they voluntarily stop having lots of kids.
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
did you actually watch it? Yes. many of the checks on population growth are generally considered bad things - war, famine, disease The countries with the lowest population growth (e.g., Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan) are among those with the least war, famine, and disease. Something else is going on.
There were many other reasons listed, including low immigration, small families, contraception/abortion, abstinence and pollution. This checks do apply do the countries you cited, but the list is still far from comprehensive. They are far better than war, famine and disease, but still regarded as bad things, which is the point.
The dominant source of low birthrates in rich countries is people choosing to have smaller families.
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I totally agree that we aren't building enough nuclear power plants, but that is purely for political reasons. The research is still happening and once there is a change in the political climate we'll be able to ramp up nuclear power over a few decades. Also if we look back at the past 1000 (or even just 100) years of human history, we've been pretty good at discovering and harvesting 'magic ponies' of all shapes and…
> we'll be able to ramp up nuclear power over a few decades. Maybe if thorium comes on the radar. > we've been pretty good at discovering and harvesting 'magic ponies' of all shapes and sizes. Well, not that much. By the end of the roman republic, most of what made the industrial revolution possible was available, but it didn't happen until 18 centuries later.
Except about 200 years of science and math starting from the end of the Renaissance Period.
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#98People don't understand exponentials very well because human perception is scaled logarithmically. For example, both the apparent magnitude scale for celestial objects and the loudness scale for sounds (measured in decibels) are logarithmic.
If our perception is scaled logarithmically, wouldn't that give us an intuitive sense for exponentials?
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, he doesn't think much of Julian Simon and says why.
Which is why I offer Simon as a counterpoint. Simon believed that there is more than simple arithmetic (as Bartlett calls it) when it comes to growth. You have to throw something like technology into the mix, which is difficult to predict. The Simon-Erlich bet is a good, real-world illustration of their disagreements.
Ehrlich was a jackass who made hysterical predictions. In the 70s, he was predicting an imminent Malthusian disaster - like this - http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/7/18/the-population-bom...
That's a long way from Bartlett.
Don't take Ehrlich as a spokesman for anybody who believes in limits to growth.
Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I totally agree that we aren't building enough nuclear power plants, but that is purely for political reasons. The research is still happening and once there is a change in the political climate we'll be able to ramp up nuclear power over a few decades. Also if we look back at the past 1000 (or even just 100) years of human history, we've been pretty good at discovering and harvesting 'magic ponies' of all shapes and…
> we'll be able to ramp up nuclear power over a few decades. Maybe if thorium comes on the radar. > we've been pretty good at discovering and harvesting 'magic ponies' of all shapes and sizes. Well, not that much. By the end of the roman republic, most of what made the industrial revolution possible was available, but it didn't happen until 18 centuries later.
The ancient Greeks even had an initial stream engine, but never put it to practical use, relegating it to parlor/temple game.