Talk:Lindy effect

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)

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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)

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)

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)

Don't call women a lifestyle topic

Not too happy with the expression "lifestyle topics such as diet, women, and exercise." in the History part. If it is a quote from the source, maybe mark as such, otherwise rephrase? Actuary (talk) 08:30, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Linear? Power law? Exponential?

I'm probably missing something basic, but is the Lindy Effect supposed to be a power law relationship?

The article quotes Taleb as saying,

Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy.

That reads as if he is saying something akin to $E = 2^y$, where every year doubles the previous life expectancy, or perhaps some more complex exponential relationship. However, the example given in the same quote is of the much simpler $E = 2y$: A book that has lasted 40 years can has a life expectancy of 80. After ten more years, it can be expected to last 100.

If Taleb had meant the latter, wouldn't he have simply said, "Every year that passes without extinction adds two to the life expectancy"? Or, even more succinctly, "The expected life is twice the current age."

And why would Taleb quote Mandelbrot as approving of his modification to the Lindy Effect "because it was power law distributed"? The linear relationship of the example can only be considered a "power law" if one allows the degenerate condition where the exponent is 1.

So, is the quote accurate? Does this article quote the appropriate parts of Taleb's book? Or is there something fundamental missing from the article that would have helped me understand? B9 (talk) 20:52, 15 July 2025 (UTC)